2010′s Musical Thoughts #6- The Book of MormonThe Book of Mormon opened on Broadway on March 2

2010′s Musical Thoughts #6- The Book of MormonThe Book of Mormon opened on Broadway on March 24th, 2011. Created by South Park’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone with Avenue Q’s Robert Lopez, this musical comedy centers around Elder Price, an idealistic Mormon missionary who has a crisis of faith after being sent on his mission to Uganda (rather than his desired ORLANDOOOOOOO), and after being partnered with the dorky and awkward Elder Cunningham. True to the style of South Park, the comedy in this show is a satire of EVERYTHING. Religion, racism, white savior tropes, internal and external homophobia, society’s treatment of AIDS and third world countries, Broadway, Disney, you name it. However, contrary to South Park’s comedy, The Book of Mormon actually knows when to pull its punches and just let the characters go through their arcs. There’s jokes about religion, but the show ends in praise of faith in whatever way you see it. There’s jokes about the state of the third world, without being racist and offensive (although the show relies on stereotypes a bit too much). There’s a LARGE amount of jokes about the Mormon church without being mean-spirited and rude, which is extremely impressive considering the track record of Matt and Trey. The Book of Mormon is also the earliest example I can think of of a steady Broadway fandom on Tumblr and elsewhere for a show from this decade. Despite the show being almost ten years old, there’s still a steady fandom on this site with a heap of fan art, discourse, and other fan works. The Book of Mormon is also the longest running show that opened this decade, still running today at the Eugene O’Neill Theater. Insanely impressive for an original musical that opened directly on Broadway with no prior regional productions, Book of Mormon is one of the first big hits of the 2010’s. It’s an institution and legacy that I don’t see going away for a long time. -- source link

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