We are pleased to announce the 2023 Association for Mormon Letters Awards finalists in Drama. The final awards will be announced and presented on July 20, as part of the 2024 Association for Mormon Letters Virtual Conference. We will be announcing the other category finalists over the coming week. The finalists and winners are chosen by juries of authors, academics, and critics. The announcements include blurbs and author biographies, usually adapted from the creator and distributor websites.
Drama
Melissa Leilani Larson. The Orphanage. Liahona Preparatory Academy, April 28-May 1, 2023.
In the summer of 1942 and within the locked gates of the Warsaw ghetto, some 200 orphans live in the care of the “Old Doctor,” Janusz Korczak. Under Korczak’s guidance, the orphanage is its own little city where every child is assigned a job and a way to contribute. As rumors about the fate of Warsaw’s Jews begin to swirl, Korczak determines to prepare his charges for whatever danger the future may hold—by staging a play, The Post Office, by Rabindranath Tagore. The play is performed in conjunction with Larson’s adaption of The Post Office. A production of The Orphanage will be performed at Studio Wayne in Waynesboro, WV, June 28-30, 2024.
Melissa Leilani Larson is a writer based in Salt Lake City. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop. She has won four AML Drama Awards, for Little Happy Secrets (2009), Pride and Prejudice (2014), Pilot Program (2015), and Mountain Law (2020), and was awarded the 2018 Smith-Pettit Foundation Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mormon Letters. Other produced plays include: Martyrs’ Crossing, A Flickering, Lady in Waiting, The Weaver of Raveloe, The Edible Complex, Persuasion, Sweetheart Come, and Bitter Lemon. Little Happy Secrets and Pilot Program were published together in a book titled Third Wheel (2017). Her produced screenplays include Jane and Emma and Freetown, both of which were AML Film Award finalists.
Debora Threedy. Mountain Meadows. Pygmalion Theatre Company, Rose Wagner Center for Performing Arts, Salt Lake City, Feb. 17-March 4, 2023.
Taylor Vaughn and Mark Greenhalgh (book and lyrics), Jonathan Keith (music). The Principle Wife. Covey Center, Provo, July 7-31, 2023. Jonathan Keith was awarded “Best Original Score” at the 2020 Los Angeles Film Festival. His eclectic composer palate involving experimental sound design fused with orchestral textures continues to shine out among composers for film, TV and games. The LA-based composer’s music can be heard on Netflix, Sony, Disney, Apple TV, CBS, and commercials and media throughout the globe. Jonathan is a graduate of the USC screen scoring program. He was the composer for the film Green Flake, a previous AML award winner.
Charlotte Westover (book, lyrics, music). Hattie’s Echo. BYU Black Box Theatre, Nov. 30- Dec. 2, 2023.
A musical. Hattie, a 15 year old from Liverpool, England, documents her journey of faith in a journal while traveling with a company of saints to America. The year is 1856 and these early pioneers are off to a place where they might freely worship their God, united as one people… But choosing to have faith over fear is a big ask of a girl who isn’t sure what she believes yet. Nearly 160 years later, Marjean, a recently-divorced mother, faces the prospect of raising two teenagers alone while still recovering from the heartbreak of her husband’s betrayal. When Marjean’s kids discover a dusty old journal in the garage, their ties to the family that came before them serves as a lifeline. Hattie’s honest record of the handcart pull reverberates into the heart of Marjean, who finds herself walking her own trail in 2019. Weighed down by loss, loneliness, addiction, and doubt, Marjean must discover what Hattie and every generation that followed discovered. She must uncover exactly what it is that she’s made of and what it truly means to be a pioneer.
Charlotte Westover is a multi-award winning playwright from Springfield, Oregon. She is currently based in Provo, Utah and is studying playwriting at Brigham Young University. Hattie’s Echo is her first full length musical.