“More Precious than Gold”
The Sacramento California Temple Youth Cultural Celebration, Part 2

(continued from Part 1)

“I Wouldn’t Have Believed it if I Hadn’t Seen It”

The show was “the most amazing spectacle I’ve ever had the good fortune to witness. I’ve been blessed to see remarkable musicals in London and on Broadway, but nothing I have ever seen even comes close to the production I saw open up before my eyes at the Arco Arena Saturday night. What you all did, taking thousands of youth from hundreds of square miles, and presenting such an amazing story with all of the inspiring music, colorful costumes, and radiant smiles, is impossible. I would not have believed it if I hadn’t seen it.”

What was unbelievable was bringing 5,000 youth together who have only known the show from their own dance number, who have practiced only in cultural halls or fields or borrowed warehouse — not in the Arco Arena — and expecting that somehow a show would come together in one day. That meant that 5,000 youth had to be moved to come in at the right time and the right place, that horses and handcarts and maypoles and dragon heads and booths from a fair scene had to come in and out on schedule and arrive at the right place on the floor.

It meant that lights had to dim on cue and the sound swell on command. It meant that orchestration had to be in place and new music created, that youth who had never danced a step had to perform with long-time dancers — and those who had never sung a note would suddenly sing out loud with clarion voices.

This, with only one dress rehearsal Saturday morning, two-thirds of a dress rehearsal Saturday afternoon, and a performance and close Saturday night.

Before the first dress rehearsal Saturday morning, buses poured into the parking lot of the Arco Arena. Girls, dressed in pioneer prints, were in curlers to create the ringlets of an earlier era.

Some boys had on high collars with dark ties like Joseph Smith. Hangers of costumes representing Ireland, China, and Tonga were being carried into the arena.

Trucks pulled up with loads of handcarts and teens were trying to keep their horses at a walk in the asphalt parking lot.

Large signs across the walkway to the arena indicated where those should line up who would enter stage right and those who would enter stage left. It was all new to the cast members who would be performing that night.

According to Kieth Merrill, “Producer, Scott Eckern is somebody who can keep 2,000 different items in the right categories in his head to pull this kind of detail off.”

Scott Eckern

Undoubtedly. Because he heads the Sacramento Music Circus and Broadway series, this is his eighth full dramatic production of the summer — the seventh closed two days before on Thursday.

Still, his experience would teach that this kind of production is too much to take on. “Usually,” he said, “with our professional shows at the theater in Sacramento, we have dress rehearsal Friday night, another Monday night, and then we open on Tuesday — after two weeks of practice,” he laughs. “And this is with a cast of professionals, not 5,000 youth who have not practiced together until this day.”

President Treadway said, “I’m confident in suggesting that your peers in show business must have thought you mad [to undertake this project]. Yet as you promised in our first [meeting] together, this was the Lord’s program and it was part of His plan. And with Him, you proved once again that you can not fail. For decades to come I will testify of the miracle I witnessed in a sports arena in Sacramento, California.”

Click here to go to Part 3 of “More Precious Than Gold”