Church’s 150th Birthday Plans Announced

As birthday celebrations go, the Church’s 150th promises to be a cultural feast.

Wards, stakes, and regions throughout the Church will have the option of producing varied cultural presentations to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the organization of the Church on April 6, 1830.

Wards and stakes have been sent guidelines for planning sesquicentennial cultural activities. Cultural arts and physical activities fairs will provide a showcase for talents and traditions of local cultures.

The “centerpiece” optional activity will be production of a musical, Within These Walls, written by Margaret Smoot and Robert Bruner. The production tells of three families who live, at different times, in the same stone house. The families are colonists, immigrants, and contemporaries. The musical will be produced in Salt Lake City; and the script, set, and tape recordings of the music will be made available at cost to wards, stakes, and regions.

Other sesquicentennial activities include—

—A “musical retrospective” telling the story of the Restoration of the gospel through hymns woven into a narrative production. The program will be presented in Salt Lake City in September 1980 and made available worldwide for local productions.

—A series of concerts in the Assembly Hall featuring Latter-day Saint musicians from throughout the world.

—Packets of art, available through Church magazines, featuring both historical and current art which tells the story of the history of the Church. One packet will include paintings of existing art. A second packet will include newly commissioned paintings by contemporary artists.

—Sesquicentennial balls, an optional activity for wards and stakes. These formal functions would be similar in nature to the balls encouraged by the Prophet Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, Illinois.