Holly Welker

Marc Edward Shaw

Singing and Dancing to The Book of Mormon examines a cultural phenomenon, asking: What made The Book of Mormon such a success? In what ways does the work utilize established artistic traditions (musical theatre, comic tropes), but revise them to create something new? What cultural buttons does the work push in religion and world affairs? What artistic and social boundaries and the transgression of those boundaries give the work its edge? What is the effect of the work on particular audiences: in the theatre, in academia, in religious/Mormon studies, and beyond?"

Critical Essays on the Broadway Musical

Singing and Dancing to the Book of Mormon

In Baring Witness , Welker and thirty-six Mormon women write about devotion and love and luck, about the wonder of discovery, and about the journeys, both thorny and magical, to humor, grace, and contentment. They speak to a diversity of life experiences: what happens when one partner rejects Church teachings; marrying outside one's faith; the pain of divorce and widowhood; the horrors of spousal abuse; the hard journey from visions of an idealized marriage to the everyday truth; sexuality within Mormon marriage; how the pressure to find a husband shapes young women's actions and sense of self; and the ways Mormon belief and culture can influence second marriages and same-sex unions. The result is an unflinching look at the earthly realities of an institution central to Mormon life.

Holly Welker

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