The Pageant is organized with a musical director who is responsible for rehearsing and conducting the inspirational one-hour musical score, and drama director who is responsible for coordinating the activities of the cast with the technical crews for this dramatic presentation.

Each person who works with the Pageant is a key member of the organization. Much work goes on behind the scenes during the six or seven weeks preceding Easter. These people fit, clean and press costumes; adjust and install sound and lights; refurbished scenery and properties; apply make-up; type cast lists and letters, and rehearse every detail of the presentation. Although the floor of Marion’s Memorial Coliseum seems to be magically transformed into the streets of Jerusalem, many hours of intensive work have gone into each area of the Good Friday evening and Sunday morning sunrise presentations.

The Pageant is unique in that no spoken commentary is ever used. The moving story of the last week of the life of Christ on earth is told entirely with pantomime, pageantry and the music of great anthems and familiar hymns. The presentation begins with the Palm Sunday entry of Jesus into the city of Jerusalem. The story, presented in six separate scenes, transports the audience through the joys, sufferings, trials, and sorrows leading to Resurrection morning. The Pageant concludes the one-hour performance in a mighty burst of praise with the "Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel’s Messiah which expresses the universal exultation of all Christendom.

Each minute detail of the Pageant has been carefully researched and authenticated in historical accuracy and in keeping with the traditions of great religious art. Such widely separated details as the right color of a rock or the breastplate for a high priest had been checked and researched from many sources. The scenes of the Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemane, the trial before Pontius Pilate, and the Resurrection have been patterned after the religious works of such great artists as Sallman and Leonardo DaVinci.