Ever seen a live version of The Last Supper? What about Nighthawks? Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C. is hosting the 22nd year of its Living Gallery show this Easter, with performances April 18-20.
Living Gallery is BJU’s annual performance that combines live actors posing in replicas of classic paintings with a play and orchestral music. It’s called ‘tableau vivant’ – French for ‘living picture’ – and perhaps its most recognizable relative is the Pageant of the Masters in Laguna Beach, Ca.
This year’s Living Gallery is themed ‘Somewhere Forever.’ 65 actors (plus many more crew members + BTS teams) will recreate 11 pieces of famous art – 9 paintings and 2 sculptures – including The Last Supper, Nighthawks (the show’s first secular piece) and Descent from the Cross, a sculpture in the Cleveland Museum of Art which will be 10x as large on-stage than it is in real life.
The living art will be connected into a story told through a play, hosted in a modern-day, fictional coffee shop, Java Babel, where the main character shares the story of Easter.
Living Gallery is one of the only shows like this on the East Coast, drawing 12,000-14,000 attendees from across the Southeast over the course of its 7 performances. 4-5K of those attendees are first-time visitors to BJU’s campus. For many S.C. families, it’s an Easter tradition.
Watch the video here or below to see how Living Gallery works and buy tickets ($14-16) to performances online here.
This content was created in partnership with Bob Jones University.
