Here’s an exercise for you. Put, in any order you want, the following words and phrases together: hip new prophet, Donny Osmond flair, part three to the Bible, Return of the Jedi, paradise on the West Coast, why are you letting me die, I have maggots in my scrotum. Only the creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, in collaboration with Robert Lopez (Frozen), could put them in such an order as to lead to one of the songs* from the Tony Award-winning musical The Book of Mormon.

Hello! Elder Price, Elder Cunningham, Elder McKinley are back in town. The touring company of The Book of Mormon begins performances on February 18th at the Ahmanson Theatre where the show will continue through March 29th. Two days after closing in Los Angeles, the show will open at the Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco (where performances run from March 31st to April 26th.)

If you haven’t seen The Book of Mormon, this irreverent musical won nine Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, Best Score of a Musical and Best Director.

The musical depicts a group of young Mormon missionaries awaiting their assignments. Elder Price (Liam Tobin), the “Golden Boy,” dreams of an assignment to Orlando, Florida. Instead he gets Uganda. Not only that, he is paired with a chronic liar, Elder Cunningham (Jordan Matthew Brown), who is the loudest and most obnoxious of all the missionaries. The only thing that gets more intense than Cunningham’s lies are the outrageous circumstances that has the missionaries encountering warlords and facing issues such as female genital mutiliation, HIV/AIDS and famine. And a Scary Mormon Hell Dream.

Yes, this is a comedy. An outrageously funny one. What else would you expect from the guys who gave us South Park? But there is also a heart. A rather surprising one.

There is a shock value in much of the humor. How much you enjoy the show on repeated viewings may be linked to what impact shock humor has on you more than once.

For tickets at the Ahmanson Theatre go here.

For tickets in San Francisco go here.

*The phrases used above come from the song All-American Prophet

Photo:  Tsilala Brock, Liam Tobin and Jordan Matthew Brown in “The Book of Mormon.” (Photo by Julieta Cervantes/Courtesy of Center Theatre Group)

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The roles of Price and Cunningham are being played at the Pantages Theatre by David Larsen (Hands on a Hardbody) and Cody Jamison Strand (who appeared in Book of Mormon on Broadway). These two guys couldn’t be more different and less like the characters they play. “We get along like apples and oranges,” Larsen says. “Very different but they’re both fruit and they both go together. And they are great with breakfast.”  

In the show the two play Mormon missionaries who are sent to Uganda to convert the locals. Price, the golden child, is paired with Cunningham, a loudmouth prone to exaggeration. It’s not an ideal location or an ideal pairing. With South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker as writers this isn’t a tame musical. The show’s outrageous humor is part of its appeal.

“The good thing about this material is its jokes,” says Strand. “Keeping laughs fresh is easy because you have a new audience every night. Them hearing the joke for the first time makes you feel like you are telling it for the first time.”  Larsen elaborates on the level of spontaneity this allows. “They give us a very structured framework to work within. Just a slightly different inflection on one line could make you say a line slightly differently, and Cody and I are really synching into that.”

For a show that revolves around the jokes, the music can appear to be easier than it really is. “People watch from the audience and it doesn’t seem too difficult, but when you try to do it eight times a week that’s where you see the different between a professional and an amateur,” Larsen says. 

Strand has his own challenges with the songs. “The range of the part, it really goes all over the place. I don’t have that big of a range for my voice anyway.  My voice his higher pitched than a lot of people’s. My bottom note is a middle C.”

Both actors saw the show early in its Broadway run. Larsen, who was in Billy Elliot at the time, called on his friends who were in the show to get him in.  Strand bought tickets in advance of a trip to New York his senior year in college. “I saw the show and I went, ‘Oh, that’s funny. That guy [Josh Gad] looks like me,” he says. “I saw the show in May of 2012 and then I was cast in the show by the end of the year.” When Larsen learned he’d won the part, he was in the same perfect place that his character hopes to be sent on a mission. “I found out about getting the show while I was at Disney World in Orlando. I thought it was apropos for the piece.”

This tour will last a year and then Larsen and Strand hope that opportunity knocks for them as swiftly as did for their predecessors. “I would hope that it would lead to creating an original piece,” says Larsen. “I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of three original shows on Broadway and that’s my true love.” As for Strand, he has his eyes set on the silver screen. “I always wanted to do movies. But who doesn’t want to do movies? All kind of movies. Jonah Hill movies.” When asked if he thinks he could do The Wolf of Wall Street, Strand replies, “No, not yet. I’d have to be skinnier.” 

Photo: Monica L. Patton, David Larsen, and Cody Jamison Strand in “The Book of Mormon.” (Photo by Joan Marcus/Courtesy Pantages Theatre)

Originally published at LAMag.com on April 9, 2014

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