Stay Still, Pageant People, at These Offbeat Tryouts

There's zero chance you stayed in one place over the holiday season.

You probably zipped by your aunt's house a few times, to drop off presents, and then went to work, and then called upon a favorite store, the one with the sparkly wrapping paper, and then went to work again, and then hit that one bakery with the cranberry buns.

But? All of that frenetic movement, that get-up-and-go-go-go, will have to stop from Jan. 10-12, should you want a prime spot in the 2020 Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach.

For it is time to audition for the summertime spectacular, a longtime, super-lavish ode to the tableaux vivants of yore.

That means that volunteers on stage, all wearing exquisite costumes and artfully applied cosmetics, pose inside well-known paintings and sculptures, without moving a muscle, a toe, or even an eyelash, if they can manage it.

It's one of the bucket-listian musts for many Southern Californians, a gleeful get, and the chance to be in the pageant doesn't come along every day.

It will come along, however, on Jan. 10, 11, and 12, and pageant producers will look at a host of tryouters who'd like to be involved at the big, three-day casting call.

You'll want to head for the Festival of Arts grounds in Laguna Beach on the evenings of Jan. 10 or 11 or during the afternoon of Jan. 12. You'll be "measured and photographed," and you'll also have a chance to meet the people who keep the busy backstage scene going during the two-month extravaganza.

And we do mean "busy," for some 500 volunteers participate in the yearly production.

There'll be refreshments, too. Though it may seem counterintuitive, standing still does take energy.

As for when the Pageant of the Masters will roll, er, stay incredibly statue-like, in 2020? The dates are far-off, but not too far-off: July 8-Sept. 3, 2020.