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"City of Joseph" Author Performing in This Year's Pageant
NAUVOO, ILLINOIS -- Thirty years after he wrote the musical "City of Joseph"
with composer Maughn McMurdie, Don Oscarson has returned to Nauvoo and is
performing in the musical along with 10 members of his family. Oscarson had
no idea that the show would eventually draw as many as 50,000 people each
year during a two-week run. "I just felt the story of this city needed to be
told in some kind of outdoor production," he said. First performed in an
indoor theater in 1971, the show wasn't performed outdoors until 16 years
after it was written, in 1976, when an outdoor amphitheater was constructed
for it. "There was absolutely nowhere to do this," Oscarson said. Some 1,300
people apply to be a part of the roughly 500-member cast each year,
according to Oscarson, who ran the show for its first two decades.
Source:
'Joseph' author in character
Burlington IA Hawk Eye 28Jul01 US IA Nauv A1
By Stephen A. Martin: The Hawk Eye
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