Breakfast with Amber

May 2022: I Believe

But you know what I do enjoy? Theatre. Continuing the trend of wanting to be in more theatre productions, I decided to audition for Miscast, an annual revue held by TUPS where everyone is cast against type. Technically, I auditioned my sophomore year, but I didn't make it in. Boo.

Actually, the audition was in late February, but the performance wasn't until May. Around the time of the audition, I had been listening a lot of the song "Chug Jug With You," and with Miscast being as goofy as it is, I thought, "What if for my audition, I sang 'Chug Jug With You,' but I made it good?" So I did. "Making it good" basically can be chalked up to actually taking the song seriously. The original song was sung by a 12-year-old who was definitely doing it for funsies, but I was going to do this with the same verve and sophistication that Estelle sang "American Boy."

The producers loved it, and I made it in. During spring break, though, I got an e-mail from Megan McGuire, one of the producers, saying they had picked a song for me. They wanted me to sing "I Believe" from The Book of Mormon as a solo, but she warned me that some people find the song offensive, so she just wanted to run it by me first before making it official, and if I didn't want to sing it, we could figure something out.

I then ignored that e-mail for the rest of spring break because I was in Disney World, and when you're in Disney World, the only thing you can think of is Disney. Then I finally got back to the e-mail and thought, "Alright, I'll bite. How bad can this song possibly be?" I clicked on the link to the song on YouTube and started listening. It seemed pretty standard. It was a ballad where Elder Price affirms his beliefs as a Mormon:

I believe that the Lord God created the universe.
I believe that He sent His only son to die for my sins,
And I believe that ancient Jews built boats and sailed to America.
I am a Mormon, and a Mormon just believes.

Okay, that was pretty weird, but not too offensive.

I believe that God has a plan for all of us.
I believe that plan involves me getting my own planet,
And I believe that the current president of the church, Thomas Monson, speaks directly to God.
I am a Mormon, and dangit! A Mormon just believes!

Okay, this is getting pretty weird...

I believe that Satan has a hold of you.
I believe that the Lord God has sent me here,
And I believe that in 1978, God changed his mind about black people! (Black people!)
You can be a Mormon, a Mormon who just believes!

And there it is. Now I saw why people could find this offensive, but it wasn't anything bad enough that I didn't want to sing it. I took the song.

I'd find out a year later in an American religion class that these lyrics are founded in actual Mormon beliefs. They do believe that ancient Jews built boats and sailed to America, and the more work you do for God, the more real estate you get in space when you die. I legitimately wrote lyrics from this song in my notes.

Rehearsals started March 31. My slot was on Thursdays from 3:30 to 4:30. Actually, when I got there, the producers told me my rehearsal would go to 4. The hour-long rehearsals were only for groups. The solo rehearsals would end after half an hour to prevent the singers from getting vocal fatigue. They handed me a binder with the sheet music and thought, "What the fuck?"

I am not proficient at reading music. I know what the symbols mean, but I have no idea how they translate into actual sound. Luckily, they also played the song while I was singing through it for the first song, so it was easier to understand the sheet music. I also made the mistake of holding the final note longer than I was supposed to. My voice was so loud that I didn't hear the song end and just kept going. Megan and Josh's faces were both like, "...Whoa." Megan told me to tone it down a little next time, okay?