The Curtain Call Isn’t All

Joyce Smith still laughs about the time when, as a young girl, she stood up to give a reading and forgot her lines. After a minute or two of agonizing silence, she fled down the aisle and went home.

She has come a long way since then. Over the past forty years, Joyce has given many successful performances and directed outstanding productions.

Her commitment to excellence is well known in the Salt Lake Valley. Several years ago when she directed members of the Salt Lake Grant Stake in The Music Man, Elder G. Homer Durham of the First Quorum of the Seventy told her afterward, “I have seen this play performed in London and in New York, but this is the best show I have seen.”

Joyce believes drama can provide an invaluable service in the Church because it offers a great opportunity for everyone to develop and express their talents and fosters “a marvelous sense of family and unity which endures.”

Beyond praying with every cast at every performance, Joyce sends thank-you notes to everyone involved with a show. She obtains a commitment to excellence from the cast because she gives it herself. What gives the most strength to her talent and leadership, though, is her great love for people. Those she works with love to do their best to please her.—Sandra Dawn Brimhall, Salt Lake City, Utah

Joyce Smith. (Photography by Robert J. McCue.)