Eric Roy Samuelsen (April 10, 1956 – September 20, 2019) was an American playwright and emeritus professor of theatre at

Brigham Young University Brigham Young University (BYU, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university in Provo, Utah. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-d ...

in Provo, Utah. He is considered one of the most important Mormon playwrights, and has been called a Mormon

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

or Henrik Ibsen. He won the

Association for Mormon Letters The Association for Mormon Letters (AML) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1976 to "foster scholarly and creative work in Mormon letters and to promote fellowship among scholars and writers of Mormon literature." Other stated purposes have inc ...

(AML) drama award in

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson ...

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

, and

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shoot ...

, and was AML president from 2007 to 2009. In 2012 he received the Smith–Pettit Foundation Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mormon Letters.

Biography

Eric Samuelsen was born in Provo, Utah, but spent most of his early life in

Bloomington, Indiana Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County in the central region of the U.S. state of Indiana. It is the seventh-largest city in Indiana and the fourth-largest outside the Indianapolis metropolitan area. According to the Mo ...

. His father Roy was an opera singer, which introduced young Samuelsen to a love for theater productions. As a young man he served in

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

as a

missionary A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...

for

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a nontrinitarian Christian church that considers itself to be the restoration of the original church founded by Jesus Christ. The ch ...

(LDS Church). He received a bachelor's degree in theatre from

BYU Brigham Young University (BYU, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university in Provo, Utah. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day S ...

in 1983 and returned to Bloomington and earned a Ph.D. from

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universi ...

in 1991. He taught at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio before joining the faculty at

in 1992. From 1999-2011 Samuelsen ran BYU's playwrighting program. Throughout his career, at least 24 of Samuelsen's plays were produced professionally throughout the United States, including California, Indiana, Louisiana, New York, and Utah. Most of Samuelsen's early plays were produced at

, but around 2003 he began a relationship with

Plan-B Theatre Company Plan-B Theatre is the smallest fully professional theatre company in Salt Lake City, Utah. Plan-B develops and produces unique and socially conscious theatre created by Utah playwrights, and is a resident company at the Rose Wagner Performing A ...

. Since 2006, Plan-B premiered a Samuelsen play every year. He became its playwright in residence in 2012, and many of his newer plays were produced there. This may be due to a more controversial bent in later plays; ''Borderlands'' has a character who is an openly gay

Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into severa ...

youth. Following illness and a diagnosis of

polymyositis Polymyositis (PM) is a type of chronic inflammation of the muscles (inflammatory myopathy) related to dermatomyositis and inclusion body myositis. Its name means "inflammation of many muscles" ('' poly-'' + '' myos-'' + '' -itis''). The inflam ...

, a degenerative muscular disease, Samuelsen retired from BYU in 2012, where he had taught for 20 years. The next year, Plan-B Theatre Company dedicated 2013 as the "Season of Eric", presenting four of Samuelsen's plays.

Works

1970s

* ''Letter From a Prophet'', co-written by Charles Metten. Produced at

, fall 1978. Directed by Charles Metten. * ''A Girl Who Blushes''. One act. Produced April, 1978, at Mormon Festival of the Arts at

. * ''Playing the Game''. Produced in 1979 at

1980s

* ''Emma''. Opera libretto, music by Murray Boren. Produced at

1984. Subsequently, produced by Hell's Kitchen Opera company in 1984. * ''Sex and the New York Yankees''. One act. Produced by Bloomington Playwrights Project, Bloomington Indiana.

1990s

* ''Accommodations''. Produced at

, 1993. Subsequently, published in

Sunstone magazine ''Sunstone'' is a magazine published by the Sunstone Education Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, that discusses Mormonism through scholarship, art, short fiction, and poetry. The foundation began the publication in 1974 and con ...

, June 1994. Won AML annual award in drama, 1994. Directed by Thomas Rogers. * ''The Seating of Senator Smoot''. Produced at

, 1996. Directed by Robert Nelson. The play was also videotaped and broadcast on KBYU. * ''Gadianton''. Produced at

, 1997. Directed by Robert Nelson. Subsequently, published in ''Sunstone''. Won AML award in drama, 1997. Subsequently, produced at

University of Louisiana at Monroe The University of Louisiana Monroe (ULM) is a public university in Monroe, Louisiana. It is part of the University of Louisiana System. History ULM opened in 1931 as Ouachita Parish Junior College. Three years later it became the Northeast Cen ...

. Anthologized in Mahonri Stewart, Saints on Stage. Zarahemla Press, 2013. * ''Without Romance''. Produced at

, 1997. Subsequently, produced at Mormon Arts Festival. * ''The Christmas Box''. Adapted from the novel by Richard Paul Evans. Music by Murray Boren. Produced as a musical at BYU, Pardoe Theater, 1997. Directed by Rodger Sorensen. * ''Winding Sheet''. SLAC staged reading, Dec. 1998. About a Victorian social reformer and prostitution. * ''Coughlaugh''. A theatrical experiment in one act. Blaine Sundrud directed a production at

in 1998. Later produced in 2010 at Brigham Young University. * ''The Way We’re Wired''. Produced at

, 1999. Won AML award for drama, 1999. Subsequently, produced by Nauvoo Theatrical Society in Orem in 2003, directed by Eric Samuelsen. Also adapted by Samuelsen into a novel, Singled Out. Cornerstone, 2000.

2000s

* ''A Love Affair with Electrons''. Produced at

2000. Directed by Eric Samuelsen. * ''Three Women'', 3 one act plays on Mormon women, VIP Arts' Little Brown Theatre, Springville, 2001. Bar and Kell, Community Standard, and Judgment. * ''What Really Happened''. Produced at

, 2001. * ''Magnificence''. March 2002, BYU Margetts. Samuelsen adapted this medieval play by John Skelton. * ''Peculiarities''. Several one acts, produced in several iterations. Tony Gunn directed four one acts in Springville, 2005. Plan B Theatre produced three one acts, including ''Kiss'', which was not included in the production Tony Gunn directed. Jerry Rapier directed a film version, with all six short plays included. * ''Family''. Produced at

in 2005. Directed by David Morgan. Won AML Drama award, also published in ''Sunstone''. Subsequently, produced at Dixie College in St. George, UT, in 2006. Published in Sunstone March 2005. * ''Miasma''. First done as ten-minute play for

SLAM, 2005, as ''The Butcher, The Beggar and the Bed-time Buddy''. Subsequently, produced as full-length play at Plan-B, 2006, published in ''Plays From Beyond the Zion Curtain''. * ''Blood Pudding'', 10-minute play, done for

SLAM, 2006. * ''Behind the Blue Door'', 10-minute play, done for

SLAM, 2007. * ''Burning Desire'', 10-minute play, done for

SLAM, 2008. * ''Perfect Circle'', 10-minute play, done for

/Theatre Arts Conservatory Student SLAM, 2009. * ''Inversion''. Produced by

/Theatre Arts Conservatory, Salt Lake, Rose Wagner, 2008. * ''Intersection''. Produced by

/Theatre Arts Conservatory, Salt Lake, Rose Wagner, 2009.

2010s

* ''He and She Fighting: A Love Story''. New Play Project in Provo, 2010. Directed by Davey Morrison-Dillard. * ''Amerigo''. Produced by

in Salt Lake City, 2010. Subsequently, published in ''More Plays from Behind the Zion Curtain''. * ''Borderlands''. Produced by

in Salt Lake City, 2011. Directed by Jerry Rapier. Published in Sunstone, July 2009, and in 2012 in Plan-B's Even More Plays from Behind the Zion Curtain. * ''The Plan''. Brinton Black Box Theater in the Covey Center for the Arts, Provo UT, 2011 Published in Sunstone, July 2009. * ''Blind Dates''. Covey Center for the Arts, 2012. Four humorous short plays, all with the same title, about blind dates gone wrong. Inspired by the late Horton Foote's original work. Eric Samuelsen, J. Scott Bronson and Melissa Lelani Larson created original works to go along with the original play by Foote.　 * ''Nothing Personal''. Produced by

in Salt Lake City, Rose Wagner, 2013. Directed by Jerry Rapier. * ''Radio Hour Episode 8: Fairyana''. Produced by

and KUER's RadioWest in Salt Lake City, Rose Wagner, 2013. Directed by Cheryl Ann Cluff. * ''Clearing Bombs''. Produced by

in Salt Lake City, Rose Wagner, 2014. Directed by Eric Samuelsen. * ''3''. Produced by

in Salt Lake City, Rose Wagner, 2014. Directed by Cheryl Ann Cluff. Includes three short plays, Bar and Kell, Community Standard, and Duets, two of which were earlier produced as ''Three Women''. * ''The Kreutzer Sonata''. Produced by

and NOVA Chamber Music Seriesin Salt Lake City, Rose Wagner, October 2015, Jerry Rapier directing. * ''The Ice Front''. Produced by

in Salt Lake City, Rose Wagner, 2017. * ''Cassandra''. Produced at the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival, 2018.

References

External links

*
Reviews at AML review database

''Mormon Iconoclast'', Samuelsen's blog

Samuelsen on the BYU College of Fine Arts and Communications wiki

Eric Samuelsen at MormonWiki
{{DEFAULTSORT:Samuelsen, Eric 1956 births 2019 deaths 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Mormon missionaries 21st-century American dramatists and playwrights 21st-century American non-fiction writers American Latter Day Saint writers American male dramatists and playwrights American male non-fiction writers American Mormon missionaries in Norway Brigham Young University alumni Brigham Young University faculty Indiana University alumni People from Bloomington, Indiana Writers from Provo, Utah Theatre in Utah Utah Democrats Wright State University faculty Writers from Indiana Latter Day Saints from Utah Latter Day Saints from Indiana Latter Day Saints from Ohio 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers Mormon playwrights