Understatedly described as a “traditional musical comedy with untraditional subject matter,” Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s The Book Of Mormon is officially headed to Broadway in March 2011. The South Park duo have been kicking around the idea for a while, and are said to be currently working on music and lyrics with Tony winner Robert Lopez of Avenue Q (which, to bring it all full circle, was itself heavily influenced by South Park: Bigger, Longer, And Uncut, according to Lopez). In the show, Parker and Stone will be tasked with somehow finding something funny about the Mormon religion, though they’ve already had some experience: The duo’s 1998 film, Orgazmo, examined contemporary Mormonism through the prism of a young missionary who’s forced to navigate secular society armed solely with an orgasm gun; and the 2003 South Park episode, “All About The Mormons” managed to wring laughs out of the tale of Head Mormon In Charge Joseph Smith, the American prophet who once found the true word of God hiding in his hat. The Book Of Mormon’s premise, which juxtaposes the story of two young missionaries with Smith’s, sounds like some combination of the two—though without the orgasm guns, most likely. Whatever the plotline, it should be well worth checking out, considering the best part of Parker and Stone’s projects has long been their original songs, beginning with Cannibal! The Musical through the Oscar-nominated score for Bigger, Longer—as well as the unjustly snubbed soundtrack for Team America: World Police—and 14 seasons of South Park. And if we’re really lucky, the New York Times will be forced to explain what “DVDA” stands for.
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