Elizabeth A. Harris

The manager, Henry James Mason, 52, of Mableton, Georgia, was wanted on a warrant for terroristic threats and acts against Timothy Savage, whose daughter Joycelyn is believed to be living with Kelly. Savage told police that after he tried to contact his daughter, Mason told him over the phone he would do “harm” to Savage and his family and threatened to kill him.

Mason surrendered to the Henry County Sheriff’s Office, near Atlanta, and was released on $10,000 bond Friday. In a statement released by his lawyer, Mason denied he had “engaged in any acts of bullying, harassment, or aggressive acts.” He said he had, in fact, tried to help Timothy Savage and his wife, Jonjelyn, re-establish a relationship with their daughter.

The police report was filed last May, but a storm of controversy has surrounded Kelly in recent weeks, after “Surviving R. Kelly” aired on Lifetime. The documentary series chronicled decades of allegations against Kelly, including that he operates a so-called sex cult in which he physically and emotionally abuses women and keeps them from their families.

Timothy and Jonjelyn Savage, who both appeared in the documentary, say Joycelyn is among those women. But Kelly’s representatives say that the women who live and travel with him are doing so voluntarily and that he has not abused any of them. Last year, TMZ released a video in which Joycelyn said she was happy living with Kelly and was there of her own volition.

“They were perfectly consensual relationships,” Kelly’s lawyer, Steven Greenberg, said last week.

Timothy Savage said Mason’s call wasn’t the last time he was warned about speaking out against Kelly.

According to the Henry County police, another Kelly associate, Don Russell, sent Savage a text early in the morning Jan. 3, the day the first episode of “Surviving R. Kelly” aired on Lifetime. Russell sent Savage the text message about 5 a.m., saying that “it would be best for him and the family if the documentary does not air,” according to a police report.

Savage called police. While an officer was at the house, Russell called Savage, who put his phone on speaker so the officer could hear. Russell, the officer wrote in his report, accused Savage of giving Lifetime false information and told Savage that if he continued supporting the documentary, “that they (R. Kelly/Don) would be forced to provide information disproving Timothy” and that the information “would ruin him, his reputation, business and family, because it would show him a liar.”

Police said Friday that detectives were reviewing the call. Russell, who has not been charged with a crime, declined to comment about the call Friday.

Gerald A. Griggs, a lawyer who represents Timothy and Jonjelyn Savage, said Friday that he hoped Mason’s arrest would serve as a “message to Mr. Robert Sylvester Kelly and his camp, that no one will be bullied or threatened, and we will pursue legal action against anyone who attempts to bully or threaten the Savages.”

Kelly is not facing criminal charges, but prosecutors in Atlanta and Chicago, where Kelly has had homes, began looking into accusations against him after the documentary aired.

Kelly has been dogged for years by accusations, but has never been convicted of a crime. He was acquitted in Chicago on child pornography charges in 2008, in a case that involved a tape that prosecutors said showed him having sex with a 13-year-old girl. But the girl in the video did not testify and Kelly’s lawyers argued that her identity could not be proved.

He has also settled lawsuits against him going back to the 1990s. Tracy Sampson, a woman who said she was an intern at Epic Records in 1999, told Dateline in an interview to be aired Friday night that Kelly sexually abused her beginning when she was 16. She said she sued Kelly and reached a $250,000 settlement.

Greenberg told Dateline that every woman who had come forward to accuse Kelly of misconduct was lying.

The documentary, which followed years of reporting on R. Kelly’s treatment of women, led to calls for RCA, Kelly’s record company, which is a division of Sony Music Entertainment, to drop him. On Friday, RCA did just that.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/18/arts/music/r-kelly-manager-arrest.html" id="3184a08d-fd81-37d4-a34e-5fa8a2bbaf53">The New York Times</a>.

R. Kelly's Manager Surrenders on Threat Charge

A manager for R. Kelly turned himself in to authorities in Georgia on Friday on charges he threatened a man who accuses the R&amp;B; singer of holding his daughter captive.

Mason surrendered to the Henry County Sheriff’s Office, near Atlanta, and was released on $10,000 bond Friday. A lawyer for Mason declined to comment Friday morning.

Timothy Savage and his wife, Jonjelyn, who both appeared in the documentary, say Joycelyn is among those women. But Kelly’s representatives say that the women who live and travel with him are doing so voluntarily and that he has not abused any of them. Last year, TMZ released a video in which Joycelyn said she was happy living with Kelly and was there of her own volition.

The call was referred to investigators. Russell, who has not been charged with a crime, declined to comment about the call Friday, and police did not return calls seeking comment.

The manager, Henry James Mason, 52, of Mableton, Georgia, was wanted on a warrant for terroristic threats and acts against Timothy Savage, whose daughter Joycelyn is believed to be living with Kelly. Timothy Savage told police that after he tried to contact his daughter, Mason told him over the phone that he would do “harm” to Savage and his family and threatened to kill him.

Mason surrendered to the Henry County Sheriff’s Office, near Atlanta, and was released on $10,000 bond Friday.

Timothy Savage and his wife, Jonjelyn, who both appeared in the documentary, say that Joycelyn is among those women. But Kelly’s representatives say that the women who live and travel with him are doing so voluntarily and that he has not abused any of them. Last year, TMZ released a video in which Joycelyn said she was happy living with Kelly and was there of her own volition.

Gerald A. Griggs, a lawyer who represents Timothy and Jonjelyn Savage, said Friday that he hoped the arrest would serve as a “message to Mr. Robert Sylvester Kelly and his camp, that no one will be bullied or threatened, and we will pursue legal action against anyone who attempts to bully or threaten the Savages.”

A lawyer for Mason declined to comment Friday morning.

A manager for R. Kelly turned himself in to authorities in Georgia on Friday on charges that he threatened a man who accuses the R&amp;B; singer of holding his daughter captive.

The case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, which found in his favor, saying, essentially, that if someone could watch the whole thing on television, why would they bother to get off the couch and see it in person?

Today, a new set of cases is nudging the legal boundaries of who controls certain performances. This dispute centers on dancing avatars in “Fortnite Battle Royale,” one of the biggest video games in the world, and whether the moves they do are owned by somebody else.

Three performers have sued Epic Games, which makes “Fortnite,” an addictive, money-minting juggernaut of a survival game where players fight it out to stay alive while they kill everybody else. The game is free to download, but players purchase add-ons as they go along, including a rotating offering of dance moves called “emotes.”

Among those moves, according to the complaints, filed beginning in December in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, is an enthusiastic back-and-forth arm-swinging motion that looks just like the Floss, a speedy little dance created by Russell Horning, a teenager from Lawrenceville, Georgia, who goes by the name Backpack Kid.

There is also a snappy number called Fresh that looks uncannily like the Carlton Dance done by Alfonso Ribeiro, the actor who played Carlton on the show “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.”

And there is a swishy-swaying motion, which the complaint says is identical to the Milly Rock, created by rapper 2 Milly.

“People book me, they pay me to come perform the song and do the dance,” 2 Milly said in an interview. “They’re stealing from me.”

Ribeiro, 2 Milly and Backpack Kid’s mother (on his behalf) are suing Epic Games for copyright infringement. They are also suing Take-Two Interactive Software, maker of the NBA 2K games, which also allow players to buy the dances.

The plaintiffs’ lawyer, David L. Hecht, said that his firm has spoken with a “significant number” of people about bringing similar claims and that he has hired a team of people, mostly in their 20s, to play video games for him as research.

Hecht said more suits are in the works, and a quick internet search suggests he could easily fill a courtroom with clients. One video posted on YouTube shows 58 “Fortnite” emotes, including fairly simple gestures and high-energy dances, alongside what appear to be their original references. The video has been viewed more than 28 million times.

Hecht said that side-by-side comparisons of his clients’ dances and the “Fortnite” emotes show that “the movements of the entire body are being duplicated.”

Epic Games said it would not comment on ongoing litigation. Take-Two did not respond to a request for comment.

The companies have not yet filed their defenses in court, though they are likely to argue that the dance moves cannot be copyrighted. The lawsuits are among several recent cases testing copyright laws that were written in a vastly different technological age. Indeed, as digital animation has become richly vivid and detailed, even who owns the rights to tattoos drawn on athletes’ bodies has become an issue in sports video games.

But while there is plenty of case law regarding the copyrighting of songs and written works, there is far less in the record regarding choreography. One case several years ago involved Bikram Choudhury, the now-disgraced yoga instructor, who tried to copyright a “hot yoga” sequence as a choreographic work. He lost.

Several intellectual property lawyers suggested there have not been a lot of choreography cases because there is not a lot of money in choreography.

And while they were tickled by the “Fortnite” cases (“'Fortnite’ meets ‘Flossing,’ it’s the perfect storm of things!” said Jeanne Fromer, a professor at New York University School of Law), they were generally pessimistic about the lawsuits’ chances.

When deciding if a dance is eligible for copyright, courts look at a combination of factors, including its level of creativity, its complexity or length, and whether the work was independently created. You can’t copyright a musical note or a word, for example, but string enough of them together and you’ve got a song you can own. Individual dance steps are likewise not copyrightable, according to the copyright office’s rule book. And the dances targeted in “Fortnite” are all quite short.

“The question here is really an unlitigated question, which is what is the minimum quantum necessary for a choreographic work?” said David Nimmer, an expert in copyright law. “Is there enough here to have a choreographic work, or are they just the basic building blocks, like words are the basic building blocks of poems, and nobody can own it.”

Hecht argues that what’s used in “Fortnite” are “the most identifiable, signature aspects of those original performances.” The fact that the dances are available individually for specific prices — about $8 for the Fresh and $5 for the Floss, according to the complaints — makes their sale especially egregious, according to Hecht.

Hecht, along with Chance the Rapper, has also accused Epic Games of exploiting the works of black artists in particular, though in the case of “Fortnite,” the YouTube clip of 58 emotes shows plenty of work by performers of other ethnicities.

Even if a dance is deemed long enough, there are other hurdles. For example, the U.S. Copyright Office will not register what it calls a social dance, like ballroom dancing or break dancing.

Thomas Kadri, a resident fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, said that if “Fortnite” has copied moves, “it does strike me as a little unfair.”

But if every move could be copyrighted, he said, it could stifle the creation of new work: “It becomes very difficult when every building block of culture becomes somebody’s property in a way that can exclude people from using it.”

Another argument in the “Fortnite” lawsuits is that those shimmying avatars are violating the performers’ “right of publicity,” which gives someone control over things like their likeness, name and voice. The human cannonball dispute was this kind of case, and Vanna White once sued Samsung for an ad featuring a blond, begowned robot flipping over giant letters. Both White and the cannonball, Zacchini, won, but intellectual property lawyers said this argument, too, is likely a long shot against “Fortnite.”

“Think about how many people want to dance at a club on a Saturday night versus how many people want to shoot themselves out of a cannon,” said Robert Brauneis, a co-director of the intellectual property program at George Washington University Law School. “I think the court would take into account what kind of activity this is going to burden.”

Fromer, the NYU law professor, said that she, too, would expect these suits to fail in the face of current copyright law, but given the power of memes and video snippets in our culture, she wondered if they should.

“I’m more intrigued by whether we ought to be re-evaluating copyright law in a world where we have bite-sized works and larger works, as well,” she said. “There is money to be made in the video game space. The question really is who deserves it.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/arts/fortnite-floss-dance-lawsuits.html" id="0d19deb0-ca8d-3e90-a38b-efb239b9231c">The New York Times</a>.

A Real-World Battle Over Dancing Avatars: Did 'Fortnite' Steal the Floss?

In 1973, performer Hugo Zacchini sued Scripps‐Howard Broadcasting after one of its news programs aired his entire act on television — an act in which he shot himself out of a cannon at an Ohio county fair and landed in a net 200 feet away.

The most recent accusation was made by Ashley Watson, who worked as Tyson’s assistant on another show, “Cosmos.” Tyson behaved inappropriately with her, making comments “infused with sexual innuendoes,” she said Thursday. She said she had quit her job as a result.

That accusation was published on the website Patheos in November, in an article that quoted another accuser, Katelyn N. Allers, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Bucknell University. She used the phrase “uncomfortable and creepy” to describe his behavior toward her at a party after an American Astronomical Society event in 2009. The article went on to detail a more serious allegation that had been made before by Tchiya Amet El Maat, who accused Tyson of having raped her when they were graduate students at the University of Texas at Austin.

In a 1,600-word Facebook post last month, Tyson described the first two incidents as benign and denied the third.

“Accusations can damage a reputation and a marriage,” he wrote. “Sometimes irreversibly. I see myself as loving husband and as a public servant — a scientist and educator who serves at the will of the public.”

Fox Broadcasting and National Geographic, which broadcast “Cosmos,” said in November they were launching an investigation. At the same time, National Geographic quietly placed “StarTalk” on hiatus until the investigation was completed. Season 5 began in November, according to the show’s website, but only three episodes have aired. “Cosmos” is scheduled to begin its new season in March. A spokeswoman for the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where Tyson is the director of the Hayden Planetarium, said it was conducting an investigation as well.

The suspension was first reported by Variety.

“We stopped airing new episodes of ‘StarTalk’ at the same time so it would not impede the investigation,” said Christopher Albert, a spokesman for National Geographic. He said a decision would be made about the future of the show “once the investigation is complete.”

In an email on Thursday in response to a request for comment, Tyson said, “This is old news. Nothing has aired since the beginning of December.”

Watson said Thursday that she has spoken with two people as part of the investigation. On the Fox lot in Los Angeles, she met Anna Druker, vice president of employee relations at Fox. Watson said she met with Michael A. Robbins, the founder of Extti, a company that conducts workplace investigations, in Hollywood.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/03/arts/television/neil-degrasse-tyson-startalk.html" id="efc86c5c-9bb3-3ed4-a5f8-5b7834cd92b8">The New York Times</a>.

Neil deGrasse Tyson’s TV show “StarTalk” was placed on hiatus late last year after sexual misconduct allegations against him were made public, National Geographic, the network that airs the program, said Thursday.

Neil deGrasse Tyson's Show Is Pulled Amid Misconduct Allegations

He also slid into his best creepy smirk and sexually harassed an underling in a corporate training video.

“Not only are you a solid candidate,” his character said to a woman up for a promotion, “but I’ve been watching you move around out here, and you’re solid everywhere.”

“What?” he responded. “Being hot’s a good thing!”

This project may not win Dillinger any trophies, but office workers around the country are seeing a lot of him — or other actors playing odious characters just like his. New or expanded laws mandating sexual harassment training in states like New York and California, as well as a nationwide awakening to a very real problem, have fostered a market for workplace training videos and for actors who can bring #MeToo to life, usually in roles lasting just a minute or two.

They play harassers and their victims, supervisors who comfort, colleagues who intervene, and co-workers who look into the camera and say it’s not their problem. On Backstage.com, the job listings site for actors, casting calls are going out for parts such as, “A client of a big manufacturing company; a little sleazy; makes an unwanted advance on a salesperson,” and “an account manager at a large manufacturing company; strong and articulate; she stands up for herself” when a client makes an unwanted advance.

These videos do not, naturally, have a reputation as great cinema, which is not surprising considering that, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, they can have a lot of legal ground to cover. In New York, for example, training programs have to define sexual harassment, give information on state and federal sexual harassment laws and lay out avenues for handling complaints. There must also be interaction, so there are often little quizzes along the way to keep viewers paying attention, or least keep them from wandering off completely.

They are made by law firms, human resource outfits and companies that specialize in compliance training, which may also be making videos on topics such as respectful communication and bribery. Some keep the whole operation in-house, with a small team of people wearing multiple filmmaking hats (director today, producer tomorrow), while others contract with outside film companies to hire actors and put the videos together.

The productions are nothing if not efficient.

“When I get a new crew they look at the call sheets and go, ‘Are you out of your mind? You’re giving us 45 minutes to shoot two pages!’” said Lori Richardson, the producer and director of video content at Emtrain, a compliance training company. In a typical film, it might take at least half a day to shoot that amount, she said. “But I’m pretty quick on set and I keep it moving along.”

Laura Faye Smith, the actress who was harassed by Dillinger’s character, said it took about half a day to shoot her scenes.

She didn’t have to use too much imagination to get into character.

She said she once had a real-life job as a human resources manager, which including giving sexual harassment training. Then, one day, it happened to her: one of her superiors, who was also the boss’s father, put his arm around her, got right in her face, and said her high heels made her the perfect height for him to kiss her.

“No matter how much you know about this,” she said, “when it happens to you, it’s hard not to go into this thing of ‘did I bring this on somehow?’”

In an effort to make the scripts more relatable to these real-life experiences, film companies say they are trying to make videos more engaging, with better acting and higher production values. They also change up where scenes are set to make them more relevant to the companies who may be buying the films. Dillinger’s character harassed Smith’s twice — once in a printing plant and once in a retail setting.

Emtrain said it has created scenes that riff off current events, like the memo written by a Google engineer that said “personality differences” between men and women helped explain why there were fewer women engineers and high ranking executives at the company.

Some companies have started to use virtual reality. Mursion, a San Francisco startup, allows managers — as well as prospective teachers, Air Force captains, executives from finance and tech — to practice difficult conversations with an avatar. In one training, you are a commanding officer in the armed forces and a woman comes to you because she hooked up with a subordinate who is now defying her authority.

There is a range in quality and approach in these programs, though they tend to charge in roughly the same way. Traliant, which produced the videos with Dillinger and Smith, said it starts at about $25 per user, but that price can drop to less than $5 for companies with more than 10,000 people. Emtrain generally charges $47 per person for the year, dropping to about $20 for an organization of 3,000, and it includes additional services like a way for people to ask anonymous questions on tricky issues like bias, ethics and harassment, and feedback for companies on potential problem areas based on what employees say.

The actors themselves generally make a few hundred dollars per video, not a large sum, but also not bad for what often amounts to a few hours of work.

While many executives and lawmakers have embraced these training videos, there are questions about how effective they can be. For years, companies have used such videos to try to defend themselves from any lawsuits saying they didn’t do enough to ensure safe working environments. Whether workers took the training to heart was not necessarily the top concern.

“My worry is that there will be some category or organization who believes they have checked the box by conducting training, whether or not there is any commitment from leadership to actually change the culture,” said Fatima Goss Graves, president of the National Women’s Law Center. “I don’t want to suggest that training itself is harmful, but I also think that training alone is not likely enough to actually change organizations.”

Frank Dobbin, a social science professor at Harvard, said that while research in this area is thin, there is some evidence that training for managers can be helpful, as can bystander intervention training. But he said there are also studies that suggest typical harassment training might make some men more hostile than they were to begin with, perhaps because they feel a threat to their way of thinking.

“It’s possible that training for whole populations of employees, which is what the states are now moving toward, is going to backfire,” Dobbin said. “I don’t think there’s any evidence that it reduces harassment and there’s some evidence that it’s likely to increase harassment.”

Michael Del Polito, a media producer and director at LRN, an ethics and compliance company, said that the company realized that in most cases, employees are mandated to watch the videos. “It’s not necessarily something they’re electing to do,” he said.

Still, he said, the company tries to make them watchable. Last year, one of LRN’s sexual harassment videos won a Telly award, which honors video and television production. In it, a woman tells a colleague she was groped by a superior in Las Vegas after a conference; the flashbacks to what happened in Vegas were illustrated by animated people made of neon lights.

Del Polito said: “We try to approach it as, we respect our audience and try to put something out that — within reason, of course, given time and budgetary constraints — try to put out the best product possible because we think our audience is sophisticated.”

This article originally appeared in

The Most Watched Show at the Office? Sexual Harassment Training Videos

Troy Dillinger was having a good month. A working actor in Los Angeles, he played in June a lawyer in a Lifetime movie, a coach in a public service announcement about opioids, and a judge in Cardi B’s video “Press.”

Set way back from the road, this maze of open-air passageways and courtyards is about the size of two football fields, an unusual vision of limestone bumping up against the Utah Rockies. It has played host to Mary and Joseph, John the Baptist and Jesus — as well as Lehi, Amulek and Alma the Younger.

This is the Motion Picture Studio South Campus, owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Jerusalem set, near Goshen, Utah, is part of the church’s substantial film and media production arm, which includes full-time producers, editors and animators, and a fully equipped studio in Provo, complete with sound stages, editing bays and a clutch of 19th-century Americana houses constructed on a backlot.

The church is an important piece of a film and TV ecosystem in northern Utah, which includes a small world of independent films that cater to the Latter-day Saints market, BYUtv (part of Brigham Young University, which is affiliated with the church), as well as mainstream commercials, television and movie productions that film in the state, drawn by a generous rebate program and its proximity to Los Angeles.

Taken together, it’s like its own little Hollywood in the mountains. For the country’s 7 million Latter-day Saints — 6,709,072 according to the church — it is also an answer to a culture that often does not speak its language, and a way to reinforce the conservative values it finds lacking in much of popular entertainment.

Here, the faithful can see their own stories — films about prominent church figures or a series reenacting Bible scenes — without the mockery (sometimes gentle, sometimes not) they’re often subject to, like in Broadway’s “The Book of Mormon” musical. And there is not an R rating in sight.

A Bounty of Work

Ben Hoopes, a carpenter with a slow, rolling voice, builds sets in Utah. Last December, he made one for a church Christmas concert. Then he put together a talk show set for BYUtv, before moving on to “High School Musical,” a Disney show filming in the area. After that, he worked on the church’s most recent big project: a video series that visualizes (not dramatizes!) scenes from the Book of Mormon; it began releasing episodes on Sept. 20.

On a sunny September morning, Hoopes was out at the church set near Goshen patching up the “limestone” walls after a stretch of shooting for the “Book of Mormon Videos.” This Jerusalem (or Bethlehem or Mesoamerica or wherever the church needs it to be) has a concrete foundation and wooden frame, but the facade is made of Styrofoam coated in a stucco and then painted a nice sandy color. Birds like to nibble at the stucco.

There is a whole community of crew members, directors and producers who, like Hoopes, carve out a living working freelance in Utah. “I’ve always had an abundance of work here,” said Chantelle Squires, a director and producer based in Utah who has worked with the church, BYUtv and in local independent films. “I’ve always felt like, why would I leave?”

This year, BYU Broadcasting, which owns BYUtv, is in production on 25 shows including TV movies, scripted dramas, reality shows, religious content and a cooking show. It is staffed by 158 full-time employees, more than 200 students who work part time, and a small army of freelancers who operate in just about every job, from directors and producers to grips and production assistants.

The network says its audience is growing, and its sketch comedy show Studio C, which is like a G-rated “Saturday Night Live,” has nearly 2 billion views on YouTube. But it still sometimes brushes up against a barrier that holds it apart.

Take “Dwight in Shining Armor,” a comedy that premiered this year about a 21st century teenage boy in the suburbs and a warrior princess who awakens there after being asleep for 1,000 years. Michael Dunn, the managing director of BYU Broadcasting, said the show was tested with focus groups in Dallas (“heavily evangelical,” Dunn noted) and San Diego (“very heavily agnostic”). He said that the audiences, made up of parents with children, loved the show. But there were a few who said that because it was made by BYU, they wouldn’t watch it.

“People have bias,” he said. “You can’t get around that.”

Still, there is enough demand for this kind of content to beget a streaming service called Living Scriptures that is geared specifically to Latter-day Saints (the church and its followers no longer refer to themselves as Mormons). Its 2,500 titles are arranged into Netflix-style categories with a distinct tilt, like Church History, Animated Book of Mormon, Must See LDS Films, and Miracles Collection.

And then there are the actors. Most Americans probably wouldn’t recognize Kirby Heyborne’s blond waves — but many Latter-day Saints do. Along with a number of national commercials, including a Snickers spot with Mr. T, Heyborne has played Elder Calhoun in “The Best Two Years,” a movie about four missionaries in the Netherlands, and Jared in “The R.M.” (“Returned Missionary.”)

“Just today, I was at Walmart picking up some chocolate milk and the bagger was really friendly to me,” Heyborne said one day last month. “At the very end — and you can kind of tell, people get a little twinkle in their eye — he very kindly said to me, ‘Do you like it when people recognize you?’”

But Heyborne has also caught some criticism from the faithful. In 2008, he was in a commercial for Miller Lite, a decision for which he still sometimes gets a scolding. (Latter-day Saints are supposed to abstain from alcohol, coffee, tea and tobacco.) Heyborne is hosting a new show on BYUtv called “Making Good,” and under a promo video posted on YouTube, one commenter wrote, “He drank beer. I hate him.”

Heyborne, who is a member of the church, said he did not actually drink the beer.

While actors in Utah can become something of a face, they generally cannot convert that into a proper living. Jasen Wade, who has crisp blue eyes and the kind of chin you could use to shave ice, said that when he works as a leading man in these independent movies — most of which are low-budget affairs shot in just a couple of weeks — he makes $200 to, occasionally, $450 a day.

“In my entire career, I’ve probably made money on three films,” said Wade, who works at a power plant and just got his real estate license. “Other than that, I either break even or I’m in the hole because I have to take off work to be there.”

By the Book

On the set, one camera was trained on a group of women dancing in flowy, midcalf skirts, swishing scarves around their heads in a demure nod to seduction. Another focused on the wicked King Noah who drank wine and flirted with concubines from beneath an elaborate hat.

Nearby a producer named Aaron Merrell, who works full time for the church, draped a well-worn copy of the Book of Mormon across his lap, “Season Three” printed neatly in permanent marker along the outer pages. This was a shoot for the church’s “Book of Mormon Videos,” and Merrell was keeping an eye on their scripture to make sure the action stuck to its source material.

The church teaches that in the early 19th century, its founder Joseph Smith discovered inscribed golden plates buried on a hill near his home in Palmyra, New York, which he then translated into English, creating the Book of Mormon. Among other proclamations, the book holds that Jesus Christ appeared in the Americas after his resurrection. That book sets the Latter-day Saints apart from other Christian denominations, who even today often view the relative newcomer faith as suspect — or even apostate.

The “Book of Mormon Videos” are being put on YouTube (viewable in internet-friendly snippets of a couple minutes each) so anyone who wants to watch them can: Missionaries who will use them as proselytizing tools or members who might show them to their kids. And, the church hopes, perhaps even nonbelievers who are curious about the faith will watch.

The church also makes self-help and inspirational videos that live on YouTube, on topics like addiction, bullying and how to recover after discovering that a spouse watches pornography. There are videos for use in its temples, as well as instructional videos on topics including how its clergy should protect children from abuse, directions for missionaries on diet, hygiene and exercise, and even advice on how to maintain a church parking lot.

“The goal of all of our productions is to create messages that invite all of God’s children to follow Jesus Christ,” said Scott Smiley, director of film and video for the church. “That goes from parking lot maintenance videos all the way to the Bible and Book of Mormon videos.

“Really,” he added, “that means to act as he acted.”

Randy Astle, author of “Mormon Cinema: Origins to 1952,” said that the first church-sponsored movie was a silent film called “One Hundred Years of Mormonism” made in 1913, and that the effort has continued steadily since 1953. Now, with movies and videos as a regular part of religious classes, church and cultural activities, “it just permeates all aspect of Mormon culture,” he said.

“The church also kind of positions itself as providing an alternative to Hollywood,” he said. By offering up its own content and steering members away from what it sees as problematic, it’s telling followers, “You need to look for this good moral content,” he added.

But its productions, he said, are not likely to make film critics particularly effusive.

“Films we see as classics challenge us,” Astle said. “They probe dark subject matter, they challenge our beliefs. When they’re made by the church, the people who pay for them don’t want that. They want them to affirm belief. To answer questions, not to ask them.”

The technical production, however, is impressive, he said, so they can look like Hollywood movies.

But on set, it is quickly made clear this is not Hollywood. To kick off every day of shooting, the cast and crew gather around the monitors or the cameras, and they pray.

And they are all praying the same way, because just about every person on a church production — actors, directors, carpenters, script supervisors — is a Latter-day Saint themselves. Merrell, the church producer, said that exceptions can be made if a particular specialty needs to be filled, but it is “generally preferred” that crew members be church members. Those in good standing are given what is called a temple recommend, a little wallet-size card that attests to their status. (A church spokeswoman said there are exemptions for religious organizations that make such hiring preferences legal.)

Becky Swasey, head of the hair and makeup department on the “Book of Mormon Videos” project, has worked on movies made by AMC and Francis Ford Coppola. She said there is a vibe on set that comes from a shared sense of mission and purpose. But the shoots feel unusual in other ways, too.

“People don’t swear — I’ve got to watch my mouth!” she said. “There’s no coffee or tea. And people tend to be a little less divalike.”

A First Family Screening

John Hajicek arrived at the Megaplex Theaters at Jordan Commons in Sandy, Utah, dressed in a sharp blue suit, clutching a locked briefcase in each hand. Inside, he carried what he said was precious Latter-day Saints memorabilia. He had copies of the Book of Mormon that appear to have been printed in the 19th century. An early pencil sketch of Joseph Smith. A suede map Smith supposedly carried around in his pocket.

Hajicek had been invited to a film screening that night for “Out of Liberty,” a movie about a jailbreak, in which one of the people doing the breaking is Joseph Smith.

The director, Garrett Batty, also invited some very special guests: members of the Smith family.

“To all the descendants of Joseph and Lucy,” Michael Kennedy, one of those descendants, said from the front of the theater, “would you please stand up.”

Several dozen people put their popcorn aside and rose from their seats. The room took it in (“Wow!” a woman breathed), and then burst into a firm and gracious applause.

And with that, the movie could start.

Lights. Camera. Prayer. A Mini-Hollywood Grows in Utah.

PROVO, Utah — In the heavy quiet of the Utah desert, past fields of alfalfa and fruit trees, past the Goshen trailer park and a big, sprawling dairy farm, the domes of Jerusalem rise up from the patchy grass.

Mysterious and layered, it follows a middle-aged creative writing professor at Yale who becomes close to a student shortly after receiving a terrible cancer diagnosis. The two-person play, starring Mary-Louise Parker and Will Hochman, premiered to acclaim last year at the Williamstown Theater Festival and will open on Broadway next month, directed by David Cromer.

Rapp has had a remarkably prolific and varied career, having written some 30 plays, two novels, two graphic novels and nine books for young adults. His television credits include “The Looming Tower” and, coming up, an adaptation of the Philipp Meyer novel “American Rust.” Still, this is his Broadway debut.

Best known for Showtime’s “Weeds,” Parker is a stage regular, and a Tony Award winner for “Proof” in 2001. This spring, she’ll star in Paula Vogel’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “How I Learned to Drive” on Broadway, in the role she originated off-Broadway in 1997.

A few days into previews for “The Sound Inside,” Rapp and Parker gathered in her dressing room at Studio 54 to talk about writing, acting and fame. (There was also a mention of their dogs. He has a puggle named Cesar; she has a cocker spaniel, she thinks, named Mrs. Roosevelt.) Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.

This play is so much about writing, so why don’t you tell me about your process. Did you have the play pretty well mapped out when you started?

ADAM RAPP: I didn’t know how it was going to take shape. I never know. I just kind of have an idea and have a few moments that I need to get to, and sometimes I know what the end is, weirdly enough. I wrote it pretty quickly. I was really in the free-fall — that’s a word we used to have in the play that we cut — in the free-fall of the writing.

How do you do manage to produce so much? Do you approach writing a play like a day job?

RAPP: I wish. It’s hard to describe. It feels like when you’re falling in love. I’m totally out of control. Everything goes away. I don’t do my life well and I have to finish it or I feel like I’m going to drown. That’s why it’s hard for me to start something now because I have a job. I work on a television show, and I have to show up every day in the writer’s room. I have a new play that I’m so excited to write, that I want to talk to [Mary-Louise] about, that I want to talk to Cromer about. But the problem is, once I start talking about it, then I have to write it, and then I won’t go to work. It’s always been that way.

Ms. Parker, you’re a writer as well. Did the process of writing or publishing your book, “Dear Mr. You,” change you at all?

MARY-LOUISE PARKER: I think it did. I was able to own my writing. I’d written for Esquire for 15 years or something, and written for other things, but I didn’t really talk about it. There was this one moment where a fairly close friend of mine — who won’t remember saying this, so I can go ahead — read something that I’d written and asked me who helped me with it. I didn’t really understand what effect that had on me until I was doing my book and I was able to go and talk about my writing. Which I don’t mind, actually — especially in the way I mind talking about acting.

People just approached me completely differently. They communicated with me in a completely different way. I felt legitimate in a way I never do as an actor — rarely do.

You’re happy talking about writing in a way you’re not comfortable talking about your acting. Why is that?

PARKER: There’s a thing, and I can say, “I made that.” I can understand what about it is overwritten or when it’s convoluted, but I also can say, “That’s really good.” And I can’t do that with my acting, ever.

Why not?

PARKER: It’s too amorphous. And it’s my voice, it’s my body, it’s all these things I can’t separate from myself, that are tied into my ego and myself as a woman and my insecurities.

You’ve been in the public eye for a long time. Does it get easier?

PARKER: No. Some aspects of it do, but no. I don’t go to things unless I’m paid or I’m supporting somebody I care about. I don’t have social media. I guess that’s kind of revealing about how I feel about it.

RAPP: The level of recognition I have is so small it’s like someone will see me at a coffee shop or out in front of the theater and they’ll say “I like your work” — or they think I’m Michael Shannon. I’m not kidding, that’s happened like 900 times. And I have to be like, “No he’s my friend. He has a bigger head.” [Smiling] And then I feel bad because I think he looks like a monster.

PARKER: A sexy monster!

RAPP: Sexy monster, right.

PARKER: And a handsome monster!

RAPP: I like being more invisible.

PARKER: I feel pretty invisible also.

In New York City?

PARKER: Most of the time, yeah. There’s a guy in my neighborhood, he sees me all the time and I keep telling him I’m not Parker Posey. But every day that he sees me he thinks I’m Parker Posey. It’s just hilarious. The way he is so excited about the fact that I’m Parker makes me happy.

Let’s talk about “The Sound Inside.” Adam, Mary Lee Baird was your mother’s maiden name. Why did you choose to name your main character Bella Lee Baird?

RAPP: It’s not autobiographical at all. I think the thing that feels most common with my mother is she was just rigorously autonomous. She had a kind of lonely life. She didn’t ask much of the world in terms of being social or being loved or being sexual; she was kind of profoundly fine with her solitude. She was the oldest of 13 kids from a huge Catholic family, so part of it was she was just tired of being around a bunch of screaming Catholics.

Did you decide to name her Baird when you started writing or later on?

RAPP: I named her Baird immediately, and I don’t really know why. But it’s not an elegy to her. I’ve never really written about her directly. There are weird things that, actually, Mary-Louise does: You stand like my mom. It’s really weird. That’s just accidental, but I see a spectral version of her sometimes onstage.

Mary-Louise,you do a lot of speaking directly to the audience in this play, and I understand direct address is not your favorite thing.

PARKER: I feel differently about it now than I did even at Williamstown. I felt like it was something I could never achieve properly. But I’ve gotten closer. I’ve gotten a lot closer.

What was scary about it?

PARKER: Everything. I like the comfort and the elasticity of two people because things have to be somewhat self-generated when it’s just you. It becomes very technical. Because I want them to hear his beautiful writing — and in the best way, it’s not easy writing, in the absolute best way. Because it’s so rich. I want them to hear that richness, but I don’t want it to be about that. I want them to also get his story.

Can you tell me more about working with that kind of writing?

PARKER: I’ve done a lot of new plays. Sometimes the writer comes in and they’re like, “This is it.” And maybe there’s an “an” or an “and” changed — and that’s fine, too. And then there are times when it’s all over the place, and they bring in 20 pages every day, but no one else is a part of that. But I felt that [Adam] was part of it in a way that he’s like a character.

RAPP: It makes it easy when the actor is so dramaturgically inclined. She has a strange — I don’t want to use the word “witchy” because that’s stupid —

PARKER: Oh, I like it!

RAPP: She has a way of saying, “I need something here.” Or “I’m being too articulate here, I want to be inarticulate here.” Or “I don’t want to go into Bella’s bag of tricks where she can embroider, I want something that’s balder or harder.” Not a lot of actors I’ve worked with can actually come up with the thing they want in a way that is benefiting the dramaturgy of the play and not just benefiting their own performance or their own vanity.

PARKER: Can I ask a question?

Please!

PARKER: When you’re writing a novel, do you ever then see it dramatized? Or are you just like, this is a book, this is a this, this is a that?

RAPP: Yeah, I always know. I’ve never turned one into the other.

Is the feeling as you write the same?

RAPP: Not the same. For a book, it’s more meditative and controlled, and I feel like I can return to it. I feel like an adult. When I’m writing a play, I just feel like an adolescent.

Mary-Louise Parker and Adam Rapp Conjure a Haunting

NEW YORK — Adam Rapp wants his new play, “The Sound Inside,” to feel “like a haunting.”

In the first act, the principal presides over a “Community Activated Conversation” with parents (also known as a Facebook Live chat) to talk about an outbreak of mumps.

The conversation does not go well.

“We’re all threatened by your ANTI-SCIENCE DEATH CULT,” one parent offers.

“Do what you want,” comes the reply, “just keep your POISON off my kids.”

Jonathan Spector, 40, who wrote “Eureka Day,” said that he started thinking about vaccines as a subject after moving with his girlfriend, now his wife, to the Bay Area. When their friends started having children, whispers began to circulate at farmers markets and house parties that this person or that person was refusing the shots.

“I had this experience of talking to people who were very smart, very well educated, and sort of agreed with me about everything,” Spector said. “And then you would realize that in this one area, they seem to live on a different planet than you do.”

“Eureka Day,” which is in previews and opens in New York on Thursday at Walkerspace in a Colt Coeur production, follows four parents and the principal as the school faces down the mumps — and as the perceived good of the individual crashes into the good of the group.

It arrives in New York as public health officials struggle to contain an outbreak of measles, and it pulls at a larger thread many feel unraveling around us: What do you do when you cannot agree on basic facts?

The divisions do not track along typical political battle lines, Spector added, making it richer material for a playwright.

“Abortion or gun control or climate change — any one of those things is predictive of all the others, but not vaccines,” he said. “There are vaccine skeptics on the far left and on the far right,” and, he added, it is more difficult to wave them off as unthinking nincompoops if they otherwise agree with you.

Indeed, “Eureka Day,” which is already scheduled for productions in Philadelphia, Washington and Sonoma County, California, gives the anti-vaccine parents their humanity, though it does not buy their arguments. Spector said it makes him uncomfortable even discussing the play in terms of the “vaccination debate.”

“Eureka Day” is a play about a school in Berkeley, California, where the soccer team cheers when the other side scores a goal, and where parents were so concerned that an 8th grade production of “Peter Pan” would have “colonialist issues” that it was set in outer space. It is also a school where many — many — families refuse to vaccinate their children.

Elizabeth A. Harris

Articles written by the author

R. Kelly's Manager Surrenders on Threat Charge

R. Kelly's Manager Surrenders on Threat Charge

R. Kelly's Manager Surrenders on Threat Charge

A Real-World Battle Over Dancing Avatars: Did 'Fortnite' Steal the Floss?

A Real-World Battle Over Dancing Avatars: Did 'Fortnite' Steal the Floss?

Neil deGrasse Tyson's Show Is Pulled Amid Misconduct Allegations

The Most Watched Show at the Office? Sexual Harassment Training Videos

Lights. Camera. Prayer. A Mini-Hollywood Grows in Utah.

Mary-Louise Parker and Adam Rapp Conjure a Haunting

Can a Play About Vaccines Be a Laughing Matter?

After Investigation, Neil deGrasse Tyson Will Keep His Job

After Investigation, Neil deGrasse Tyson Will Keep His Job

The Louvre Took Down the Sackler Name. Here's Why Other Museums Probably Won't.

Billy Bush to Return to Television Three Years After Trump Tape Fallout

Billy Bush to Return to Television Three Years After Trump Tape Fallout

A Sundance Founder Pleads Guilty to Child Sex Abuse

How an Abuse Victim's Nerve and a Hidden iPhone Led to the Arrest of a Sundance Founder

How an Abuse Victim's Nerve and a Hidden iPhone Led to the Arrest of a Sundance Founder

Turning a Bump Into Laughs

Amy Schumer, Ali Wong and the Rise of Pregnant Stand-Up