Why Mormons Love Musicals

The Book of Mormon, currently playing at the Paramount Theatre, is about two naive, fresh-faced missionaries sent to a village in Uganda that is being terrorized by a local warlord. Last time it was in town, a local theater artist named Jake, who had some traumatic childhood experiences with Mormonism, went to see the show and had a profound, joyful experience watching a highly intelligent takedown of the church that somehow didn't dehumanize or mock the goodness and decency of individual believers. (The tension between the cruelty of the institution and the kindness of its members is a frequent theme in discussions of Mormonism.) In a series of interviews, Jake told me what it was like to watch The Book of Mormon.

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