All the Beautiful Things at the MOA
One of the most thrilling and difficult steps in the process of creating All the Beautiful Things was pouring over so many incredible stories of faith, and choosing which ones would ultimately make it into the final production. There were moving interviews we had edited, many of which had been part of earlier versions of the script, that didn’t make it into the final cut. Before All the Beautiful Things moved into the studio theatre, some of those stories lost from the full script found a temporary home in the galleries of the BYU Museum of Art.
As part of a special event connected with the exhibition Earthbound and Heavenward, cast members shared short monologues beside selected works of art while live cello music moved through the galleries. The evening invited audiences to wander, listen, and encounter stories of faith, doubt, and spiritual return in conversation with the visual art around them.
The setting felt especially meaningful. Earthbound and Heavenward explores discipleship, spiritual longing, and the relationship between earthly experience and the divine, which are questions that resonate deeply with All the Beautiful Things. Surrounded by images of devotion and searching, the interviewees’ words seemed to enter into a new kind of dialogue. The artistic collaboration felt so rich: faculty and students from BYU Theatre, the School of Music, and the Museum of Art worked together to create a special event.
For us, the evening was a reminder of why we were drawn to verbatim theatre in the first place: these stories begin with listening. At the MOA, that act of listening expanded outward through art, music, performers, and audience, creating a shared space for reflection and community.
You can read more about this event in a Daily Universe article, here.
