From: xinhua@zaogao.plus.com   
      
   The Cricket: ‘Book of Mormon’ perfect for Salt Lake City stage   
      
   By Sean P. Means   
      
   The Salt Lake Tribune   
      
   June 16, 2011   
      
      
   As I was following the Tony Awards online last Sunday (I’m an award-show   
   addict — what can you do?), I noticed a recurring theme in the Twitter   
   feeds and live-blog posts as Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s “The Book of   
   Mormon” won one award after another.   
      
   That theme ran something like this: “How’s this musical going to play in   
   Utah?”   
      
   I know a lot of Utahns who can’t wait to find out.   
      
   The conventional wisdom outside Utah is that any attempt to stage “The   
   Book of Mormon” — a profanity-filled tale about LDS missionaries in over   
   their heads on a mission in Uganda — would be met with pitchforks,   
   buckets of tar and bags of feathers in the sacred land of Brigham Young   
   and Donny Osmond.   
      
   Inside Utah, we know better.   
      
   I’m firmly of the opinion that tickets to “The Book of Mormon” — either   
   a national touring production or a version staged by one of our local   
   theater companies — would be a quick seller in Salt Lake City. Computer   
   traffic would snarl from the online sales, and lines would form for   
   blocks outside the box office.   
      
   I discovered that I’m not alone in this opinion. The people whose job it   
   is to know the Salt Lake City theater market think so, too.   
      
   “It would be a big hit,” said John Ballard, CEO of Broadway Across   
   America — Utah, the entity that brings touring Broadway shows to Salt   
   Lake City. “If a show is a giant hit on Broadway, and this one is, … it   
   will sell anywhere in the United States.”   
      
   Ballard knows Utahns will go see “The Book of Mormon” musical because   
   they already have.   
      
   “If it doesn’t come here, people will fly to Los Angeles, San Francisco   
   and Denver to see it, because they’ve already gone to New York,” Ballard   
   said.   
      
   “It would probably do very well,” agreed Charles Morey, artistic   
   director of Pioneer Theatre Company. “It’s the hottest ticket on   
   Broadway right now.” How hot? “I haven’t been able to get a ticket, and   
   I’ve got connections,” Morey said.   
      
   Jerry Rapier, producing director of Plan-B Theatre Company, said Utahns   
   would go “in droves.” “Both LDS and non-LDS folks,” Rapier says.   
   “Why?   
   Because it’s a fantastic show, the most fun I’ve had in the theater in   
   several years. And if you can’t laugh a little at yourself, what’s the   
   point?”   
      
   If there’s a concern among these theater folk, it would be how to   
   present the show without overly offending more sensitive season-ticket   
   buyers.   
      
   Morey said that if PTC were to stage “The Book of Mormon,” the   
   production would be sold as an add-on to the regular theater season, the   
   way PTC is now doing with “Rent.”   
      
   That’s not likely to happen anytime soon, though. Morey noted that “The   
   Book of Mormon,” which is selling out on Broadway, won’t be licensed to   
   regional theaters for years.   
      
   Over at Salt Lake Acting Company, they’re not waiting around. This   
   summer, in the new version of SLAC’s perennial Utah-centric satire,   
   “Saturday’s Voyeur,” writers Allen Nevins and Nancy Borgenicht threw in   
   a parody of the Tony winner. “Voyeur” previews June 29-30, opens July 1   
   and plays through Sept. 4.   
      
   “Our parody in ‘Voyeur’ is that the ‘Book of Mormon’ musical would be   
   the first production in [Mayor] Ralph Becker’s 2,400-seat theater,” said   
   SLAC co-executive director Cynthia Fleming, referring to the city’s   
   grand plans for a larger-than-Broadway-style theater downtown.   
      
   What’s a joke in “Saturday’s Voyeur,” though, may become truth, as the   
   touring production may not arrive here until that big theater is built.   
      
   “The Book of Mormon” won’t start touring until December 2012 in   
   Colorado, Parker and Stone’s home state. It’s a safe bet that bigger   
   cities, like Los Angeles and Chicago, will get a crack at it before Salt   
   Lake City does — though, considering Parker and Stone’s puckish senses   
   of humor, they might want to bring it here sooner just to see the looks   
   on our faces.   
      
   They, like many people outside of Utah, may be surprised when they are   
   confronted with Salt Lake City’s demographics. The population of Utah’s   
   capital city has a lower percentage of active members of The Church of   
   Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints than in the rest of the state. It’s a   
   blue island in a red state — which is why Republican legislators want to   
   carve it up into bite-sized chunks every time redistricting comes around.   
      
   Salt Lake City is also more cosmopolitan than is commonly believed. We   
   enjoy challenging theater, even if (as my editor, Ellen Fagg Weist, has   
   pointed out to me) touring shows of more adult-oriented musicals such as   
   “Spring Awakening” and “Avenue Q” didn’t click with mainstream   
   audiences   
   here.   
      
   The contingents of non-Mormons, ex-Mormons, Jack Mormons and just plain   
   curious Mormons should be enough to fill any theater in Salt Lake City   
   that would stage “The Book of Mormon” — even a theater that right now   
   exists only in Mayor Becker’s imagination.   
      
   Sean P. Means writes The Cricket in daily blog form, at   
   blogs.sltrib.com/moviecricket Follow him on Twitter at @moviecricket, or   
   “like” him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/themoviecricket.   
      
      
   http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/entertainment/51998184-81/book-morm   
   n-theater-lake.html.csp   
      
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