Book of Mormon Audience Response Lately?

I've seen BoM at least once a month this year and I can't say there's necessarily been a trend as of late -- the kind of response you describe I even heard a couple times when the OBC was still there.

(Though granted, I haven't seen the show in about 3 weeks.)

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I saw BoM about a month after it opened and, maybe because of the extraordinary word-of-mouth on boards like this one and indeed most of the reviews, I went into the theatre with such high expectations that, perhaps inevitably, I was left with a slight feeling of "is that it". I did laugh alot and I enjoyed the score and performances alot but I didn't think it was the phenomenon that it was/is cracked up to be; it's a hugely entertaining show but there are better shows around. imho.

I hate to sound cynical, but saying "satire about the near-unfixability of the political structure, unrest and violence in Africa should probably stop until it is fixed" is essentially saying "guys, we can't joke about Africa."

The bad news is, Africa is probably never going to be fixed. It's going to get better, and then worse, and then better again, but in proportion to its average of violence and chaos. It's not racist to point that out, the same way it's not racist to point out that there's never really been peace in the Middle East for thousands of years. Certain areas are just permanent hotbeds of political and social unrest because of competing social and ethnic groups, divergent political structures and wobbly borders.

It's horrible, yes. Someone should do something, yes. But eliminating satire on how "man, Africa is rough in some parts" doesn't really accomplish anything except have less people thinking at all about Africa to begin with.

The satire in BoM is much, much more on the side of mocking the "white savior" mentality than anything else. It's still appropriate.

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At this point, the hype for the show is something that it could never live up to. What made it so riotous and fun in its first few months was how unexpected the humor was and (particularly in previews) that no one really knew what the show would offer or how funny (or unfunny) it would be.

The most vocal audience reaction I experienced at the show was the first time I saw it, in it's second or third week of previews. I've seen it three times since then and the audience response has been more and more muted each time I returned.

Also, now that it's the hottest ticket on Broadway, it seems as though elderly, presumably wealthy, people are buying tickets just for the sake of buying tickets and just to say they saw it. They really aren't the show's target demo and are most certainly not going to be very vocal during the performance.

Updated On: 12/14/12 at 04:07 PM

I went with my Catholic mother, my godmother, my father, my best friend, and her parents. We all had a great time and no one was offended. I think it was very funny and Gavin Creel is perfect (no way around that), but I think the show was so-so. The performances and voices were strong, but it would not make my list of top ten favorite musicals. I didn't dislike it, but I was slightly underwhelmed.

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For anyone interested, Carly Hughes as joined the cast as Mrs Brown

Jonathan Swift proposed eating poor Irish babies as a way to solve the hunger problem in Ireland in "A Modest Proposal".

Swift's satire was successful in making a lot of people angry enough to start doing something about not only the hunger problem in Ireland, but also people's attitudes about it.

Now today we have Parker and Stone making jokes about raping babies (to cure AIDS) instead of eating them. Well, that is actually happening. If that makes some people angry, then satire has served its purpose. Hopefully people will leave BoM and think "damn that show was hilarious! But wait......are those problems real? Then maybe it's not so funny after all and something needs to be done about it!"

People can critize me for comparing Parker and Stone to Swift, but they are all satirists. Their ultimate job is to make people angry and act on it, not laugh.

The first performance after Sandy was on Halloween, wasnt it? Kevin Duda was on that night. (I was there and Kevin was on, that much I know for sure. :) )

I think KJ's debut was November 3. https://twitter.com/kjhippensteel/status/264718473366761472

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Saw it for the first time this past evening, the audience seemed to really enjoy it. I thought it was great, there were a few times when I couldn't understand what was being said, but overall I thought it was hilarious.

Do they change some of the names that Elder Cunningham uses for Nabulungi based on the location (ie: Nancy Pelosi). There was one other SF reference that Price used in one of the early songs about where they might be going on their missions. Wondering if they try to throw in little local references when they can, we totally picked up on them and loved it.

For the record, I've seen two shows in the last 2 days and let me say the ushers here are NOTHING like the ones in NYC. They seat people in the middle of songs, they're running up and down aisles, totally distracting and they don't walk direct you to your section much less your row. So frustrating. I miss NYC ushers!!!

I think it's more a case of people spending $160 nine months in advance without 100% knowing what they're getting themselves into. They're probably the same kind of people who brought kids to Avenue Q assuming it was appropriate for families because there were puppets.