Earlier this year, Larson received the Smith-Pettit Foundation Award for Outstanding Contribution to Mormon LettersMelissa Leilani Larson discovered her talent and love for crafting words at an early age, writing her first short story in third grade.

For his 14th production at Tuacahn, Threlfall and his cast — which includes BYU alums — take a different approach to “The Sound of Music” BYU professor Tim Threlfall takes the stage at Tuacahn in St. George, Utah as director for the 14th time in his interpretation of “The Sound of Music.”

In February, BYU media arts major Nathan Young was playing Dungeons and Dragons with some friends when one suggested that Young start a role-playing game (RPG) show and take on the role of Dungeon Master. Young said most of his friends laughed it off, but he stayed up all night thinking about the idea. Over the next few months, Young rounded up volunteers from the media arts major to help him with this project. Young said since the idea for the web series was sparked in February, all the grant deadlines had already passed. “We had no budget. Fortunately, we were able to scrape together enough willing people who think the idea is cool from all over campus to help put this together,” Young said. Young’s show ‘Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die’ was live-streamed on July 18 through Youtube. Read the full story at universe.byu.edu.

Few people can claim that a 3 a.m. prank phone call changed their life, but for La Donna Pratt Forsgren (MA ’05), heaven had the last laugh. La Donna and her sister, Monica, had seen a late-night ad for a free copy of the Book of Mormon.

BYU Department of Theatre and Media Arts professor Benjamin Thevenin and alumnus Max Johnson create podcast to discuss societal and political issues in constructive ways BYU professor Benjamin Thevenin and TMA graduate Max Johnson hoped to open a larger conversation about diversity and issues faced by marginalized communities when they created their podcast “Movies as Mirrors.” “We've been trying as faculty in the media arts program to try to integrate more talk about identity, politics, race, class, gender, and sexuality into our curriculum,” said Thevenin. “I think we've made some progress in that area — but we could be doing a much better job of preparing BYU students to engage in effective ways in these conversations.” In order to more fully open the conversation, Thevenin and Johnson invite a guest to each podcast to talk about a movie of their choosing. Most guests are people from Thevenin’s classes, colleagues at BYU and others they know who are passionate about what they think a movie has to say. “We're not particularly interested in talking about what we have to say about these movies,” said Thevenin. “We wanted the podcast to be an opportunity for us to hear what others have to say about their experiences — how the movie resonates with them.” Read the full story at tma.byu.edu.

The 42nd College Television Awards will take place this Saturday, April 1 at 7 p.m. and will be livestreamed. Thirteen BYU students have received nominations for various awards. Check out this article to read more about their nominations and to see where to view.

The University Accessibility Center has helped students achieve their academic goals by providing them with the resources they need and fostering inclusion in the campus community.

Alex Boyé visited BYU to perform with two MDT students in the recent “Stories of Life'' event.