Latter-day Village Square

In Vancouver, Washington designing/building scenery for “With Mine Own Hand” - A new musical, telling the story of Nephi.

This was a production conceived by my dear friend Ramona Zabriskie - a project she and her friend Becky Alexander have been laboring over for 15 years - and when she called asking if I could take over the set design a few months ago, I was thrilled for the opportunity.

The cast was well into the rehearsal period when I arrived from my home in Utah just two weeks before the show opened. I had been so busy with Latter-day Village that I had really done very little in the way of designing the show before I arrived. The basic platforms had already been planned and soon were up, ready for finishing at the Vancouver Stake Center. I was the house guest of an assistant director, Lori Williams, who I met a few minutes before I went to sleep that first night. As it turned out, Lori is a professional costumer, unbeknownst to Ramona. Divine intervention was at play, for we ended up creating much of the set with fabric! I could never have done it without Lori’s constant expert help.

Here is a photo of the Tree of Life we toiled over so carefully - the picture cannot do justice to the impact of it appearing aglow on stage to the gasps of the audience.

After performances, families came up, wanting to touch the tree and have their picture taken in front of it. It turned out better than any of us even hoped.

I took my laptop to try to continue to work on the website while in Vancouver - but I obviously was not to be dividing my focus, for it completely failed to work for me, and before I knew it, I hadn’t a spare moment to spend on anything but making the scenery.

It was a special treat to see Ramona’s husband Dale on stage again as Old Nephi - as he recalled and wrote his history on the plates. Dale and Ramona and I met when we were all 18 at the Playmill Theater in West Yellowstone, Montana - and I had hardly seen him perform since then (except to sing and do skits etc). He did a marvelous job. As did his son Grant, who played Young Nephi. Grant was so scared as a little boy to even give a talk in Primary, so watching him take the stage so powerfully was awesome.

The cast, production staff and their families helped immensely in the construction of the set. Between large amounts of sweat, a good share of tears, and bloody knuckles, punctured and blistered fingers - and with much duct tape, hot glue, plastic ties, and an old faithful staple gun, we put our blood, sweat and tears into the scenery and of course the whole show. It was a wonderful production!

The Director of Cultural Arts for the church flew up from SLC for the final performance and spent a lot of time after the show sharing his impressions - that it was a triumph in effectively sticking with the scriptures verbatim in a dramatic production - that the testimonies of the performers were so powerfully felt by the audience - that every aspect of the show was so carefully attended to.

The show was filmed by Ramona’s son Chris, and the DVD can be ordered now at http://www.nephi-story.com. The script will soon be available for future productions. The music is fabulous. It was an honor to be a part of it and meet so many dear and talented people.

Debra