The latest BYUH original musical may have seemed like a simple story about parents trying to get their children back, but beyond the music and lighting design, there existed an intent by the creators to comment on real-life issues. The writers and lyricists of “Gingerbread,” as well as one of the production crew, commented on these themes, and where the inspiration for the messages came from for the musical.
For example, the following scene portrays dialogue on the kidnapping of a child and the pain of the child’s mother. “What if it was your daughter on that side of the gate, and I was the one who controlled her fate?” Nalani Matthias sings, playing the character Kandaja, whose child was taken from her, and she cannot search outside her village in the city because she does not have a city ID. She is barred by a tall grey wall. “Is it not enough [pain]?”
The gatekeepers, played by Sarah Knight, Taylor Schlutsmeyer, Jimmy Westergard, and Rachel Howden, who guard the wall and gate out of the village, responded, “We must protect our own.”
They continue to barrage her to calm down. A heartbroken Kandaja responds, “Who ... are you to tell me not to care?”
The commentary of ‘Gingerbread’
The play is called “Gingerbread,” but it is not a Christmas story, nor is it related to the game Candyland. It is not a comedy. It is a social commentary of a dystopian future that hits topics close to home.
It has “a lot of political themes pressing on a lot of modern-day issues,” said Alexia Kaley, a sophomore history major who was the lighting designer and a stagehand coordinator for the play. “The political theme the play mainly deals with is the issue of child trafficking, but also the themes of border security and the exploitation of vulnerable persons.”
According to Dr. Melissa Glenn, a voice professor who wrote the music and lyrics, the theme of human trafficking is prevalent in the scene in which the character Silo, played by Logan Sprouse, offers Hansel and Gretel a high-paying job of being in a movie. “Typically, the way trafficking happens, is there’s an offer way too good to be true. And a lot of times, that comes from the entertainment industry or offers to be a nanny somewhere else.“
"I will say there’s also a commentary about immigration,” Glenn continued. “I wouldn’t say so much that I’m taking a political stance because immigration is a complicated and nuanced topic for each country, but what I did want to do was put ourselves in the place of someone who doesn’t have a situation that would allow them to flourish or prosper, by no fault of their own.”
Her favorite song she wrote for the show was “Grant Us Peace,” which was written seven years ago, and not originally intended for “Gingerbread.”
Glenn wrote the song after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012. “I feel like a lot of times, my songs don’t come easily, but that was a song where I had the verse and chorus come to me by inspiration, as I was trying to process through being a new mother at the time and process through the school shooting.”
Glenn added how she wanted the audience to have compassion for people who were born into circumstances that were less desirable.
Glenn said she always “thought ‘Hansel and Gretel’ was a flawed story.” It did not feel right to her that a parent would tell their children to go into the woods alone. As she wondered about the play, she said, it never sat well with her. She realized it was “because the real danger to children in poverty isn’t a fictional character in the woods.” She said the real danger to children in poverty now, to a large extent, is human trafficking.
Human trafficking
The Oxford Dictionary defines human trafficking as “the action or practice of illegally transporting people from one country or area to another, typically for the purposes of forced labor or sexual exploitation.”
Dr. John Bell, the vice president for Academics and the writer of the play, explained he hopes this play “will lead to a desire to take action to help eliminate this widespread, but often hidden, problem.
“Issues like child trafficking affects the entire world, and while it is a relevant topic on any campus, our international focus here at BYUH provides a venue for the conversation on a much broader scale.”
An actor playing John Laurens, a founding father of the United States who abhorred slavery and was featured in the critically acclaimed play “Hamilton” (2015), sang “We’ll never be free until we end slavery.”
Child trafficking and slavery can be found throughout the world. Operation Underground Railroad, a nonprofit that works with law enforcement to take down child trafficking rings, has statistics on human trafficking. It says there are 40.3 million modern-day slaves. One in four are children, it says, and 71 percent are girls and women. “The United States was listed as the most common destination for victims,” says Operation Underground Railroad information.
Though “Gingerbread” is a musical drama, its stories of families broken apart and children abused and enslaved mirror real life, said those interviewe.
How can people help?
After watching the musical, J. Eston Dunn, a conservation biology senior from Tennessee, said for him it was difficult “to walk away with any actionable plan. And again, maybe the point of the play is not necessarily to tell you what to do. Maybe that’s for you to decide as an audience member.” He said he was concerned other people may want to help but not know where or how to start.
Glenn said the U.S. Department of State has information about how people can help fight human trafficking. The site lists some indicators of trafficking: Living with employer; poor living conditions; multiple people in cramped space; inability to speak to individual alone; answers appear to be scripted and rehearsed; employer is holding identity documents; signs of physical abuse; submissive or fearful; and unpaid or paid very little.“
Everyone has the potential to discover a human trafficking situation,” the site says. “Knowing indicators of human trafficking and some follow up questions will help you act on your gut feeling that something is wrong and report it.”
The site says if people see something suspicious and the situation is urgent, they should call 911. They can also the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888. It is a nationwide 24-hour, toll-free, multilingual anti-trafficking hotline.