iTunes Exclusive Episode The Book Of Mormon

Sound runner
Frown runner
Greetings Empire member and or members.
If you are hearing the sound of my voice right now, it means the following conditions
have been met.
At least once in your life, you have listened to the Clubhouse podcast live every Sunday,
night, seven Eastern, four Pacific, your one stop shop for all things pop culture, but it
also means you subscribe on your favorite podcasting app because it is time for another.
I tools exclusive and a milestone episode at that, this is the 250th one of these things.
Welcome.
My name is Rob, I'm the executive producer of the Clubhouse podcast and I consider myself
to be a fairly open-minded individual.
But I'm not alone for this particular episode, Jordy me across the desk as he tends to
do is my co-host and a man that's maybe knows a little bit about religion because that's
how he rolls because he lives in the buckle of the Bible belt.
He is Chad.
Welcome, sir.
Alright, the weather's evened out a little bit as we record this.
It is the first day is the Winter Solstice, but it doesn't freeze your eyeballs when
you step outside.
See, I like the cold though.
I like how much fire place fired up.
I like the cold too.
It just seems strange.
Here we are at the Winter Solstice.
It's just man.
It's six.
Yeah.
Typical Texas.
Whatever we do one of these things, it is to review something.
This particular episode is no exception.
We are here on this particular episode to review a stage production that is currently in
our fair burger in the Dallas Fort Worth area at the Wind Spear Opera House.
Currently playing through New Year's Eve, it is the book of Mormon and before we get started,
we have to thank our friends at the AT&T Performing Arts Center.
Cindy Evans in the crew over there.
Thank you so much for having us out as always.
For this thing, there are such great people.
They're so good to us.
Thank you.
Absolutely.
This is the smash hit Broadway musical nominated for 13 Tony's one nine of them.
I don't know, Shirei Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park.
They were not alone in this particular deal though.
Also Robert Lopez.
Did you look this guy up?
Oh, yes.
I did.
Also responsible for Avenue Q and Frozen.
You started the bitcoin maybe?
Well, apparently his wife is a songwriting partner with him and they wrote the majority
of Frozen together, including the biggest song that whips every parent into oblivion.
So let's just go ahead and get started.
Much like when we reviewed and this is going to be a really weird comparison so roll with
me for a minute.
Much like recently in iTunes exclusive 245, when we reviewed Rogue One, this is going to be
an interesting review because you don't really want to give away too much.
And in this particular case, being a family show, there's a lot of things we can't
talk about exactly, even even a primary character we can't even mention by name.
Exactly.
So here's what you need to know.
We have Elder Price and Elder Cuttingham played respectively by Gabe Gibbs and Cody
James and Strand.
Now, there is a number of different people playing a number of different roles depending
on the performance you see.
We can only base our review on the cast that we saw.
So we will be naming them by name.
So you'll know if that cast members change, there might be some changes to the performance.
Right.
But Elder Price and Elder Cuttingham have just finished their Mormon training, I guess
you could say, and they're being sent out on their mission.
If you don't know how Mormonism works, lunch would be coming Elder.
You are sent on a two year mission somewhere in the world.
That's what kind of advances you to the next level of Mormonism.
Nomenclature, I guess, head Elder, I guess or something like that.
So they're being paired, his class is being paired off, and Elder Price is kind of the
golden boy.
He's the guy that everybody's like, oh, this is the guy, and he knows it.
Oh, yeah.
And he's the, I'm going to make sure he knows it.
He gets paired up with Elder Cunningham who this role on Broadway was originally to
my Josh Gad.
So who would, oddly enough, go on to play Olaf and Frozen.
So you know what you're getting here, and, and, and, strand really does channel Gad in this
role.
Oh, yeah, it's painfully obvious.
He's he's kind of an overweight cat.
He's not very well-liked.
He's not, he's not, you know, the brightest crayon on the box.
He's got an overactive imagination, which tends to get him in trouble.
He's very manic.
He's very loud.
He's very, so screechy.
Creaching.
Think the Mormon odd couple, right?
And that's what you've got.
Well, price, he wants to go to Orlando.
That's his happy place.
He wants to go to Orlando, and he's very excited, and he's preyed to the heavenly father,
and they go to Uganda.
If you could pick an opposite of Orlando, yes, you've got this pretty much.
You've got this exactly like Orlando, except the exact opposite.
So of course Elder Price, not happy about this.
Elder Cunningham is happy because now he might have a best friend, because that's
not a lot of friends before.
And he's with the most popular kid in school, so they go down there, find a lot going
on.
That's not good in the village that they will be our station in Uganda.
They're throwing rocks.
That's throwing rocks at mountains pretty much.
What they will be for the next 340, there are 640 days, 720 somewhere in there.
I can't do that.
730.
730 days.
Let's see if there's no leap here.
So I can't even, here's what you know, war, pestilence, famine, everything's going on.
Disease, disease, yeah.
Well, he also finds out there's other elders that have been there, it was like 8 or 9
guys all living in one big house, I guess, but they haven't been able to baptize any
members of this local village, because they're just not getting through, there's also
a warlord who is terrorizing villages, and as weird as people thought some of the things
they were talking about that he was doing are these things really happen.
And we really, again, this is a family show, so we can't really talk about the things
he's doing in the villages.
Well, price finally snaps.
He's going to talk to the mission president, transfer to Orlando, and then Elder Cunningham
ends up trying to minister to these people and his imagination takes over and then the
wheels do what they do, right?
He picks up the ball and runs with it and runs a muck with it.
I'm not going to, I'm not even going to bury the lead.
I'm just going to say this up front.
If anything in this life truly offends you, this is not the deal for you.
Oh, it, it's not.
And if you go into this with those sensibilities, you really have nobody to
blame but yourself.
No.
It's not hard to do the homework.
It's not hard to do the research, and all you need to know is tray Parker, Matt Stone.
You know them as the creators of South Park, but you also know them from films like
Cannibal the Musical or Gazmo.
Base football.
So you're already in America, Team America, we're all police.
That, that, I think that even got them more fans.
So going into this, the envelope and hot buttons are going to be pushed with the
fervor of Stone Cold Steve Austin walking a mud hole in somebody, was it kicking a mud hole
and you walk it at dry?
Yes.
That's basically what's going on here.
And everything's fair game from, from sex to drugs to religion to everything, everything's
fair game in there.
If you believe in sacred cows.
If you don't think, if you don't know if something offends you, they'll find it.
But you, you and I, and Don, Don was with us, and you can read his thoughts.
He couldn't be with us for this recording, but you can read his thoughts in his written
review at www.theclawhousepodcast.com.
That's our website.
There you go.
The three of us tend to be fairly laid back individuals.
Right.
We can take things and stride, I think, one of the fervor balls just knock something
over.
We can take things and stride that a lot of people tend to get their panties in a
water.
Right.
Or they're magic underwear.
I don't, I'm not here to tell you.
And we were, which was not addressed.
I was, I was shocked.
And we were fans of these guys.
We were fans of tree barker mats don't, from the get, get, get, make, we make no bones
about.
Right.
So, if you don't do the research and know that these guys are equal opportunity
offenders, that's kind of on you.
Right.
It's not like this is some independent musical that's been out there for ten, for ten
days.
This has one major awards.
They have gotten leglamps.
You understand what I'm saying?
Did they have?
So, to see people in our performance as Act 2 was starting, there was a group of people
that just made this big production as they were walking out.
And I was like, and I didn't realize that was going on until you said something.
On rest like your baby sitters, like you, you can't keep your baby sitters any lighter.
I don't have any sympathy for you.
Now, you should all, regardless of you're seeing this or whatever you're going to do, you
should always do the homework.
There's a thing called the internet that's really, really good at that, because again,
this thing is, this thing was in development for about a decade from, you know, this
is something they've been working on for a while and that was, it was, you know, stories
were brewing about it long before it even made its first, you know, full performance.
So, that being said, this is a wonderful,
do you, should we feel guilty for liking it as much as we do?
No, and because again, I said, you were the kind of people that can take things in stride.
You know, self-deprecation comedy has been my defense mechanisms since I was a child.
Right.
But by the same token, you and I had kind of reached a critical mass with, with, uh, with
tray Parker and Matt Stone.
Oh, the long time.
But I heard so much about this musical.
I, and it does give you the history of Mormonism, too.
It's not just about these two guys.
They work in the story of John Smith and how everything happened and Brigham Young,
which comes into play really late now, too.
And it's something that found rather interesting and I, and I looked this up to make
sure it wasn't just an isolated incident and our, you know, play our Joseph Smith.
John Smith was Pokemon John, our, our, you know, the book that you gave,
really can't call it a play, but because that's a copyright thing, but I don't
think they use play bill.
No, they use somebody else.
Um, if you look in the back of this thing, you see an ad for the actual book
of Mormon.
Oh, is there there is an ad space?
Yes, yes, it's close to the back of there.
Okay, I didn't get that far back.
And apparently this has been a thing with the churches like their clothes, it's like
they're actually kind of, yeah, it is.
Our version is slightly different.
And they're advertising the actual book of Mormon.
And if I'm not mistaken, this is signed off by Stone of Parker.
Yeah, they're like, yeah, why wouldn't she?
I mean, and so the church of Latter-day Saints has a sense of humor with this, which is,
it's kind of, it's kind of a good thing that there.
And there's also some changes of South Park to this, you know, for instance, at the
beginning of Act 2 as they're telling more of the story of the book of Mormon talks about
Jesus and his white robe and LED lights.
I'm Jesus, you guys.
Like, that's how he says it.
Well, that's tray Parker.
Right, but that's the voice of course.
It literally is tray Parker.
I think I was just lip syncing.
When they tell, when they tell the backstory, there is a lip syncing to it.
But it's just, it's fun.
Yes, it's not for everybody.
This is not family friendly at all.
Yeah, if you bring your kids, that's on your eternal soul, right?
Because there's to say there's adult content in this
is could be the biggest understatement we've said in months.
There are, there is content in this musical that, even some of the
staunchest of people we know will go, oh, maybe not.
There were several times, I think I looked over at you and you're like, oh my god.
There was a lot of you going, wow.
During this musical.
Like, but it's done in such a way that border lines on
farcical.
Yeah, it doesn't really, it doesn't come across as mean spirited.
It's, it's definitely not.
It's, it is the very definition of satire.
Yeah.
And if satire affends you, don't even bother.
Don't just walk away.
Again, if you have any kind of sensibility towards anything in this life
that you are passionate about, this will offend it.
Right.
And you know, we do we joke about family guy being, you know, they, they don't,
mind taking potshots.
This is next level stuff, yeah.
And I would, I hate to ever turn somebody away from a musical,
but if you know that it's not going to be there.
If you know this isn't your cup of tea, yeah.
You feel like you got to say something, it's a warm them.
Again, I enjoyed it.
But we're kind of sick.
But we're sick that way, but we're, again, we're also very
open minded individuals where we can take these kind of things
and stride.
Yeah.
I am a man of faith, and I'm not afraid to say it.
There was parts of this right kind of in, wow.
But again, you have to take this for what it is.
And put it in its proper context.
Right.
It's goofy.
It's fun of the musical numbers, the choreography is great.
Yeah.
The choreography, and this is really, really good.
I was very impressed with the choreography itself.
It really, because, again, after a South Park's feature film,
I really fell off with that.
That's a bit longer than I thought.
Yeah, I haven't really been a fan of anything they've done,
because I just stopped bothering watching it.
I'm just like, OK, so there is no line.
They won't cross.
So it's no reason for what it was.
Yeah.
That I just more like ignored.
This makes me, like, if this is the level that they are
that they're creating at, it makes me want to come back to South Park
and start watching it again, literally.
I didn't think it would, which, by the way, just wrapped up
its 20th season, which is impressive as heck.
So it really makes me want to come back and revisit what they've
done for the past couple of years and see, maybe what I've
deprived myself of, because this was incredibly entertaining.
It was very entertaining.
The cast makes it, because you can have the best
material in the world, but if you don't have a strong cast
to pull it off, you're never going to get there.
This cast is great.
Gibbs and Strand carry this story very, very well.
Candace quarrels.
That's not good.
Because they're not belong to you.
Who is the daughter of the head of the village
who Elder Cunningham can't seem to get the name right up.
I think he calls her everything, but, yes,
forget some point.
Well, the first time he calls her jump on Jovey.
Neil Sporin.
Yes, and it goes downhill from there.
I don't want to, I don't want to put the last one out there,
because that was the one that really killed him.
And he calls that twice.
He did? Yes.
And catch that.
I'm like, I got it that last time and everybody was like,
Oh, geez.
That girl has a voice.
Her voice was pure and it was clean.
And she played the part to the hell.
She got a texting device, which was a type of text in my friends
in the film. Right.
And it's just, you know, also you're going to deal with Elder McKinley
played by Daxton Bloomquist, who's one of the elders that was
already there when they got here that maybe is having some struggles
with his own sexuality.
And like, the turn it off.
Turn it off.
Turn it off was one of my favorite numbers in the whole deal.
And the opening.
Hello.
It opens with them basically going door to door talking to people.
And the one guy that just keeps hitting the door.
And nobody ever answers.
This is so much fun.
But again, not for everybody.
But if you had those kind of sensibilities,
this is well written.
It's well performed.
It looks gorgeous.
The technology works really well.
The orchestra was great.
It had no real reason to succeed, really.
If you really look at it and break it down for what it is,
it offends so many people.
It steps on so many toes.
It pokes fun at religion, which is one of the biggest taboos
in entertainment.
But somehow it has succeeded in spite of all that.
And I think part of it's because the tongue is so firmly
implanted in the proverbial cheek that you can't help but laugh.
Yeah, at the absurdity of it.
Unless you're so incredibly uptight that the simplest things
offend you.
And that place was packed.
Yeah, I mean, this is the second year in a row
that this production has been here.
And I don't know that we've done a production
that's been here back to back seasons.
Like we didn't get to see it last year because they're just
wasn't a seat to be had.
Like Kinky Boots is coming later this year.
But there's a year in between.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, there's like an entire, they had another entire season.
Right, that's what I'm saying.
I don't know that we've had a production go,
because a Christmas Carol is different because that's a tradition.
Right.
This thing being here back to back years is huge.
Yeah, that's saying something.
Again, we live in the buckle of the Bible belt.
And that place was packed to the rafters.
Yeah.
It's incredibly entertaining.
It's definitely a night at the theater.
It will definitely give you all something to talk about afterwards.
You will spend a lot of time going.
That just happened.
Could this be made into any other format?
Could this be made into a film?
Absolutely.
I've heard rumors, really.
I've heard rumors.
But it's going to be a very slow process to get into the silver screen.
But I have heard rumors that they want to bring it to the big screen.
Given who your creative minds are, would it be animated?
Do you think they have to do it live action?
I would hope they would.
They'd have to do it live action because to animate this in the style that they use,
it won't translate as well.
Well, maybe not make it look just like Southboard.
Maybe use a slightly different style of animation.
But just, you know, because we look at the team American when they went, you know,
Marionette style.
Right.
But they could do something else.
You could do CG animation.
No, I like to see them do this live action.
I mean, I would too.
I hope that's the avenue that they pursue.
If the need is becoming a stage to screen at it.
Man up another great number.
Man up.
We talk a lot about this show.
Like, there's times where you just go, why am I laughing at it?
And this is one of those shows as your ticket to hell gets punched.
Oh, I said the beginning of my written review.
There are many people that feel a tray Parker and Matt Stone have their own private wing
and hell waiting for them.
If you laugh at any of this stuff, you're going to be sitting in an adjacent room.
And don't get it started on the hell sequence.
There is a hell sequence in this in the second act.
And that's the one saying some of the people you see in this thing.
And some of the things that are done while they're there.
And I'm not saying anything.
That's as far as we're going to go.
I mean, is there anything else we need to cover before we can do the final analysis here?
No, I want to make sure that there's at least a little bit of my soul lacking salvage before this is open.
The way we do the final analysis on the show.
We're not going to give you thumbs up, thumbs down.
We're not going to give you letter grades, stars.
We're not going to give you books.
They're rank it with we're going to ask two questions.
Question number one, what is would you see this production again?
If the answer's no, then we're done here.
If the answer's yes, when since this is a stage production,
it's a little bit different than the way we rate a film.
The way we rate a stage production is if you are willing to see it again.
Where do you, how much would you spend where do you want to sit?
So Chad, would you see the book of Mormon again?
Absolutely.
Where do you want to sit?
I don't want to sit too incredibly close because there is so much going on at any given time.
But if you sit too close, your peripheral vision is going to be going to become your worst enemy.
And we sat right behind the mixing board.
About four rows behind the mixing board in the center, so we sit.
In that general vicinity is fine.
It's your view is not obstructed.
You get a clear line of sight to everything going on.
Would I pay more?
Yeah, I would pay whatever it took.
It's that good.
It's that entertaining.
I absolutely love this thing.
I'm not going to rank it as my favorite musical the year.
It's close.
It's good.
I would see it again.
I liked where we sat.
I thought where we sat was the perfect place to do so.
If you want to know what my favorite musical of the year is, you're going to have to wait until next week.
When we do our best and worst of the year.
But.
I can't have a pretty good idea.
It's good.
You may or may not, sir.
I might surprise you on this one.
It's really, really good.
Again, it's not for everybody if you can handle the material.
And this is one of those very few instances where I'm going to say, if you're on the fence,
go to the Wikipedia page and read about it.
And then and ask yourself the question, is this something I can handle?
Go to the iTunes page for the for the Broadway cast recording and look at some of the titles of the numbers.
Yes.
Are you be listening to the samples?
Yeah, and do yourself a do the research because this is one of the very few things that I'm going to say.
If you need to spoil yourself to know if you can handle it.
Right.
Do so.
We are not saying by any stretch of the imagination.
Don't go because it's not good because it is it is very good.
But if I mean, you know, we can only explain it so many in so many different ways.
And again, thanks to everybody at the AT&T Performing Arts Center,
Cindy and the crew over there always do such a great job.
Absolutely.
So well, and they give us the opportunity to see these productions so that we can review them for you.
The empire who wants to be, you know, we want you to make informed decisions.
And if we can help you do that, we're down with that.
Absolutely.
It is the book of Mormon.
It is currently at the Winspirer Opera House playing through New Year's Eve.
This is a traveling company.
So if you're not in the Dallas Fort Worth area, take this under advisement when it does come to your town.
Ready for the plugs?
Absolutely.
Do it.
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Also, you can email him for questions.
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He is Don at theclubhousepodcast.com.
Questions, comments, concerns, tell me to go out and say,
and I'm Rob at theclubhousepodcast.com.
I am Chad at theclubhousepodcast.com.
Charlotte Parker was with us.
She had a great time as well, but she is on Pinterest.
And Jules Womick is probably waiting for her husband so that they might have a little dinner.
Coming up here in a little while.
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For Chad, for the Empire, I'm Rob.
Clubhouse is closed.
Brittany Palmer, you could put her in this.