July 6th, 2025, 7am MDT
John Knich first heard of Marva Collins in 1975.
Kunich, a man from Chicago, Illinois, later joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and learned through news reports about Collins, a black woman from Jim Crowe Ehra Alabama, and schools that ran from home for children in Chicago, in the inner city. Collins left his job to find a Westside prep school after 14 years working in a public school system that felt he was not serving minority children.
Kunich then watched the 1979 “60 Minutes” news segment on Collins and the 1981 TV movie about her life. She taught challenging subjects like Shakespeare and Greek philosophy, despite her students’ declarations that they would not preach.
Continuingly impressed by her commitment to education, he wondered if her story would be good music.
Kunich will write the music “Marva!” for the next 40 years. Stop and start. A large amount of periods can pass between creative sessions, but he didn’t seriously start writing songs lyrics until, say, 1996, but he never forgot the project completely.
Now, decades after hearing Malva Collins’ name, Knich’s musical is watching him go to Broadway. Knich now says “Marva!” and is in the hands of two Broadway producers who continue to trade with the Broadway director.
The journey from ideas to full production is long and unlikely. Knich doesn’t even play instruments.
But it is a story intertwined with his faith and the ripple effects of blessings from his choice to join the church.
“To see God’s hand in something created is a truly humble and exciting phenomenon for me,” Knich said.
Brian Jenkins, stake president of Charlotte, North Carolina South Stake, Knich, said that Knich, who shares his talent, brings excitement and energy to local church members.
“It shows that when we are leveraging the talent that the Lord has given us, we can shine a light on the world in a big way. …Whether it’s a big or a small stage, it’s about getting to everything,” President Jenkins said.
Gospel seeds, unexpected blessings
Knich grew up in Chicago as a member of another faith and joined the Air Force in 1979, he said. From there, the Air Force sent him to Harvard University for a law degree, where he worked as a military lawyer for 20 years.
Meanwhile, Knich said he began experimenting with songwriting despite his lack of musical background. Thus, when he could simply write a song, he learned that “the lyrics would suggest music to me.”
Furthermore, shortly after joining the Air Force, Knich was introduced to a church missionary while attending Mississippi’s Officer Training School. He was baptized in June 1980.
Shortly afterwards, Knich saw a film about Malva Collins about the 1981 TV movie. He reached out to Collins while stationed at the commissioned Chanout Air Base in Rantor, Illinois, and Knich took time off and went to Chicago when she invited him to observe her in the classroom.
Watching Collins at work, Knich said, he was “blowed away.”
“She was just amazing and how the kids reacted to her – she believed in them,” Knich said. “She expected a lot of them the same way from herself. They blossomed. They did a great job. These were kids who were kicked out by the Chicago public school system as “unpreachable” and now they were looking after her, so they were doing a great job.”
It was the first of several visits to Collins’ classrooms, which made him think that her life would be a truly amazing musical, Kunich said. However, his own life was still busy with Air Force and Church services and his growing family, he didn’t have much time for creative pursuits.
A few years later, two experiences have become a driving force for Kunich to take “Marva!” more seriously. Although it was first in the early 1990s, Knich had dinner with a married couple, he helped his conversion to the Gospel shortly after his own baptism. These friends said they thought that Knich’s songwriting was similar to that of Disney lyricist Howard Ashman, and that Knich thought he could write musicals.
Looking back now, Knich sees the encouragement from these friends as an unexpected blessing of sharing the gospel with them.
“Sometimes, the seeds we plant can bear fruit in ways that we never could have predicted,” he said. “It’s almost impossible that it happened, and I think I’m really touching me.
The second experience took place in 1995, when Collins students in the 1979 news segment followed by “60 minutes.” The former students each did “greatly well,” Knich said, and spoke about how Collins changed their lives forever.
Knich began writing songs seriously in the spring of 1996 as these experiences brought Collins to the forefront of his mind once again. From there he unraveled each melody, recorded songs, and sent them to musicians who produced alongside professional singers and instrumentalists. He also began writing scripts for musicals.
By 1999 he had retired from the Air Force and worked as a law professor at Belmont Abbey University. Over the next decades, he wrote, revised, wrote more, revised more, and continually improved what ended up with 21 full-length songs and full scripts.
In the meantime, Knich continued to visit Collins whenever he was in Chicago, keeping him up to date with his musical progress.
“She thought it was great,” Knich said. “That’s something the kids are proud of.”
Collins passed away in 2015. Knich’s song “Why I Teach” was Collins’ favorite. Kunich said Collins once told him that he would “completely summarise” what her life was.
“If that was all I achieved by writing this (the musical), that would be enough, because to me it meant the world to hear her hearing about my song and how it illustrated everything she stood,” Knich said.
Faith, hard work, independence
Given his lack of the theatrical connection, “Marva!” may not have done any more than Kunich’s direct circle. But a year and a half ago, Kunich said he met someone in the New York theatre community. The person shared Kunich’s work with the couple’s Broadway producers Jay and Cindy Gutterman.
On the table in a shot on Broadway, Knich hopes there will be some of the revenue from “Marva!” work. We head towards reopening Collins schools, which were closed in 2008 due to a lack of funds. Kunich also wants to direct some of its revenues to nonprofits that focus on teaching inner-city residents life skills.
“If I can do that, the effects of Marva, her contribution to future generations, will continue in a practical way that is very meaningful and practical for those who have never met her in person,” Knich said.
The show itself features a primarily black cast, Kunich says, with a range of musical styles ranging from rock to hip hop to soul to soul. Weaving through it all becomes a theme of faith, hard work and independence.
“These are undoubtedly principles that are part of the gospel and part of the teachings of the Latter-day Saints’ Church of Jesus Christ,” Knich said. “We want to not only give them fish, but also teach people to fish.
Kunich can see how God guided him through the process of writing “Marva!”
“Looking back from a fresh perspective, it’s like someone else wrote it (these songs),” he said. “It’s very strange, but it’s better than I can do. It’s as if there’s something here that’s beyond my abilities.”
