The Hill Cumorah Legacy Project

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Part of Interview with Patricia Randall, Saturday, April 9, 2022.

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Interview with Patricia (Patty) Randall
Saturday, April 9, 2022
The Hill Cumorah Legacy Project
Recorded over Zoom
Interviewee: Patricia (Patty) Randall
Interviewers: Trevor Kamen and Joshua Kanofsky
Duration: 01:01:42
Transcription App: Otter.ai
As of spring 2022, Patricia Randall is the Theatre Costume Shop Director at Brigham
Young University Idaho.
Transcript
[00:00:00]
Trevor Kamen & Joshua Kanofsky [simultaneously]: So—
[laughter]
Joshua Kanofsky: He can go.
Trevor Kamen: Yeah, we’re just going to alternate asking you questions about your time
working at the Hill Cumorah Pageant.
Patricia Randall: Okay.
Trevor Kamen: Just go through them.
Joshua Kanofsky: So, he questions that we emailed, those are the exact same questions that
we’re going to ask. Although if—we may ask any questions, obviously, during the interview, just
based on the information that you talk about. But yeah, it shouldn’t take too long. There’s only
about 10 questions.
Patricia Randall: And do you want me to keep them fairly brief and concise?
Joshua Kanofsky: However you like. There’s no time limit per se. I think I made the Zoom
meeting an hour and a half. But yeah, no, you don’t have to if you don’t want to.
Patricia Randall: Okay.

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Joshua Kanofsky: Okay, so we can begin. So why/how did you begin work on the Hill
Cumorah Pageant?
Patricia Randall: Um, I for the very first time went to New York, to be at one of my family
reunion[s], and part of that was we were going to see the Pageant. And I was hoping that I was
going to be able to go backstage and go into the different dressing areas and see the costumes
and see how they prepared them and, you know, what they would look like in person. And that
came true when [laughs] Chris Bjorling was a member of the presidency. There was [Dwight]
Schwendiman, [Chris] Bjorling, and, um... Oh dear, now I can’t remember his name. And—well,
I think, before I saw the Pageant, Chris came to me and said, “Would you like to go backstage
and see costumes?” and I said, “Absolutely!” So, I got the tour, and that was really neat, and then
[I] saw the Pageant. And it’s so different to see costumes up close and see them on stage. So, it
was very fun for me. I had been a full-time employee at BYU Idaho, running the Theatre
Costume Shop, and so I was all about costumes and stuff like that. The unique thing, of course,
with the Pageant is you’re very, very far away from the stage, and so, the farther away you are,
you just get a general look of what the costumes are like. So that’s very different in making and
creating costumes for the Pageant, so it was so fun to see ’em up close.
After I saw the Pageant, we were there for a week. And at the end of our family
reunion—which Chris was a part of—I went up to Chris. I just had such an overwhelming
feeling that this is a place I need to be a part of. It was just the most overwhelming feeling. And
so, I hated to be the typical, you know, person that goes up and says, “You know, if you need
any help, I know how to sew.” [laughs enthusiastically] But I got brave and started talking to
him, saying, “I—you know, if you ever need [laughs] any help, just call me.” He said, “I am so
glad you came up and said something. I’ve been waiting the whole week for you to say

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something, and I would really like to bring you on, on the costume staff, the wardrobe staff.”
And I said, “Yeah, just give me a call.” And so, about a month later then, I get the official call.
And it was amazing, and I was thrilled. So that’s kind of how I got into the costume—the
wardrobe staff at the Hill.
Joshua Kanofsky: Nice, [00:05:00] that’s very—pretty detailed. I could—I was just imagining
the whole timeline of events take place. Thank you. That’s really great.
Patricia Randall: Good. [laughs quietly]
Trevor Kamen: When was that, that you started?
Patricia Randall: I saw the Pageant in 2011 and then was called for the next summer—the 2012
Pageant.
Trevor Kamen: And when—after—once you started working, what would you say was the most
difficult aspect of your job there? Of the costume design itself?
Patricia Randall: You know, the—for the first two years, I was simply a staff. I sat at a sewing
machine, and I just sewed whatever they needed. Then I was asked to do the design part of the
head of [costumes]—of wardrobe at the Hill. It encompasses everything from creating new
costumes to the whole logistics [laughs] of—the cast arrives, and there is all this tryout, and then
everybody is cast. They’re given a part, or two or three parts. And that all falls under the
wardrobe, too. You have to run that one night of casting and getting parts and sending them to
the correct dressing room that they will be getting their costume in. That evening is one blur. I
mean, it is just, it happens so fast. And the first year, I said, “They’re—I mean, I do this. How
can you put costumes on...” At that time, I think it was like, almost 800 people! And logistically,
that’s impossible. It really is. So, the first time I witnessed that happening, I just went, “That’s
impossible,” but I watched it happen, and it was surreal. And so, that is a big part of the job.

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So, at first, they divided the job, thinking it would be easier if we had one person just
over the administrative—the—attending the meetings with the directors and getting their
requests for costumes. And then coming back to the person who takes their list of “this is what I
want,” and you design it, and you approve it with them and all of that. And so, at first, I was the
design part of costumes. And so, I got the wish list, and then I did sketches and approved it and
showed them—cut possible fabric and stuff like that. And I did that for, I believe, two years, and
then they said, you know, we’ve got to go back to just one person over all of wardrobe, because
you got... It just... You kind of need one person who sees the whole picture. And they liked it
better. So, the Presidency and the directors agreed, let’s just have one person again. And they
then asked me to just be over all of it. And so that was probably my fourth year there or
something.
And then for the duration, I was over all of it. And it is a big job, but you just—you
know, you chop it up into the pieces that you need this first and this next, and you pull in people
that help you implement, and… You know, it’s what I did for a living, so it wasn’t anything big
and new. It’s just that the Pageant is so big, and that is—logistically, every aspect is a big chunk
that you have to bite off, and—so, that’s kind of the whole tricky part. [00:10:00] But I think,
just because of my job, it gave me the resources and the ability to, you know, get that done.
Trevor Kamen: Were you ever able to... Did you ever have to reuse costumes from previous
years? Or is it all from scratch every year?
Patricia Randall: Oh, no. The big thing about the Pageant is every costume is stored, and it’s
reused the next year. Yes, we have different bodies every year, but I think they were used to
knowing that—the body type that they would put into that character. And so generally,
everything fit, which was another [miracle]—for me, it was a miracle. I just couldn’t see how

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that could happen, but it did. So, we reused the whole show every year, but the directors at the
end of Pageant will then pick and choose—you know, “In my scene here, I would like this
person to be a little brighter, or a little—a different color, or…”—you know, whatever. So, I got
a big, long list about a month or two after one Pageant closes. And that let me start planning, and
pulling together fabrics and all of that, getting it approved, and then going with it. So, sometimes
I’m able to pick some fabrics that are right up the hill, if I know ahead of time that’s what they
want on this character. But a lot of times, you know, I’m back in Idaho, and that’s in New York.
My resources and everything are where I live. And then you say, “Okay, shall we build it here?
Or do we build it when we get there next year?” And that was another consideration.
So, logistically, if I was doing a whole scene all over—like, one of the first things they
wanted from me was a whole new look for the Restoration [of the Gospel to Joseph Smith]
scene. And I had voiced my opinion to the director that the Restoration scene looked like a
funeral. Everybody was dark. And these poor people… I mean, the temperatures in New York
would get close to 100, and they were putting these people in layers and layers of wool because
that’s what they would have been. But that’s okay to be realistic, but to help people survive the
heat, you can get a fabric that looks like wool, but does not[laughs] —it’s not wool, and it’s
comfortable; it’s cooler and all that. So, I completely changed the whole Restoration scene into a
positive, happy group of pioneers. They’re colorful. And the director just loved it. He almost got
gooey with me with how much he loved it. And that was just such a great experience to change
something and have it be so well received.
Joshua Kanofsky: Our question after that actually was, “What are the logistics involved in
costume design?” but that was a great response. It answered both [laughs] questions in one. But
the question after that actually works well. You’re talking about how the Pageant takes up a

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tremendous amount of time. How did you balance your—just, your personal life and The Hill
Cumorah Pageant? Did you ever feel pressured to do one or the other?
Patricia Randall: Yeah.
Joshua Kanofsky: How did that balance go?
Patricia Randall: That is just another aspect of the whole thing. I was working full time. I’m the
kind of person that I like to start at the beginning of when I get an assignment project, and I like
to start hacking away at it right from the beginning. Because, in [00:15:00] costumes, some
things just take time, like—you’ve got to know from the beginning to the end what your whole
project is. Some things that you need to order will take a month or two to get here. And so, all of
that—I like to know the whole project right up front when I get it. And then I can just hack at it a
little at a time.
At the time that they called me, my mother was living with me. She, I think, was just
about 90 at the time. She died when she was 96, and that was after the year that we didn’t have a
Pageant. She had a lot of needs, complete total care, and we had really nice people who came in
while I was at work to care for her. And so, I had those people in place. And then I had a great
support system. My husband is wonderful, and he loved my mom. And I had a wonderful sister
who said, “Don’t worry about it.” Now, for the first few years, I actually put mom on a plane and
center to my sister in California. But the last five or six years of Pageant, she was too frail to
uproot her from her little safe place to go to California. So, my sister came to my home for the
month. I would be gone a month every summer.
The other part of that, the tricky part, was that, in my full-time theater position, we were
opening a play the end of June, right when I needed to get on a plane and go back to Pageant. So,
I made them aware of the fact that, for that play, I need everything—every design, everything

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they wanted—I needed it, you know, two months in advance. And the first year, you know, I had
one of the directors that didn’t really do well with deadlines. And so, I had to leave my top
seamstresses at his mercy. You know, he would come and say, “I need this.” And I said, “Gals,
you need to say no if you have to say no.” So, there’s the job. There’s the home. And—it just
worked, you know? I just had a great support system in place in all those areas, and I couldn’t
have done it if I didn’t have those things to support me leaving. So, that was the hardest part.
Trevor Kamen: And—thank you. So, another question we had was: [During]—while you
worked on the Pageant, did you ever—were you ever appeal—did any part of the Pageant ever
appeal to you more than others when you worked on it? Like, would you prefer working on a
costume for this section of the Pageant versus another? Or do you just like part of the Pageant
more than you liked others?
Patricia Randall: Oh, I just love every scene. The one that touches you, the one that just brings
you to tears, is the Savior appearing out of the black sky, that—the lights just go down perfectly.
And then, bam! This white, shining figure of a man is descending, and as it gets to the level of
stage, then he walks down and around, and when he hits the little Primary children, they believe
he is [laughs] Christ. And it means so much to them to hold their hands out, and he touches their
hand or something, and it’s just beautiful. And it’s overwhelming. And you really believe, “This
is it. This is his Coming, and this is what it’s going to be like. So, it’s very moving.”
Those costumes, actually, for the [00:20:00] last Pageant that we held in—I think it was
2019—we made a whole new Savior costume. And it just worked well. And it was just beautiful.
And it flowed in the breeze. It was just beautiful. So that was tender for one of my seamstresses.
I gave her the project. I did pattern work and did things that I handed off to her, which is what I
do in the college, too. I create the project, and in the case of the Savior, it has to be adjustable

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every year to a long torso, a short torso, you know, whatever. And—but it was so special for this
one seamstress that she just said, “Can I do this?” I said, “Yes, you can do this.” So, it was very
special.
The rest of the costumes in that scene are every cast member onstage. They put on what
we call the “crowd costume.” Everybody chooses that on casting night. And we added a lot of
color, and it was [laughs] just beautiful. So, it wasn’t the hardest scene to costume, but it’s the
scene that touches—if you ask many people, they’ll say, “Oh, it’s the New World multitude
scene.” So, that’s fun.
Joshua Kanofsky: Were there ever any moments that—in the play, is there [best guess] a certain
performance where a costume would get damaged, and they might have had another scene where
you’d have to, maybe, repair that costume?
Patricia Randall: We always had repairs every night. There wasn’t a big disaster at all. The
thing that maybe, you know, a person in the audience wouldn’t really recognize is... there are—
there’s [sic] two scenes, I believe, there’s a scene where… In the any of the “vision” scenes, they
have this sprinkler system that sprays water up, and when you hit lights on it, it looks like a
dream. And so that would have—the—I think the Water Curtain is what they would call it—it
happens behind, like, the nativity scene; they shoot the water up—and so, costumes would get
wet, especially if the wind was blowing the wrong way, they would be saturated. And so, the
other scene is the boat scene, where Nephi built the boat and now the people are on the boat, and
then the argument with the brothers, and they’re going to kill Nephi. The Lord causes a big
uproar in the water, of the sea. And boy, those people get wet, and it is cold, stinky water from
the pond out back up the hill. And it stinks! [laughs] And so, [when] those people get done with
that scene, they run in, and they drop all their wet clothes and put on their next costume for the

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rest of the play. So, in one, two, three different costume rooms, they have wet costumes, and
those rooms have washers and dryers. So, we wash those; we put them in immediately so that, by
the end of the play, they’re dry and hung up again, ready for the next day. So, logistically, that’s
a little bit of a tricky, but it works well every night.
Trevor Kamen: So, this question is a bit different, but… You’ve worked for a while with—in
the costume design, so just randomly, do you have any—what worked best for you when
working, when making, crafting the costumes for the Pageant?
Patricia Randall: Well, sometimes, a new costume... [00:25:00] We’re going to be able to pull
the fabrics needed and everything from what we have at the Hill, and in that case, we design—I
designed it, we cut it out, and we sew it at the Hill. That’s one thing that keeps us busy during the
whole thing. But typically, I don’t get a request for new things until the Pageant is over. If they
give it to me soon enough, I can go through the fabric we already have, and I can get it approved.
But [a lot]—most of the time, new costumes are given to me after I get back home. And so that’s
the logistic dilemma—[it] is, if it’s the whole group of, like, [the] Lehi mob, or—it’s either 30
people, maybe it’s only 16—if I get the fabric coming to me in Idaho, then I do the—I either sew
them all up during the year, or—like the new Restoration, that was a big job. I literally sent
fabrics, detailed instructions. I had things cut out, so I had instructions on how to assemble, like,
the Restoration ladies’ dress, and it’s step-by-step, and then I mail it to them. And then, if they
can, they bring that with them to the Hill.
A lot of times when we do—like, they wanted all new battle men. The battle men are 50
Nephites and 50 Lamanites. That’s a lot of fabric; that’s a lot of costumes. So logistically, what
we did was I assigned out certain people to be over Lamanites and over Nephites. And at that
time, we had a wardrobe member who drove a fifth wheel to the Pageant, and we were able to

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put all of that together and tuck it in the very back of his fifth wheel, and that saved us a ton of
money. The only way to really ship heavy costumes was I would take a very, very large suitcase;
I would fill it; and, as long as I could pick it up and put it on [laughs] the counter of the Post
Office person, then they would ship that for $50. That was quite a savings. But I had to pick that
suitcase up and get it up on the counter. So… I think I sent about three or four large suitcases one
year. So, that was one way we hacked away at it. But the logistics of a big cast is things like that.
Joshua Kanofsky: Was there ever—was there a budget that you had to adhere to or follow?
Patricia Randall: Yes, yes, I had that, and, you know, I had to use it in buying things and
mailing things. But I—I’ve always made a policy that that budget is what I have. I don’t have
any other. And I always came in under budget, so they were happy. [laughs]
Joshua Kanofsky: You were mentioning before also that you had a guide on how to make
certain costumes step-by-step. Were there... were you given any pointers, or did you work with
other departments when designing costumes? Or was it all sort of planned out and—?
Patricia Randall: When I get the request for a new costume, because I watched the Pageant
every single night, I make notes every single night. I will talk to the director over that scene and
make sure [00:30:00] the criteria of, you know, what kind of movement are they going to do. I
know that because I’ve seen it. And they specifically say, “You know, the skirts that the battle
men are in now really restrict them. Some of them have to jump from one level of the stage to
another. They need real movement.” So, I find out the criteria. That’s the first step in designing
something. You have to make sure you’re going to design something that will allow them to do
what they have to do. So, I do collaborate with the directors, and the people who are requesting a
new costume from me, they’re the ones that know everything, and so I go to them first.

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And then, with the battle men being such a big number, and—that’s a lot of fabric, and
that was fabric we needed to find and buy and make sure we had extra leftover, because you do it
one year, and then the next year you have some special... hmm... maybe you have a very, very
large kid that’s going to be a battle man. And so, you’ve got to have some extra fabric on board
for special circumstances. So yeah, a lot of collaboration before I even start specifically putting
my idea to fabric.
Joshua Kanofsky: Was that—did the casting department ever have to, sort of, have a knowledge
of the costumes, just to know what they can actually fit into?
Patricia Randall: They did. And as changes were being made, and if you’ve got a new
director—you know, somebody got released, and a new director came in—well, they come in
cold; they don’t have any idea, so—part of the prep for the casting night is me providing each of
these—I think we had about 10 or 12 individual directors. So, when they go out to hand out these
casting tags, they need to know what kind of a body type goes into the costumes I already have.
And so, that was provided to them. They would look at it before so that, as they then went out
and mingled among the big bunch of kids or people, they would be able to pluck out the ones
that would fit the costumes.
Trevor Kamen: Would they ever request serious alterations? If they really wanted a person to fit
this character, would they then go back to you before they cast them on, or would they cast them
on and then tell you?
Patricia Randall: Actually, both happened. The first couple of years... Well, the year that I did
the Restoration, they wanted a whole new Joseph outfit—Joseph Smith. And so, they needed
somebody tall enough and large enough that he would look good on stage. You put a tiny person
on stage, and you try to sell it as “This is one of the greatest men that have lived since Christ”?

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And you’d kind of have to have a stature. So, what I did was, I created a whole new outfit for a
man who would be basically a 42 to 44 coat size. And then, it was [unclear]—and then, once I
did that, during casting, they would pull me out of my spot and have me meander around. They’d
pluck out about 12 or 15 guys, and then they would start having them do little gestures like
Joseph Smith does in the play. And they would say, “Patty, what do you think? Do you think this
guy would fit the coat?” And I would have the coat with me, and [00:35:00] when they got really
serious about a few guys, they’d have them to try on the jacket. And I thought, “Oh boy, this is
interesting,” but it really helped. And that you don’t really alter. You don’t really alter a suit coat
as far as length and width. You want it to just fit. And so, that’s how we did that. And that was
special.
I can’t think of another cast member that they were eyeballing specifically to fit a
costume. I did, however, get very good at predicting who would play King Noah. He had to be
the tallest, the biggest man. And every year, I picked him out when they were signing in to—cast
members were signing in—and I’d spot this giant of a man and say, “That’s going to be King
Noah.” And I did that pretty good for about three or four years and picked the one, so...
Joshua Kanofsky: You spoke before how there was that scene where you basically redesigned
the costumes, where it was a very dark theme, and you brightened it up, made it a totally new
scene by changing the colors. Were there any other memorable moments that you can recall
working with the Pageant?
Patricia Randall: In changing costumes?
Joshua Kanofsky: Just in general, like, any memorable moments that stick out to you when you
think back about it.

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Patricia Randall: It was nice to redo the Savior’s. We never touched King Noah. He was so
perfect. Gail... Oh, I can’t remember her last name; it’s a little tricky. [Editor’s note: The
individual in question is Gail Argersinger.] She’s the one that designed this whole new Pageant
with lots of color. And King Noah is just so impressive that nobody wanted to touch his costume,
change it, do anything to it. However, his court, we redid the women in the court. I did that I
think my first or second year. And then we redid the hats for the—Noah’s—King Noah’s court
priests. They had huge hats that made them look like bakers, and they wanted something
different. And I had a person on my staff, who—I’m not kidding—you give him a picture, and
you give him some materials, and then you just walk away, and he would create hats that were
incredible.
And—at one time, we redid... we had four Nephis—son Nephis. And we redid and put
him in a leather vest, and they painted on it. His wife—the guy that does the hats—his wife
paints, and for a living; she does illustrations. She is incredible. And she painted things on his
leather vest that just looked gorgeous. And you have to know that the cast members are—they
walk through the crowds while—before the Pageant, and the most photographed people that you
see—[that] people, the people that come, want to get a picture with—is [sic] King Noah, Joseph
Smith, the Three Wise Men, and then this new Nephi. His vest was so gorgeous, they wanted to
have a picture with Nephi. So, that’s another consideration when I designed something.
How will this look on stage is the most important, but how will it look to a person who’s
come to see the play? Because they [the actors] get to walk around and say hi to people and
everything. So, those are the considerations.

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Joshua Kanofsky: Was—when you were saying that King Noah is an important role, is that
important from [00:40:00] both an artistic point of view and just from a story point of view as
well?
Patricia Randall: Yes. King Noah was supposed to be a righteous ruler, but it turned out that
things got more and more wicked. And everything to him was, you know, “Oh, that’s gonna
make me more money,” or “I can tax the people more.”
He’s basically... They chose, from the very start, he would be bigger than life. They have
him appear on the very topmost part of the stage. And as he descends and he walks down, his
feet are enormous because of the boots they create. [coughs] Excuse me. And the headdress is
the biggest headdress in the whole Pageant. So, he’s important in that it was in his court that one
of his priests, Alma [laughs], listening to Abinadi chastise King Noah, that he believed in
everything that Abinadi was telling. And so, here is a priest of Noah’s, and he gets converted,
and he has to run away. They want to catch him and kill him, but he got away, and he—he made
a big difference. So, King Noah’s court was a big, big scene, very important.
Trevor Kamen: [indistinct] Joshua, do you have any other questions?
Joshua Kanofsky: I was going to ask, how did the work on the Pageant, did it differ at all from
your background or any conventional work that you had in costume and wardrobe design?
Patricia Randall: You know, it was like a perfect scenario. In theater, in my job, you know, it’s
interesting that, when you do things and you’re paid for them, there’s a certain mentality, and
you... I had a great spot in the theatre department, and I enjoyed working with people, and I
enjoyed the girls that I hired to sew in my shop. And that was a nice place to be. But when you
get at the Hill, you have people from amazing vocations, and they have volunteered to be there.
They get themselves there at their own cost, and they’re not paid for anything they do, and these

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are talented people. And… Everybody’s there because the Pageant is important to them. And
they have their own set of what we call “Pageant Miracles.” And the stories are just amazing,
you know, the challenges of getting to Pageant and getting there.
There was one family coming as cast members. And at one town, they were stripped of...
Somebody had gotten into their car, which was packed full; they had kids and everything. They
stole all their clothes, everything that was in the car. I couldn’t believe it. And they were stuck in
this city, and they weren’t at Pageant yet. They called the Presidency, and people that were
already at the Hill actually donated money to get them all the way to the Pageant. They put
together clothing and money and food so that, when they got there, they could have the things
they needed. I mean, things [00:45:00] like that are just amazing.
And then, there’s the little miracles of... I mean... One of my first miracles was the year
that they put me over the design and stuff. All of a sudden, you get to the Hill, and they realize,
and they come and tell you that, “Oh, by the way, we accepted 50 more people than we were
planning on. And so, we’re gonna need costumes. Do you have enough crowd costumes to put
on these people?” And I went home one night and thought again, “This is impossible.” We don’t
have enough seamstresses to whip up a bunch of crowd costumes. We don’t know what size
these additionals are... Is it men? Is it boys? Is it more women? Had no idea. Those kinds of
things. And I was desperate all of a sudden and [laughs] went to bed and prayed, “You know,
I’m happy to do this. But I don’t see a way. I need help.”
And when I went to the Hill the next day, a gal had driven all the way from the coast, the
West Coast, in—Washington? She drove her elderly parents all the way across the country
because they had been accepted into the Pageant. She had not been accepted; she was just
driving them to keep them safe. So, she’s a seamstress. And she’s—wow, she’s a gung-ho

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seamstress. You can give her anything, and she’ll figure out how to put it together. And she just
walked in the shop that day and said, “Um... Here’s my story. I’m doing nothing. I mean, I’m
sitting here, reading all day long. And I sew. Can you use any help?” I was—I almost started
crying; I was so thrilled. And when she started sewing, I mean she was getting things done. And
I had two or three other walk-ins. And I thought, “Wow, ask and you shall receive.” [laughs]
And we got all the sewing done, and it was a breeze. I just couldn’t believe it. I was so—I was so
desperate the night before, and everything just worked out. And that happens constantly at the
Hill. Just constant.
Trevor Kamen: You mentioned a shop before. Do you operate a shop in your hometown?
Patricia Randall: I—my full-time job was BYU Idaho’s Theatre Costume Shop Director. So, I
had a big room. My job was to take the designs—every play has a costume designer—and she
would hand me her designs and tell me all the specifics about it. She would either go do the
buying for me—for fabric, trim, everything that was needed for the design—or, in some cases, if
I was the designer of the show, I had to go and get all of the materials. And then, I did all the
measurements for the cast member[s]. We’d get a cast; they’d all come in at different appointed
times. I would measure them; I would do some fitting, and then we went right at sewing up these
designs. Sometimes, I had to do fitting shells, where I just take any old fabric, and I cut out my
pattern work, I put it on ’em, and see if that’s going to work. If it does, then I cut it out of the real
fabric. So, that’s kind of what I did at the costume shop.
We had a lot of other things that I was in charge of. We rented costumes. You know, I
oversaw about ten seamstresses. Some were really good; some, I had to do a lot of teaching, but
then they became good. And so, with all of that, then I go to the Hill, and I have to kind of take
the techniques and the things that I know we need to do and apply ’em at the Hill, which—

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[laughs] how do you apply a cast of maybe [00:50:00] twenty people to 800? You know, it was
mind-boggling. But I got to know the Pageant in two years, and then [was] thrown into, you
know, an administrative calling, and it just worked, so… It was a little tricky at first. [laughs]
Joshua Kanofsky: Now that the Pageant is unfortunately—I believe it just finished its last
year.... Well, they didn’t do a show in 2020, I believe. 2019 was their last show. What are you
going to miss most about it?
Patricia Randall: It’s the people. I mean, we miss the Pageant and hearing the music. I mean,
we all say that, when—whenever “The Spirit of God” is either sung in sacrament meeting or you
hear it, I don’t know, maybe in the Tabernacle Choir, tears just come, because it was the song
that, once it started playing, that was the signal that all cast members had to get in their lines,
ready for the procession up onto the stage as the very beginning of the Pageant. [Editor’s Note:
Prof. Randall is referring to the LDS hymn “The Spirit of God,” with lyrics by William W.
Phelps.1] And that song just evokes so much emotion. But truly the thing that we all miss the
most is each other. It was hard to say goodbye at the end of every Pageant because we knew it
would be a full year before we saw each other.
Now, some of us are so close that we literally see each other during the year; we get
together, or—and I would say that’s us women. And so, we have—the way the Pageant ended
was, in one way, really awful in that we thought we were going to see each other for one last
year, and that didn’t happen because of COVID. And so, it was such a letdown to just have it
end, and yet for a lot of us emotional people, we knew that, if we had just one more year, every

1
Anon. (composer) and William W. Phelps (text), “The Spirit of God,” 1835 (text), 1844 (music), Church Music
Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, accessed May 1, 2022,
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/music/library/hymns/the-spirit-of-god?lang=eng. Archived URL, saved May 1,
2022: https://web.archive.org/web/20220501170333/https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/music/library/hymns/thespirit-of-god?lang=eng.

18
day would be tearful. You know, “Oh, this is the last time for this. This is the last time for
that....” And it would have just been an emotional mess. We would have been a mess. And so, it
was hard not to be together and say goodbye, but for me and for several others, it would have
been a mess! [laughs] Every day. So, the real answer is the people. You get so close, and some of
us will be friends forever—I mean, very close. And so, that’s the thing we will miss the most.
We miss all of it, but we miss each other the most.
Joshua Kanofsky: So, in a way, I guess it was almost a—[laughs] it’s obviously not a good
thing—but for the people who would have been especially emotional, I guess it was good that
they didn’t explicitly state that it was going to end that last year.
Patricia Randall: [laughs] Yeah.
Joshua Kanofsky: Wow.
Trevor Kamen: You got one last year believing that you would do it—another—again, so it just
seemed more positive in the end.
Patricia Randall: [laughs; shakes her head] It’s hard. We do keep in touch.
Joshua Kanofsky: Are most of the people who attend from the western side of the United
States, like, you know, around Idaho and Utah? I know you mentioned before Washington and
California, or are they spread out?
Patricia Randall: Yeah, they are really spread out. We have a cluster in the New York area.
And then, we have south. We’ve got Texas people; we’ve got New Mexico. [00:55:00] We have
a cluster in Utah. I think I’m the only one in Idaho. And then we have some in Washington,
California. And so, the western people, there’s always an opportunity that they are going to be in
Salt Lake for something sometime. And so, we have vowed to get together and open it up for—
you know, there are people clear back in the east that also come to Salt Lake for some purpose.

19
And so, we have vowed—I think now we can finally think about getting together without
worrying about all the masks and all that kind of thing. So, COVID—boy, COVID really threw
everything for a loop. And we are dedicated to getting together, so I’m sure will happen soon.
Joshua Kanofsky: Have you caught wind of any future projects or meet-ups to, sort of, just get
everyone back together?
Patricia Randall: No, we—that planning hasn’t really happened yet. But... Um... I’d have to go
through and find out, where is the spot to get together, that the bigger number of us can get
together. And then, the others have the choice of, you know, coming to that. So, I think,
whatever we do, I think it’s going to end up in Salt Lake somewhere. And, you know, we miss
the people who have been released. We—you get so close, and you’ve relied on each other,
[laughs] and you love each other, so even past wardrobe members will be invited, so, yeah.
Joshua Kanofsky: That was all the questions I had. I don’t know about Trevor, but...
Trevor Kamen: Yeah, that’s all I’ve got, too.
Joshua Kanofsky: It was really great speaking with you. This was so informative. Our professor
is a big fan of the Hill Cumorah Pageant. I believe he’s attended two or three. But yeah, I mean,
this was very informative. So, we’ve read up on it in class and whatnot.
Patricia Randall: Well, and as wardrobe members, when things were quiet, which was rare
[laughs], we would go together somewhere. Some of us loved shopping for antiques, and that’s a
great area for antiques! And [laughs] then, the biggest thing that gave us so much joy every day
was, let’s see, Chill & Grill. It’s a little walk-through, like a little drive in, but you just sit, and
you park at a park bench kind of thing. And it was so loved, the ice cream was so loved, the food
was so loved, that we made trips all the time. And what I started [laughing] was, I’d put a… Ten
[best guess] of the southwest women’s room was where I was stationed, and that’s where I set up

20
my office, if you will. And so, I plastered a paper on the side of our fridge [laughs] and said,
“Write down your order for Chill & Grill,” you know, for ice cream. And then, I would bring it
all—I’d have them write names on everything they did for me—and bring it and put it in our
freezer, and these people would buy three and four different types, you know, and they’d pick
whatever they wanted to eat in the day. And it was so fun, too. Just little things like that we miss.
We were just a big, big family, and it was so awesome. And we’ll miss it. [01:00:00]
Trevor Kamen: If you ever get the chance to meet up again, you should try something similar.
Patricia Randall: I think we will. I think Utah offers a lot of yummy places, so… [laughs] But
whenever one of my wardrobe people come to Rexburg, we go out for ice cream, and we take
our pictures, and we send it out on the thread that has all the wardrobe people, so yeah, we try to
do what we can do.
Trevor Kamen: Thank you. It’s been really nice to learn all your stories.
Patricia Randall: Thanks.
Joshua Kanofsky: Thank you as well from me, too. At least we’re ending on a bit more of a
positive note than [all laugh] the previous. Thank you so much for your time. It’s really been
great speaking with you!
Patricia Randall: Thank you.
Joshua Kanofsky: All right.
Patricia Randall: You’ll let me know when this all gets put out there?
Joshua Kanofsky: Yeah, we can send you an email. I don’t know exactly what our professor is
going to do with it.
Trevor Kamen: Yeah.
Joshua Kanofsky: But we’re just submitting it to him.

21
Trevor Kamen: We’ll turn over our transcript to him and let him figure it out. And then, if there
is—hopefully we can put on his site, and we’ll let you know about it.
Patricia Randall: Good. Great. Thank you so much, guys!
Joshua & Trevor: Thank you!
Joshua Kanofsky: It’s been great. Have a great day. Bye.
Patricia Randall: Yep.

Dublin Core Metadata for the Interview
Title: Interview with Patricia Randall, Saturday, April 9, 2022.
Subject: Hill Cumorah Project, Theater, Costume Design, Friendship
Description: In this roughly 60-minute interview, Patricia Randall—a professor of costume
design at BYU Idaho—describes her experiences at the annual Hill Cumorah Pageant in
Palmyra, New York. In 2012, she began her work as a seamstress for the Pageant and eventually
became the head of wardrobe and costume design for the production. This interview explores in
depth her experiences and work at the Pageant over the years. Additionally, this interview delves
into the impacts of the Pageant on Randall and the role it continues to play in her life, even now
that it has ended. The interview concludes with Randall’s hopes for those involved looking
towards the future.
Creator: Patricia (Patty) Randall, Joshua Kanofsky, and Trevor Kamen
Source: The Hill Cumorah Legacy Project
Date: Saturday, April 9, 2022
Contributor: Joshua Kanofsky and Trevor Kamen
Rights: Produced under an oral history collaborative deed of gift agreement with no restrictions
and nonexclusive license.
Format: M4A (audio), PDF (transcript)
Language: English
Identifier:
• Kamen_Kanofsky_PattyRandallInterview_04-09-2022.m4a

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•

Kamen_Kanofsky_PatriciaRandallTranscript_04-09-2022_Edited.pdf