The Zion curtain: A documentary play

Update Item Information
Publication Type honors thesis
School or College College of Fine Arts
Department Theatre
Faculty Mentor Sydney Cheek-O'Donnell
Creator Russell, Curtis
Title The Zion curtain: A documentary play
Year graduated 2014
Date 2014-04
Description The Zion Curtain is a documentary play about the collision of ideology and civil rights, using the words of real people to trace the roots and show the effects of reactionary, homophobic doctrines in the Mormon Church. Every "um," "uh," and pause is performed as spoken in original interviews by the author and Matthew Beckham in the fall of 2008 when they were still members of the LDS (Mormon) Church for a documentary film that never came to fruition. They had met while serving as LDS missionaries in Chile in 2000. The making of the documentary coincided with national social upheaval springing from the passage of California's Proposition 8, intended to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and supported largely by religious organizations like the Mormon Church. These events, combined with other experiences and discussions related to the filming of the documentary, eventually contributed to Russell and Beckham's decision to leave the church and embrace antitheist philosophies. One of the most potent of those experiences was an interview conducted with Mary and Peter Danzig, prior members of the LDS Church's Orchestra at Temple Square, who faced private and public persecution following Peter's decision to speak out publicly against the church's stance on homosexuality. Their moving story, told in their own words, forms the bulk of the play's second act.
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Subject Homosexuality - Religious aspects - Latter Day Saint churches; Mormon gays
Language eng
Rights Management (c) Curtis Russell
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 262,680 bytes
Permissions Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1297204
ARK ark:/87278/s6905d22
Setname ir_htoa
ID 205933
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6905d22
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