HELLO, BROADWAY! It’s getting closer to the 72nd Annual Tony Awards. We are only just 3 days away from Broadway?s biggest night of the year. We are so happy to keep you entertained with some of the best performances from the previous telecasts on our TOP 40 TONY AWARDS COUNTDOWN. Bring on more showtunes!!

At # 3 in our countdown is another one of Broadway?s current long running hits that gets people laughing. It tells the crazy adventures of 2 unlikely missionaries who team up, travel to Uganda to try to share their scriptures with the residents there. However, hell breaks loose for them!! We of course are talking about?. The Book of Mormon on Broadway. Inspired by an episode of South Park, the show features a score by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez, and Matt Stone.

From the 2011 telecast, Tony nominee Andrew Rannells as ?Elder Price? along with members of the cast perform the powerhouse anthem I BELIEVE.

THE BOOK OF MORMON was first conceived in in the Summer of 2003. Trey Parker and Matt Stone were already becoming household names for their creation of the smash hit TV series South Park and were developing the marionette comedy film Team America: World Police. To get inspiration, Rudin encouraged Parker and Stone to see Avenue Q. After seeing it, Parker and Stone met Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx (the composers of Avenue Q and super South Park fans) and went out for drinks. While talking, the 2 groups all shared something in common?. They wanted to write a comedy involving the story of Joseph Smith and the first Mormons. To learn more about Smith, they decided to take a trip to Salt Lake City interviewing missionaries. The timing was accommodated with Parker and Stone?s schedule with South Park. They continued working on the show and being inspired from a previous South Park episode about missionaries. In 2006 while still working on the piece, Trey Parker and Jeff Marx got into a little disagreement that caused Marx to drop from the production. From there, the show was continued to be worked on with Lopez, Parker, and Stone.

Under the direction and choreography by Jeff Marx who later dropped out and replaced by Casey Nicholaw (a Tony nominee this year), THE BOOK OF MORMON went through numerous years of readings and workshops. The show did not have a traditional out of town tryout heading straight to Broadway opening at the Eugene O?Neill Theatre in 2011. The critics and audiences went crazy crying their eyes out for how hilarious it was. The show continues to sell out and is still hard to get a ticket. It?s grossed over $500 million dollars since opening and has played over 3,000 performances. The cast consisted of?

Tony nominee Andrew Rannells (later Nic Rouleau, Matt Doyle, Gavin Creel, Kyle Selig, and David Thomas Brown) as ?Elder Price?,

Tony nominee Josh Gad (later Jared Gertner, Cale Krise, Jon Bass, Cody Jamison Strad, Ben Platt, Christopher John O’Neill, and Brian Sears) as ?Elder Cunningnam”,

Tony winner Nikki M. James (later Asmeret Ghebremichael, Nikki Renee Daniels, and Kimberly Exum) as ?Nabulungi?,

Michael Potts (later Stanley Wayne Mathis, Daniel Breaker, Billy Eugene Jones, and Sterling Jarvis) as ?Mafala?,

Tony nominee Rory O’Malley (later Matt Loehr, Grey Henson, and Stephen Ashfield) as ?Elder McKinley?,

And more.

The show was nominated for 14 Tony Awards in 2011 winning 9 including Best Musical. It also won the Grammy for Best Musical Theater album and the Oliver Award for Best New Musical.

THE BOOK OF MORMON continues to play on Broadway, on Tour across America, in London?s West End, in Australia, and around the world.

Doesn?t this show make you want to BELIEVE?

#TonyAwards #CountdownToTheTonys #BroadwaysBiggestNight #NYBTTonyAwardsCountdown #NewYorkBroadwayTours #Top40Countdown #ThisIsBroadway

Andrew Rannells (From NBC’s The New Normal) singing ‘I believe’ from the Tony Awarding winning Broadway musical ‘Book of Mormon”

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Author: NYBroadwayTours