The Trail of Dreams is a musical by James Arrington, Marvin Payne, and Steven Kapp Perry about the journey of the LDS saints. The story is told through actual journal entries of Mormon pioneers. The character I portrayed was Elsie Nielson who was a small woman born in Denmark in 1830. After she and her husband Jens converted to the Mormon church, they sailed to America and made the trek via handcart to their final destination of Salt Lake City, Utah. Their 5-year-old son Niels, died along the trail. They brought a 10-year-old girl named Bodil Mortenson to reunite with her father in Salt Lake, and she also died along the trail. Jens's feet became so frozen he could not walk another step, which caused his right foot to be deformed for the rest of his life. At this point, Jens told Elsie, "Leave me by the trail in the snow to die, and you go ahead and try to keep up with the company and save your life." Elsie replied, "Ride! I can't leave you. I can pull the cart." And that is exactly what she did. She pulled her husband, who was over 6 feet, in a small hand cart the rest of the way to the Salt Lake Valley.

It was refining, humbling, and emotionally exhausting to portray Elsie's story. The best way I can describe it is that it was the raw, real struggles and dialogue of Elsie and Jens Nielson.