 It was while a missionary in the Eastern States mission that Hansen first served as director of the Hill Cumorah Pageant.Although pageants had been produced at the Hill Cumorah the previous two years, 1937 was the first year that H. Wayne Driggs' script, which would be the basis of the pageant until 1987, was used.Thus as the first director Hansen essentially had to figure out the ways to move from the script to actual production that would remain the main outline of the production for the next half-century, or ten years beyond his retirement as director.