Elder Price and Elder Cunningham are set to return to the Tony Awards stage once more.
Announced Wednesday, May 27, the original Broadway cast of The Book of Mormon will light up the stage come June 7—hopefully only metaphorically this time.
Fifteen years ago, the word “hello” became immortalized in song, when a new stage musical entitled The Book of Mormon joined the year’s Tony nominees.
The story of two mismatched missionaries, Cunningham (Josh Gad) and Price (Andrew Rannells), who are assigned to a remote Ugandan village swept the night on Sunday, June 12, 2011. Winning a whopping nine Tony statuettes for Best Book of a Musical, Best Direction of a Musical, Best Lighting Design of a Musical, Best Musical, Best Orchestrations, Best Original Score, Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical (Nikki M. James) & Best Scenic Design of a Musical. Though, both Rannells and Gad garnered nominations for Best Actor neither came away with the trophy—that honor went to Norbert Leo Butz for Catch Me If You Can. Book of Mormon also won the 2011 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theatre Album.
Now the original Broadway cast including Gad, Rannells & James will reunite to perform a special 15th anniversary performance. It is the first performance announced for the night that does not coincide with an awards bid.
Perhaps this reunion will help the current cast recoup their investment, after disaster fell back at the beginning of the month when the Eugene O’Neill Theatre fell prey to an electrical fire. This caused the show to be closed through Wednesday, May 27.
For reference, that would be roughly 26 performances missed between the time of the fire (Monday, May 4) and the show’s re-opening.
Assuming the person reading this is not one of the lucky few who scored $495 tickets to physically join the elite of Broadway earlier today, you can still help by seeing the recent cast in person. Buy tickets here.
The Tony Awards are not the only celebration to be held in the Book of Mormon universe. The show will hold a “Magical Mormon Mystery Week” between June 9 and June 14 in which the performances will feature surprise appearances by the original stars alongside the show’s current cast.
While it is not currently known which song(s) will be performed on June 7, I believe we can still expect to hear the words sung— “I am a Mormon and by God a Mormon just believes.” They believed that they could win the 2011 Tonys, and we believe that they will get back on their feet in no time.
Photo courtesy of social media
