Prologue

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Jake Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Musical Theater ◽  
Typical Response ◽  
Book Of Mormon ◽  
Mormon History ◽  
Matt Stone ◽  
Trey Parker

Whenever people found out I was writing a book on Mormons and musicals, the typical response was a skeptical, “Well, I know one.” To be fair, the Broadway hit Book of Mormon is nearly unavoidable and has really upped the ante in terms of Mormon representation in popular culture. Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone brought a queer version of Mormonism to the stage in 2011 and largely, I think, showed Mormons a version of themselves they found unbelievable yet showed non-Mormons a version of Mormonism that instinctively felt true and real. Where you fall within these two camps probably has less to do with the kind of Mormon history you know and more to do with how much you are aware of just how entwined Mormon ideologies and musical theater really are. Mormons and musicals (and Mormons ...

Exoticized Voices, Racialized Bodies

2019 ◽  
pp. 83-112
Author(s):  
Jake Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Musical Theater ◽  
Musical Life ◽  
Cultural Center ◽  
White American ◽  
Book Of Mormon ◽  
American Values ◽  
History Of ◽  
Polynesian Cultural Center ◽  
The 1960S

Just as Mormons used musical theater to purchase whiteness in the early twentieth century, so too do Mormons begin in the 1960s to use musical theater to associate other racial minorities with white American values. By allowing certain groups the opportunity to voice whiteness through the conventions of musical theater, Mormons reimagined the genre as a tool to transform some minority members into exemplars of whiteness. This chapter first details the history of Mormonism in Hawaii and the musical theater productions at the Mormon-owned Polynesian Cultural Center that began there in 1963. Importantly, Mormons have long understood dark-skinned Polynesians, like themselves, to be a chosen people, rather than cursed--displaced Jews, in fact, whose origins are explained in The Book of Mormon. The chapter then analyzes the Mormon musical Life . . . More Sweet than Bitter, billed as a sequel to Fiddler on the Roof, for its narrative explicitly connecting Mormons to Judaism. The musical stage thus becomes for modern Mormons a reckoning device to demonstrate belonging and acceptance in exotic terms--“whitening” the dark-skinned Polynesians and demonstrating fluidity between Mormonism and Judaism.

Voice Interrupted

2019 ◽  
pp. 142-168
Author(s):  
Jake Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Musical Theater ◽  
Book Of Mormon ◽  
Multiple Voices ◽  
Mormon Church ◽  
The Church

This chapter places the 2011 Broadway sensation Book of Mormon within the context of Correlation. The musical Book of Mormon demonstrates that interrupting ancient mythologies with current popular mythologies may help strengthen people facing unimaginable hardships, and that the singular message of American fundamentalism--one built upon obedience and narrow views of piety--will ultimately fail. Book of Mormon, along with other musical satires emerging in recent years from within Mormonism, represent musical theater affronts to the Mormon Church that have become more prominent in the last decades of the twentieth century as the Church removes dissenting members, including those espousing feminist or intellectual ideologies seemingly at odds with current Church policies. This chapter situates the concept of excommunication within musicologist Nina Eidsheim’s vibrational theory and Levinas’s ethics of communication, and suggests that Mormonism can be a powerful vehicle for improving lives if it returns to its original principle where multiple voices are seen as an asset, not a liability.

The American Musical and the Faustian Bargain

2019 ◽  
pp. 504-522
Author(s):  
Raymond Knapp
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Musical Theater ◽  
Commercial Success ◽  
Film Version ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Musical Theater ◽  
Daniel Webster ◽  
The Devil

The history of the American musical is framed by spectacular successes driven by Faustian elements: The Black Crook (1866, running for decades, based loosely on Weber’s Der Freischütz [The Freeshooter]) and The Phantom of the Opera (1988; still running as of 2019). Yet, straightforwardly Faust-based musicals are rare, with Damn Yankees (1955) being the single obvious example. A discussion of Damn Yankees relates it to other treatments in popular culture, including the film version of The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941), as a basis for a wider discussion of Faustian elements deployed in American musical theater, including magic, striving, earning, idealism, temptation, and sexuality, leading to a consideration of the Faustian bargain of the genre itself, which uses the magic of music, dance, sex, and spectacle to seduce audiences and achieve commercial success, but at the apparent price of its artistic soul.

Orson Pratt’s Enduring Influence on The Book of Mormon

2019 ◽  
pp. 83-104
Author(s):  
Paul Gutjahr
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Book Of Mormon ◽  
Mormon History ◽  
A Site

First published in 1830, over the next half-century The Book of Mormon appeared in some dozen new editions. Perhaps the most important edition of the nineteenth century appeared in 1879 and was edited by Orson Pratt. When this edition appeared, Pratt had served as a member of the original Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, a mission president in Britain, and was a member of Brigham Young’s “Vanguard Company” that crossed the Western plains to select a site for Mormon colonization. More important, he was one of early Mormonism’s premier educators and theologians. His edition bore all the marks of a lifetime of study, presenting the book in a highly systematized format and including footnotes that incorporated theological glosses on Mormon history, archaeology, and geology. This essay explores the origin of many of the textual changes found in the 1879 edition and the enduring influence of these changes.

Epilogue

2019 ◽  
pp. 169-170
Author(s):  
Jake Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Musical Theater ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Music Genres ◽  
Book Of Mormon ◽  
American Values ◽  
Passive Response

The Epilogue briefly peers into Mormonism’s unfolding relationship with American culture, suggesting that the story of Mormons and musical theater might well be a fitting encapsulation of the American interception of modernity. Musicals and Mormons have come a long way since their rootedness in Jacksonian principles; their regional genesis quickly fanned out to become immense global expressions of American values. In the meantime, America changed. What was once ideal and reputable has become goofy and outmoded, and Broadway and Mormonism have been forced to pay for their naive pasts with cynicism and guffaws. The musical theater industry opted to change its image by aggressively appropriating popular music genres. Mormon leaders have chosen a more passive response, having faith that stasis will eventually reveal the radical qualities of Mormon ideals. As a result, musical theater has begun to escape Mormonism as its once-familiar venue for practicing its theology of voice. Book of Mormon is one example of this fallout--its message both a condemnation and an invitation to become something better. In the end, the tale of Mormons and musicals is another story about how new ways of sounding create opportunities for other ways of living.

“Come, Listen to a Prophet’s Voice, and Hear the Word of God”

2019 ◽  
pp. 32-54
Author(s):  
Jake Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Musical Theater ◽  
Word Of God ◽  
Spiritual Leaders ◽  
Joseph Smith ◽  
Book Of Mormon ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Vocal Modeling

This chapter traces the roots of a musical theater aesthetic in Mormonism by arguing that vocal theatricality is a theological principle in the faith, to the degree that Mormonism is built upon a theology of voice. Two stories of vocal theatricality in early Mormon lore--namely, when Brigham Young mimics the voice of slain Mormon prophet Joseph Smith and when Book of Mormon prophet Nephi impersonates his slain ecclesiastical leader in order to obtain a set of sacred records--exemplify the Mormon ideal of a disciplined voice capable of speaking literally the voice of another person. This practice of vocal modeling is understood by Mormons to be a divine trait, one practiced by Jesus and other spiritual leaders in Mormon mythology, including modern-day Mormon prophets; learning how to do this well in effect prepares the faithful Mormon to someday be god-like himself. This chapter argues that it is a short leap from vocal theatricality in everyday contexts to vocal theatricality on the musical stage and suggests that Mormons turned to musical theater so readily in the twentieth century in part because it offered a secular platform to practice vocal theatrics.

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