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I realized the other day when I heard the last five minutes of Terry Gross’s interview with Trey Parker and Matt Stone about their musical The Book of Mormon that for all the times I’ve listened to Fresh Air, for all the interviews about Big Love and Angels in America and such, the closest she’s [...]

Last August at the LDS Church archives I came across an LDS Public Affairs file about the Primeira Salão Nacional de Artistas Mórmons1 (First National Salon of Mormon Artists), held February 22-26, 1983 in São Paulo, Brazil. The event, which was sponsored by the Church Educational System in Brazil, sought works by LDS visual artists [...]

 For the past several years I have had a connection that has been floating around in my brain which I’ve been itching to iterate. In studying things as far flung as psychology, C.S. Lewis, Mormon theology and history, literary/mythical archetypes, world religions, and diverse world histories, these disparate parts have led me to form a pattern to the [...]

I have written two LDS History plays, one called Friends of God (about the events leading up to Joseph Smith’s martyrdom) the other called The Fading Flower (about the conflict surrounding the LDS/ RLDS schism about polygamy, especially as it related to Joseph and Emma Smith’s family). I was criticized by [...]

This series was about New Play Project and its new anthology was really meant to be a single article originally. Then the more I thought about New Play Project, the more I realized I had to say. Thus the mini-epic. Now that I’ve thrown out my major ideas and reactions (and inadvertently stirred a few [...]

POWERHOUSE PLAYWRIGHT
Throw in 3/4 a cube of Jane Austen. Add in equal amounts of Joss Whedon. A pinch of Aaron Sorkin. Oh, and don’t forget two cups of Joseph Smith. Stir evenly. Layer that on top of Merchant Ivory films, historical biopics, and BBC period pieces. Maybe, if you’re in the mood, fold in a [...]

Unlike many, I do not believe a text can truly be divorced from its author. Maybe it’s the historian in me, but the more I find out about an author, the more I am fascinated and enlightened by the text. So it’s difficult for me to address a work, when I have met the author, not [...]

For the actual review of the majority of the short plays in Out of the Mount (a fuller treatment on Little Happy Secrets and “Prodigal Son” will follow) , I was considering doing little mini-reviews for each short play. However, as I got caught up reading the anthology, I noticed two distinct qualities that kept [...]