For decades, Glen Nelson heard from Latter-day Saint artists, writers, musicians, dancers and filmmakers about how much their faith had shaped their creative work. Some of these were people he hosted in his family’s tiny New York apartment.
Over and over, he heard the same refrain: that they had no idea how many other creative professionals existed in the Latter-day Saint world.
Nelson, who arrived in New York for graduate school 40 years ago and never left, was strategically positioned to help them connect with one another. He was a writer who sang in a semiprofessional chorus and had worked as a professional dancer, so he had relationships in multiple artistic fields.
Nelson and others set out to bring artists together — and to introduce them to audiences eager for their work. This was the birth of the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, which had its first major gathering in 2016 in New York. Since then, it has mounted museum exhibits, concerts, multiple books including this gorgeous book from Oxford University Press), an artistic residency program and more.
(Amazon) "Latter-day Saint Art: A Critical Reader" came out last year from Oxford University Press and the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts.
On May 30-31, it will host a two-day virtual festival with star power. Anyone is welcome to register ($99 general registration, $59 for students) and be part of this highly interactive event.
“This platform we’re using is super impressive,” said Nelson. “It’s not just sitting and watching a Zoom conference. There’ll be chats and a gaming system — the more you engage with stuff, the more points you get. You can win prizes, and you can have a one-on-one chat with somebody. You can schedule meetings and even share a portfolio. So it is much more involved. There are breaks between sessions, like to get up and move with a New York Rockette or pick up a pencil and draw with artist Walter Rane.”
Anyone who buys a ticket will be able to access the festival’s content for three months, so even people who are not able to participate live can attend.
‘Consummate optimist’
One highlight is an opening plenary with composer Cinco Paul, who is best known for being half of the creative team behind three “Despicable Me” movies, “The Secret Life of Pets,” “Horton Hears a Who” and “The Lorax.” He then migrated over to television with the quixotic musical series “Schmigadoon!,” which starred Kristin Chenoweth, Alan Cumming, Cecily Strong and others. The show won him an Emmy and a legion of devoted fans.
“Schmigadoon!” was picked up for “two glorious seasons” on Apple TV+, which said was a major highlight of his career so far. He got to be a showrunner, which meant “there’s nothing in the show that I didn’t approve or want to be there.”
Paul said a possible third season’s 25 songs are ready to go if a network ever decides to bring it back to TV. That probably won’t happen, but he described himself as a “consummate optimist,” a trait he associates with being a Latter-day Saint.
He has many other projects in development. “You have to have a dozen ideas at any one time” to succeed in the entertainment business, he noted. So he has been fulfilling some of his stage dreams, dividing his time between Los Angeles and New York. A stage musical version of “Schmigadoon!” was mounted at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in 2021 to rave reviews.
(Apple TV+) Kristin Chenoweth stars as the villain in "Schmigadoon!"
He has also completed a new musical, “A.D. 16,” which he hopes will be Broadway-bound. It’s based on the idea of Jesus and Mary Magdalene as adolescent neighbors. “What would it be like if your teenage crush was Jesus?” he mused.
McKay Coppins, a prominent journalist for The Atlantic, recorded an interview with Paul in a rehearsal studio with a live audience. Paul also asked some Broadway friends to join him in performing several of his songs. Special guests include Ann Harada (Madam Frau in “Schmigadoon!,” both TV and stage versions, and Christmas Eve in “Avenue Q”), McKenzie Kurtz (a “Frozen” Broadway star who played Betsy in the Kennedy Center stage production of “Schmigadoon!”), and Shayna Steele (who sang on both “Schmigadoon!” soundtracks).
That’s just one part of the festival’s jam-packed agenda. Another presenter is Hawaiian-born Latter-day Saint playwright Melissa Leilani Larson, who is based in Salt Lake City. She’s had more than two dozen of her plays produced — some professionally at regional theaters, some at universities and theater festivals. One of her most popular is an adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” which in a Religion News Service interview she called a “really solid” play that “will have a long life of being staged at a variety of places.”
For the festival she’s unveiling a work in progress, an adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel “North and South,” which will be performed by actors in a “table read.” Larson said she is “excited because I feel like it’s very theatrical and moving.” The challenge is condensing Gaskell’s rather massive 19th-century novel into a two-hour play. “That is the part I’m struggling with right now,” she said, “but it is fun.”
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Playwright Melissa Leilani Larson on the set of her play "Gin Mummy" at Utah Valley University in 2024.
Larson, a Brigham Young University alum, said her Latter-day Saint identity is bound up with her craft and that the theater is a sacred space for her.
“Some of my most personal, strongest interactions with the Spirit have been in an artistic setting. I feel like there is a power. There’s a reason that Jesus taught with parables. And the best theater, just like the best prose and the best poetry, is teaching a lesson without teaching a lesson, if that makes sense.”
Other highlights
Larson and Paul will be joined by a veritable “who’s who” of presenters at the festival, with sessions that include:
• A 20th-anniversary screening of the documentary film “New York Doll,” with filmmaker Greg Whiteley offering behind-the-scenes commentary. The 2005 documentary followed punk band bassist Arthur “Killer” Kane, a convert to Mormonism, as he coped with addiction recovery and his adopted faith.
(Julien James | The New York Times) Latter-day Saint filmmaker Greg Whiteley in Laguna Beach, California, in 2023.
• Four video game music composers talking about their creative process and how they scored blockbuster games like “Call of Duty,” “Assassin’s Creed” and “Resident Evil.”
• Internationally known Latter-day Saint artist Brian Kershisnik conducting “studio tours” with up-and-coming Latter-day Saint artists in Nigeria, Angola, Switzerland, Japan, Argentina and Mexico.
• An audience-prompted improv comedy session with half a dozen professional comedians taking cues from the crowd about where their sketches should go next.
• Author Todd Robert Petersen and illustrator Zoë Petersen presenting two stories about the influence of Latter-day Saint faith in a postapocalyptic world.
• Visual artist Justin Wheatley painting the festival as it happens in real time and answering questions from the audience.
• A keynote address by historian, arts lover and center co-founder Richard Bushman.
In all, it’s a full-to-overflowing program that celebrates the presence and often-unsung contributions of Latter-day Saints in the arts, and Nelson can hardly wait.
“It’s all about having people just be really proud of where we are right now, in creating history and just learning from each other,” he said. “And just having some fun.”
Note to readers • The views expressed in this opinion piece do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.
