The Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon is a musical comedy and a religious satire. It follows two missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints whose two-year mission takes them not to Orlando, as one of them had prayed, but to a remote village in northern Uganda, where the local mission has yet to win a single convert. The title borrows the name of the scripture Joseph Smith published in Palmyra, New York, in 1830, but the story is original rather than adapted from a book or film.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who created South Park, share credit for the book, music and lyrics with Robert Lopez, who co-created Avenue Q and co-wrote songs for Frozen and Coco. Parker also directed the show together with Casey Nicholaw, who created the choreography.

The musical had its world premiere on Broadway, opening at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on March 24, 2011, with no out-of-town tryout, and won nine Tony Awards that year, including Best Musical. As of September 2026, it was the ninth-longest-running show in Broadway history, and since 2019 it has been the longest-running production the O'Neill has ever housed.

At a Missionary Training Center, star pupil Elder Kevin Price, sure he is destined for something big, prays to be sent to Orlando. The church sends him to Uganda instead, paired with Elder Arnold Cunningham, a clingy, insecure pop-culture fan who has trouble sticking to the truth.

Soldiers loyal to the General, a warlord who terrorizes the village, rob the two newcomers on arrival. Mafala Hatimbi takes them into a community worn down by disease, poverty and the General's rule, whose people get through the day by cursing God in song. The elders already stationed there, led by Elder McKinley, have baptized no one and cope by shutting off any feeling that bothers them.

Price preaches the story of Joseph Smith, but the sermon keeps drifting into a celebration of Price himself, and the General kills a villager who stands up to him. Mafala's daughter Nabulungi, though, is stirred by Price's talk of paradise and dreams of reaching it in Salt Lake City. Rattled, Price asks to be reassigned and walks away from his companion, leaving Cunningham alone in front of a crowd Nabulungi has gathered. The act ends with Cunningham deciding it is his turn to lead.

In the second act, Cunningham keeps his audience hooked by patching scripture with plots borrowed from science fiction and fantasy, while visions of his father, Joseph Smith and pop-culture characters scold him. Price, shamed by a nightmare about Hell, recommits and tries to convert the General alone, with disastrous results. The villagers are baptized, Cunningham and Nabulungi grow close, and the elders celebrate, until a visit from the mission president puts Cunningham's homemade gospel on display.

Counting reprises and the encore, the score has 22 numbers, 10 in the first act and 12 in the second. A band of nine plays it: woodwinds, trumpet, trombone, drums and percussion, two keyboards, violin and viola, guitars and basses. A few numbers carry much of the storytelling:

• "Hasa Diga Eebowai" has Mafala and the villagers teaching the newcomers how they survive hard times.
• "Turn It Off" is Elder McKinley's lesson in burying unwanted feelings.
• "Sal Tlay Ka Siti" is Nabulungi's solo about the Salt Lake City she imagines.
• "Man Up" closes the first act as Cunningham finds his nerve.
• "Making Things Up Again" is where Cunningham starts mixing science fiction into scripture and talks his conscience down.
• "Spooky Mormon Hell Dream" stages Price's nightmare, and "I Believe" comes next, as he sets out to convert the General.

The original Broadway cast recording, released by Ghostlight Records on May 17, 2011, rose to No. 3 on the Billboard 200 after the Tony Awards, a height no Broadway cast album had reached in more than four decades.

Both acts begin with a parody of the Hill Cumorah Pageant. From there the action moves between the Missionary Training Center and the Ugandan village; Orlando, the city Price dreams of, appears only in his daydreams and in his nightmare. Nicholaw's choreography includes a tap routine in "Turn It Off," during which the dancers' claps switch the lights on and off. The wardrobe runs to 150 costumes. By one count, the missionaries say "hello" 42 times.

The show has also changed since its 2011 opening. A two-week workshop with the New York cast in the summer of 2021 reworked several scenes so that the Ugandan villagers have more agency and sit closer to the center of the story.

The idea goes back to the summer of 2003, when Parker and Stone saw Avenue Q and met its writers, Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx; both pairs wanted to write about Joseph Smith. The writers traveled to Salt Lake City to talk with missionaries and former missionaries, and in 2006 Parker and Stone spent three weeks in London with Lopez sketching the first songs and the plot. Marx left that year after a disagreement over creative control.

Roughly half a dozen workshops followed over four years, most of them directed by Jason Moore, with Parker and Stone paying for much of the early work. The writers wavered between a stage show and an animated film until a fully staged reading at the Vineyard Theatre in February 2008 settled it. Josh Gad, Rory O'Malley and Nikki M. James were involved from the start; Andrew Rannells came in later as Elder Price. Nicholaw joined in August 2010, and a planned off-Broadway run gave way to a direct Broadway opening. Previews began on February 24, 2011, and the show earned back its investment in about nine months.

Original cast member Lewis Cleale played Joseph Smith and the Mission President for more than 14 years, and Cody Jamison Strand logged more performances as Elder Cunningham than anyone else. Both left on October 26, 2025.

The first North American tour set out on August 14, 2012, and a Chicago production later became a second tour. The London production opened at the Prince of Wales Theatre on March 21, 2013, and an Australian one in Melbourne on January 18, 2017. Stockholm saw the first production in another language that same year, and stagings across Europe followed; as of October 2026, the show was also playing in London and touring Australia.

Performances stopped on March 12, 2020, because of the pandemic. The show has been criticized for leaning on stereotypes in its portrayal of Africans, and in July 2020, Black performers from the original and current casts wrote to the creative team asking for changes, which led to the 2021 revisions. Broadway performances resumed on November 5, 2021. On February 22, 2025, the 5,124th performance moved the show past Rent, and the 5,759th, on September 25, 2026, lifted it to ninth place on the all-time list.

Parker, Stone and Lopez joined the 15th-anniversary performance on March 19, 2026. On May 4, 2026, a fire in the theater's spotlight room spread to the roof and halted performances; the public areas were not damaged, and the show reopened on May 27, 2026. On June 7, 2026, the original Broadway cast reunited to perform "Man Up" at the 79th Tony Awards.