This Paper Assigned is concerned with a famous new Broadway musical. The full title for the musical is The Book of Mormon. The musical is primarily responsible for satirizing organized religion and commenting on the credibility of the Latter Day Saints Church as depicted in the real Book of Mormon and Mormon religion. The Book of Mormon is conceived and was created by the creators of the famous and controversial animated television show, South Park. The book, lyrics and music for the musical were written by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone. The music was co-created with Trey Parker, Matt Stone and George Lopez. Parker and Stone have mentioned that they grew up in Colorado. Since they were introduced to The Church of Jesus Christ …show more content…
In 2006, Parker and Stone met Lopez in London where they wrote a few songs for the musical and came up with the basic plot for the musical. After a few years of staging workshops and making changes to the production, the musical started with developmental workshops in 2008. In August 2010, a final workshop took place that lasted for five weeks. The producer for the play – Scott Rudin – wished for the musical to not travel outside of New York City and to open up on Broadway. He pushed everyone by booking the Eugene O’Neill Theatre in New York City. After the key players for the production were cast and construction on the design elements began.
The production is co-directed by Casey Nicholaw and Parker. Nicholaw also did the choreography for the production. The following designers were involved with the production: Scott Pask (Set Design), Anna Roth (Costume Design), Brian MacDevitt (Lighting Design) and Brian Ronan (Sound Design). Stephen Oremus was the musical director and vocal arranger for the production. He co-created the orchestrations with Larry Hochman.
The Book of Mormon premiered on Broadway on March 24, 2011 at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre in New York City. The production opened right after it opened for previews on February 24. The musical won nine Tony Awards, including the Tony Award for Best Musical. The musical started its first United States National Tour in 2012. Previews for the North American tour began on August 14,
The musical opened to previews on Broadway at the Nederlander Theatre with a limited engagement from March 15th , 2012 to march 28 2012. They performed “King of New York “ in the thanksgiving parade for that year. The show has earned Eight Tony awards, and won 3 which were , Best Musical , Best Choreography and Best original
A homegrown religion originating in the late 1820s, Mormonism arose as a rejection of the existing Christian sects and a return to what the Mormons considered to be pure Christianity. Similarly, the members believed their desire for a new kind of government stemmed from their disillusionment with what they believed was a corrupt government and a desire for the reestablishment of true American values and the original intent of the founding fathers. This sentiment is epitomized by Joseph Smith’s presidential platform, which states “No honest man can doubt for a moment, the glory of American liberty is on the wane; and that calamity and confusion will sooner or later destroy the
One of the largest struggles for members in the church is animosity of non-members. On one hand, many express their dislike of the LDS church without even knowing what Sacrament Meeting is or the full the title of the “Mormon church” (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints). On the other hand, there are a number supposed experts about Mormon doctrine. Some have belonged to the Church themselves at one point, leaving after finding unresolved dissonance between their beliefs and the Gospel. Others are often learned scholars, criticizing the Mormon doctrine to prove their own views. The following paper involves the latter of the two in an analysis of Ezekiel 37:15-17, a Biblical scripture that the LDS Church believes to refer to The Book of Mormon.
People and religion are a part of everyday life. The world is sure to be empty without the existence of God’s creation. When people and religion are viewed as different, the history, beliefs, and practice are formed unrealistically by outsider, more so than an insider. In an interview with a LDS, the author attempts to write and summarize a Mormon‘s journey through life with God and others.
The Mormon faith dates back to the year 1830 when Joseph Smith, the founder along with 5 other men gathered together to form what they initially called The Church of Christ. This was later changed to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
the training ground and inspiration for the birth of the American musical. As the primary
In 1974, a musical called The Wiz opened in Baltimore at the Morris A. Mechanic Theatre and on Broadway in 1975. The Wiz was an urbanized retelling of L. Frank Baum 's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with an all African-American cast placed within the context of 1960’s and 1970’s African-American society. The musical kept the rural Kansas setting and agrarian Oz as well as many of the other central plot devices from the novel. In 1978 Motown released a movie loosely based on the musical which starred Diana Ross as Dorothy, Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow, Nipsey Russell as the Tinman, and Ted Ross as the Cowardly Lion. The movie moved the story from Kansas to Harlem and Oz to fantastical dystopian version of New York City.
The foul-mouthed musical The Book of Mormon opened in Spring 2011 to stellar reviews including The New York Times claiming the musical as "a newborn, old-fashioned, pleasure giving musical" by Ben Brantley (2011). As a story about two Mormon missionaries who got sent to northern part of Uganda for their mission, the musical tells a brief explanation of the real "Book of Mormon" -the sacred text of the Latter Day Saint church founded in 1820s by Joseph Smith, but instead providing satirical view and perception of contemporary musical theater writers (in this case, Trey Parker and Matt Stone of the television series South Park and Robert Lopez) towards the Mormons and a rather stereotypical portrayal of Uganda as a barren land of extreme poverty and savages.
In the South Park episode entitled “All About Mormons” the community is confronted with a new family living in the town of Fairplay, Colorado. This newly introduced family follows the religion of Mormonism, something that the town has never seen before. The issue at hand in this episode was specifically about the Mormon family; how do the townspeople deal with them? How do the boys deal will them? The biggest issue at hand however is how the Marsh family deals when the new family explains to them the background on how Mormonism started.
With the book by Doug Wright, the first act of the production, which opened on Broadway in 2006
Enoch Drebber and Joseph Stangerson are not racially foreign, but they are members of an unfamiliar religion that becomes even more outlandish to the reader through Conan Doyle’s negative description of the Mormon society.
Company started as a collection of one acts by George Furth. After asking Sondheim to look them over and Sondheim took them Harold Prince who thought they would make a great musical. The show was to be an examination of New York marriages. Company opened in April of 1970 and ran for over 700 performances and won 7 Tony Awards including Best Musical. While this was not Broadway’s first concept musical it was one of the first successful. It was also one of the first to deal with adult themes and relationships. At that time people usually went to the theatre to escape and Company was holding up a magnifying glass to everyday couples and their marriages. The climatic ending comes when Bobby’s heart has finally thawed and he stands on the precipice of his future ready to find his mate.
On Saturday, November 21st I attended Stage III’s production of the musical The Drowsy Chaperone at the Beaudoin Theater in Siena Campus’ Foy Hall. In order to keep productions interesting for all members of the audience, Stage III productions differ each year. So, Stage III production genres vary each year, as no genre of play or musical is repeated within the same year. The musical direction in Stage III’s The Drowsy Chaperone was by Dr. Timothy J. Reno, while the music and lyrics were by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison.
According to Joseph Swain in his book The Broadway Musical: A Critical and Musical Survey, there are a number of
We journey through three different acts, each capturing a time in history where political forces were blurring the lines between the church and state. We have 1575 England; the year where Queen Elizabeth banned all religious plays from the country in an effort to better control her empire. Hitler visits Oberammergau Germany in 1934, attempting to use the Passion play performance as propaganda for his own political endeavors. And then we have South Dakota in 1969 to present day, when Reagan was pushing to restore