Marvin Payne
Marvin Payne is an actor, author, songwriter, and maker of children's media. He is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (sometimes casually called the Mormon or LDS Church). He is married to the former Laurie Koralewski (a teacher, director, and actress) and lives in Alpine, Utah. He has 8 children.
Marvin's official website is worth a visit to glimpse his creative ability with the written word; he is a consummate story-teller. His casual bio portrays the family he came from as decidedly non-musical. Hence, his own very-slow blossoming into a singer-songwriter. He blossomed even more slowly into stagecraft, but eventually discovered that he was made to act, write, direct, and sing.
Payne was educated at Brigham Young University through music performance and creative writing scholarships. Through the decade of the seventies, he released a dozen albums of original songs and toured the country extensively as a solo concert artist. His prefered musical style is folk. In the eighties, he entered the world of theatre and film, where he became the Man who Searches for Happiness, Sweeney Todd, El Gallo, and the Phantom, but is most often recognized in the mall as the guy behind daddy's nose in Saturday's Warrior (a musical for LDS audiences). His acting has shown up on the Disney Channel, the major networks, and PBS. He is a familiar lead at Sundance. In the nineties he focused increasingly on creative projects for children, working with MacMillan/McGraw Hill on their Share the Music series.
Marvin has co-authored many musical plays, written award-winning poetry, and penned historical novels. His creative instincts are manifest in his children.
Marvin is currently releasing a thirty-first anniversary edition of the Planemaker; working on a novel/musical play called Sophie's Christmas; writing a children's book called No Room at the Inn; and adding to a series of historical novels with Oscar on the Mormon Trail.
More at MormonMusic.org
