The Book of Mormon (musical)

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  The Book of Mormon, a Broadway musical, was once described by its co-creator Matt Stone as "an atheist's love letter to religion." Its premise sounds like a dare. Two young Mormon missionaries expect a posting in Orlando, Florida, and are sent instead to a remote Ugandan village. The villagers there worry far more about famine, disease and a violent warlord than about scripture. More than 20 million people around the world have now watched what followed.

  Three writers built the show: Trey Parker, Matt Stone and Robert Lopez. Parker and Stone were best known for the cartoon South Park. Lopez had co-created the puppet musical Avenue Q. Why would three comedy writers spend years on a story about a religion? How does something this profane earn a reputation for sweetness? And what happened when the people it portrayed began to answer back?

  6737104

• 2. Colorado Roots

  ›

  Colorado shaped the comedy of Trey Parker and Matt Stone long before Broadway. Both men grew up there, and a thread of fascination with Mormonism runs through their work as a result. The idea of a fictionalized Joseph Smith first came up while they worked on an aborted Fox series about historical characters. Smith founded the Latter Day Saint movement. The religion kept resurfacing afterward. Their 1997 film Orgazmo referred to it. A 2003 South Park episode, "All About Mormons", treated it comically. Smith even appeared among the "Super Best Friends," a parody superhero team of religious figures.

  The pair had also written musicals together, including the student film Cannibal! The Musical in 1993 and South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut in 1999.

  In the summer of 2003, Parker and Stone flew to New York City to discuss the script for Team America: World Police. They met their friend and producer Scott Rudin, who had also produced the South Park movie. Rudin noticed that the marionettes in Team America resembled the puppets of Avenue Q, and told them to see it on Broadway. They did. In the audience, the writer-composers of Avenue Q, Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, spotted them and introduced themselves. Lopez told them the South Park movie had been a major influence on his own show.

  Drinks followed, and with them a coincidence. Both camps wanted to write something involving Joseph Smith. The four started working almost at once and decided early to tell a modern story. For research, they drove to Salt Lake City and interviewed missionaries and former missionaries. Parker and Stone's South Park schedule kept getting in the way. The partnership that began over drinks had four members, and it would not stay that way.

  574913

• 3. Years of Workshops

  ›

  In 2006, Parker and Stone flew to London for three weeks with Lopez, who was working on the West End production of Avenue Q. Together the three wrote "four or five songs" and sketched the basic story. Jeff Marx did not stay. After an argument with Parker, in which Marx felt he lacked enough creative control, he was separated from the project. The remaining trio met often over the following years. Parker later said, "There was a lot of hopping back and forth between L.A. and New York." Their working title was a mouthful: The Book of Mormon: The Musical of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

  Lopez pushed for workshops, a practice that baffled Parker and Stone. Over four years they held about half a dozen, from 30-minute performances for family and friends to much larger renderings. The two spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of their own money while still doubting the show would go further. At one early session, a rough animatic played above the actors. Nobody was sure whether this should be a stage show or an animated film. Jason Moore directed these sessions. In February 2008, a first fully staged reading at the Vineyard Theatre settled the question, and the project became a stage musical.

  Several future cast members, including Josh Gad, Rory O'Malley and Nikki James, were attached from the earliest stages. Finding Elder Price took longer. The producers cycled through Benjamin Walker, Cheyenne Jackson and Daniel Reichard. Three finalists remained: T. R. Knight, Nick Lachey and Andrew Rannells, who won the part. Jack Black was briefly floated as Cunningham, as a piece of celebrity stunt casting.

  In June 2010, Moore left the production. Other directors, including James Lapine, were considered, but the producers recruited Casey Nicholaw. He came aboard as choreographer and co-director with Parker during a final five-week investor's workshop in August 2010, held to secure funding.

  The script kept changing all the while. A song called "Family Home Evening" appeared in early workshops and was cut. In previews, the warlord was named General Kony, and the name was later swapped for one far too crude to broadcast. "The Bible Is A Trilogy" was rewritten as "All-American Prophet". The earlier version argued that the third film in any trilogy is the best one. It fed a running joke in which a Ugandan man says he thought the third Matrix was the worst. The rewrite replaced that line with a cruder one. "Spooky Mormon Hell Dream" began life as "H-E Double Hockey Sticks." The producers Scott Rudin and Anne Garefino had a different venue in mind for what came next.

  13145610

• 4. Uganda Onstage

  ›

  Elder Kevin Price opens the story at a Missionary Training Center, leading his classmates through a door-to-door demonstration. He is sure that enough prayer will earn him a two-year mission in Orlando, Florida. Instead, he is paired with Elder Arnold Cunningham, an insecure, pop culture-obsessed compulsive liar, and both are sent to northern Uganda. Soldiers serving a local warlord rob them on arrival. Nabulungi, whose father Mafala Hatimbi welcomes them, shows them to their quarters, where fellow missionaries admit they have converted no one. District leader Elder McKinley teaches the newcomers to push upsetting thoughts aside in the song "Turn It Off."

  Price's confidence collapses fast. The warlord announces a brutal demand aimed at the village's women, then murders a villager who objects. Shocked, Price decides to abandon the mission and asks for a transfer to Orlando. He also drops Cunningham as his companion. Cunningham, now alone, is approached by Nabulungi, who wants to learn about the Book of Mormon. He finds his nerve in the song "Man Up."

  Act II turns on improvisation. When the villagers grow bored and begin to leave, Cunningham invents stories that blend Latter-day Saint doctrine with science fiction and fantasy. His conscience appears as his father, Joseph Smith, Hobbits, Lieutenant Uhura, Darth Vader and Yoda. He decides that if the stories help people, they cannot be wrong. Price, meanwhile, dreams of arriving in Orlando and then finds himself in Hell. Satan, Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler and Johnnie Cochran are among those who scold him for abandoning his partner. He wakes up and recommits.

  Price's attempt to convert the warlord ends with him dragged away. Later he turns up in the village doctor's office, having the Book of Mormon removed from his rectum. Back in the village, the baptisms go ahead. Then the mission president arrives, and Nabulungi and the villagers stage a pageant of Cunningham's distortions in his honor. The president is appalled. He orders the missionaries home and tells Nabulungi that she and her neighbors are not members of the church.

  The ending turns on a surprise. Nabulungi tells the villagers that Cunningham's stories were untrue, and they answer that they always knew the stories were metaphors rather than literal truth. The warlord arrives, sees Cunningham, believes him risen from the dead, and flees. In the last scene, newly minted Ugandan elders, the former warlord among them, go door to door with "The Book of Arnold."

  That arc carries the show's central idea. The Mormons are shown as well-meaning, optimistic and a little naive. The story suggests that religion can do enormous good when it is taken metaphorically instead of literally. Two scenes also borrow from real life, since the openings of both acts parody the Hill Cumorah Pageant. The score is played by an orchestra of only nine members, whose parts range from saxophones and recorders to the bansuri.

  1479171962

• 5. Broadway and Beyond

  ›

  Off-Broadway was the original plan. Scott Rudin and Anne Garefino intended to stage the show at the New York Theatre Workshop in the summer of 2010. They changed course and went straight to Broadway, reasoning that Parker and Stone do their best work when the stakes are highest. They booked the Eugene O'Neill Theatre. The producers expected the production to cost $11 million, but it came in under budget at $9 million. Hundreds of actors auditioned, and 28 were cast. Four weeks of rehearsal and two of technical rehearsal came before previews. The producers saw the finished production for the first time only six days before the first paying audience.

  Previews began on the 24th of February 2011, and the official premiere followed on the 24th of March. Nicholaw and Parker co-directed. Scott Pask designed the sets, Ann Roth the costumes, Brian MacDevitt the lighting and Brian Ronan the sound. Larry Hochman and Stephen Oremus co-created the orchestrations, with Oremus also serving as musical director. Josh Gad and Andrew Rannells headlined.

  The pricing came from the airline and hotel playbook. For performances in particularly high demand, the producers charged as much as $477 for the best seats. In its first year, the show stayed among Broadway's five best-selling productions. It set 22 new weekly sales records for the Eugene O'Neill Theater. In the week of Thanksgiving 2011, the average paid admission was over $170, although the highest-priced regular seat was listed at $155. Backers recouped their $11.4 million investment after just nine months.

  Soon the show was traveling. A first North American tour began previews on the 14th of August 2012 in Denver, Colorado. It opened officially in Los Angeles on the 12th of September. A separate sit-down production opened in Chicago on the 19th of December 2012 and later became a second national tour. The West End production opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre on the 21st of March 2013. A gala performance a week earlier raised £200,000 for Comic Relief's Red Nose Day. Salt Lake City itself saw the show for the first time at the end of July and early August 2015.

  Abroad, the records kept coming. In Melbourne, a production at the Princess Theatre opened on the 18th of January 2017 after breaking box-office records before it even began. The first non-English version opened in Stockholm that same January. In Oslo, demand for a Norwegian production in September 2017 crashed the ticketing website. A Spanish production premiered in Madrid on the 10th of October 2023. In London, Dom Simpson and Tom Xander became the first British pair to lead the show worldwide in 2019.

  Totals tell the rest. The musical has grossed over $800 million, and as of December 2025 it is the 10th longest-running show on Broadway, with more than 5,000 performances. Three original cast members were still aboard for the 4000th performance, on the 14th of June 2022. They were Lewis Cleale, John Eric Parker and the dance captain Graham Bowen. A fire at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre in May 2026 paused the run again.

  2927281847

• 6. Praise and Pushback

  ›

  Vogue called the show the filthiest and most offensive thing on Broadway that year, and also the sweetest, and quite possibly the funniest musical ever. Ben Brantley of The New York Times compared it with The King and I and The Sound of Music. He said that by setting dark material to sunny melodies, it "achieves something like a miracle." No Broadway show had managed to have it both ways, he wrote, since Mel Brooks adapted The Producers for the stage a decade earlier. Peter Marks of The Washington Post called the spirit of the show "anything but mean." Charles McNulty of the Los Angeles Times found the songs "as catchy as they are clever." Jon Stewart spent much of his interview with Parker and Stone on The Daily Show of the 10th of March 2011 praising the musical.

  Not everyone agreed. Terry Teachout of The Wall Street Journal called the show "slick and smutty." He judged the score no better than a junior-varsity college show, with tunes "jingly-jangly" and lyrics "embarrassingly ill-crafted." Other critics called it crassly commercial, dull and derivative.

  Awards sided with the cheering critics. At the 2011 Tony Awards, the musical won nine Tonys, including Best Musical. It was also nominated for Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle honors. A Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album followed in 2012. In London, the 2014 Laurence Olivier Awards nominated it for Best New Musical, and in Melbourne it won several Helpmann Awards.

  The cast album arrived on the 17th of May 2011 from Ghostlight Records. NPR streamed the whole recording free from the 9th of May. Production representatives said it became the fastest-selling Broadway cast album in iTunes history in its first week. After the Tony Awards, it climbed the US Billboard 200 to number three, the highest placing for a Broadway cast album in over four decades. Rolling Stone called it an outstanding album that left listeners desperate for tickets. A vinyl edition came out on the 19th of May 2017.

  7779828183

• 7. The Church Replies

  ›

  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints answered the musical with a statement that observers described as measured. It said the production might entertain audiences for an evening. But the Book of Mormon as scripture, it added, would change lives forever by bringing people closer to Christ. In April 2011, Michael Otterson, head of Public Affairs for the church, added a gentle criticism. Parody is not reality, he wrote. The danger comes when people take it seriously and leave believing Mormons live in a surreal world of self-deception. He also listed humanitarian efforts by Mormon missionaries in Africa since the early 2000s.

  Parker and Stone were not surprised. Before the church responded, they said, people kept asking whether they feared its reaction, and some predicted protests. The two answered that the church would be cool. They called the church's reply almost like their own Q.E.D. at the end of the show. They added, "We had faith in them."

  The church then went further. It advertised in the Playbills at many of the musical's venues. Lines included "you've seen the play, now read the book" and "the book is always better." During the 2017 Melbourne run, it advertised at Southern Cross railway station and on television. The ads featured Australian Mormons including rugby league player Will Hopoate, stage actor Patrice Tipoki and ballet dancer Jake Mangakahia.

  Individual Mormons responded in different ways. Richard Bushman, a professor of Mormon studies, said Mormons experience the show like looking in a fun-house mirror. "The reflection is hilarious but not really you," he said. Elder Price's song "I Believe" includes ideas with roots in Mormon belief, such as God living on a planet called Kolob. They are not doctrinally accurate, Bushman said. In January 2015, Josh Gad said he never received a complaint from a practicing Mormon during his year and a half in the show. About a dozen people, he said, told him they were so moved that they took up the faith.

  95971009899

• 8. A New Lens

  ›

  Janice Simpson of NPR wrote that the show depends on villagers being seen "mainly as noble savages." She said they need white people to show them the way to enlightenment. She also criticized the portrayal of African doctors and the references to AIDS and female genital mutilation. Max Perry Mueller of Harvard argued that the producers worked hard to get the Mormon side right while ignoring Ugandan culture entirely. The Aid Leap blog complained that the show reinforced stereotypes about Africa. It said Africans were treated as background to the emotional growth of the Mormons.

  Cheryl Hystad, a retired attorney, wrote an op-ed critical of the musical in The Baltimore Sun. In a retrospective interview with Herb Scribner of the Deseret News, she said most reviewers never mentioned the racism. That pointed, she said, to a pervasive anti-Africa bias among white Americans. Josh Gad, speaking on PeopleTV, reflected on a possible film adaptation. He doubted the show could open today and receive the same open-armed response, and added that it is the nature of art to adapt.

  In July 2020, Black actors from the original and current casts signed a letter to the creative team. The show had closed four months earlier because of the pandemic. George Floyd had been murdered in Minneapolis two months before. The letter warned that "when the show returns, all of our work will be viewed through a new lens." The creative team responded by gathering with the New York cast in the summer of 2021 for a two-week workshop. They reviewed the intent, comic elements and staging of each scene. The revised script aimed to give the villagers more agency and to put them, rather than the missionaries, at the center of the work.

  Similar conversations in that period touched other musicals involving African and Black representation. The Lion King was one of them.

  8788899193