`LIVING PICTURES' PAGEANT MAKES LAGUNA COME ALIVE.

Byline: Carol Bidwell Daily News Staff Writer

They start out as just a bunch of ordinary people, headed to a volunteer summer job in their jeans and sweat shirts.

But the makeup and costume artists and set designers work their magic, the curtains part, the lights flash on. The ragtag volunteers are transformed into oversize bronze and marble sculptures, porcelain figurines, French impressionist paintings.

The nearly 280 volunteers are the human glue that, year after year since 1933, has held together the tableaux vivants - living pictures - that make up Laguna Beach's annual Pageant of the Masters.

During the pageant's nearly two-month summer run, more than 145,000 people come - most from California, some from other states and even other countries - to the 2,600-seat Irvine Bowl to see some of the world's greatest artworks re-created with paint and fabric.

The success of the show, which this year runs July 7-Aug. 31, also relies largely on the cast's uncanny ability to stand stock-still for three minutes or more as inventive lighting flattens three dimensions into two.

Even those who have seen the pageant year after year are impressed by the results, said Phil Haney, the pageant's ``fly man'' (he and his crew position the sets).

``At some point during the pageant, we show how we assemble one of the works of art - we have people in costume come out and we position them on the sets while the audience watches,'' Haney said. ``Then we turn out the lights and hit the stage with special lighting that makes the people look like part of the painting.

``And we still have people in the audience who swear that we drop these cast members through a trap door in the dark and wheel out a real painting,'' Haney said with a laugh. ``They've seen how we do it, but they still can't believe it.''

This year's pageant, with the largest cast ever, has a new director - Diane Challis Davy, who began in 1980 as a costume assistant with the show and became assistant director in the mid-1980s.

``I just love American art and the French impressionists, and I picked the artworks we're doing this summer,'' Davy said. ``The pageant reflects my taste in art.''

The show features bronze statuary by Frederick Remington, Hopi Kachina dolls and paintings by Winslow Homer, Norman Rockwell, Edward Hopper and John Singer Sargent. Two pieces of statuary - the Statue of Liberty and the marble depiction of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Monument - promise to be show-stoppers.

There'll also be depictions of a salt cellar designed by Italian master Benvenuto Cellini, paintings by Edgar Degas and Claude Monet, and the U.S. Treasury's official Olympics coin.

At a recent rehearsal, volunteer makeup artists used sponges to stipple splotches of pink and blue and black on the faces of dozens of adults and children, matching their work to faces predrawn on styrofoam wig blocks - one representing each cast member - by the pageant's makeup director.

Erin Kein, 12, her hair concealed under a nylon-stocking cap, sat motionless as Adele Martinez covered her face with makeup that looked like beige putty, then dotted on shading and drew on eyebrows.

``This is my fourth year,'' Erin said. ``I'm a girl in a picnic this year. It's a lot of fun. Sitting still is the hard part. I just think about different things, and it's over pretty quick. But it's frustrating not to be able to scratch when you itch.''

In the wardrobe room, dresser Karen Olson showed how bolts of muslin are cut, sewn into costumes, then painted to blend in with the painting or sculpture the clothing will help depict. The costumes are heavy and stiff from the paint.

Tasia Russell, 4, the youngest cast member ever, struggled to fit her hands into a tiny pair of gloves as dresser Marie Warner buttoned her into the costume that would transform her into a rowdy boy in Sargent's painting ``The Oyster Gatherers.''

``It's amazing to watch the kids,'' said Warner, who has been part of the crew for several years. ``By the time the pageant is over, they've learned so much about so many things - acting, costumes, getting along with other people. These children really blossom.''

On stage, the art of the costumers, the makeup artists, the set dressers and the lighting technicians all come to life to the sound of classical music.

Still as statues they stood during a rehearsal - all except Tasia, who had an itchy nose that needed scratching. But as spectators chuckled, the little girl suddenly realized where she was and froze - except for a grin that stole over her chubby face.

``It's fun,'' she had said before going on stage. ``I really like it. But standing still is hard - real hard.''

On Location The 90-minute Pageant of the Masters is staged at 8:30 p.m. daily July 7 through Aug. 31 in Irvine Bowl, 650 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. Ticket prices range from $15 to $40 depending on amphitheater location and day of the week.

To order tickets using a credit card, call [phone] or [phone]. Or request ticket order forms by writing: Festival of Arts, P.O. Box 1659, Laguna Beach, Calif. 92652.

The Festival of the Arts - which features the works of more than 160 painters, ceramics artists, jewelers, sculptors and other artists in addition to the evening pageant - runs from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. in Irvine Bowl Park. Admission is $3 for adults, $2 for seniors and students with identification. Parking is limited near the bowl, but city shuttle buses run continuously from 10 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. from downtown parking areas to the fair.

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos, Box

Photo: (1) Megan Fitzgerald, portraying a porcelain figurine, gets one final adjustment to her costume.

(2) A member of the pageant's crew make sure costumed actors depicting Sargent's ``Oyster Gatherers'' are in place. Tasia Russell, 4, right, is the pageant's youngest actor.

(3--Color) Makeup supervisor Robert Helms dabs gold paint on Jon David Kresovich, who will appear in the pageant as the figure on the Olympic coin.

Carol Bidwell/Daily News

Box: On Location (See text)