If all politics is local, art can be out-of-this-world, as shown by The Book of Mormon, created by former University of Colorado students Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
The pair just nabbed fourteen Tony nominations for their musical, The Book of Mormon, which opened in March and quickly won rave reviews, as well as a dozen Drama Desk nominations (not to mention a Best Former Coloradans to Watch award in the Best of Denver 2011).
Parker and Stone first gained national acclaim with South Park, their long-running cartoon. But we were watching them even before that show debuted on Comedy Central fourteen years ago, when they were making Alferd Packer: The Musical, conceived as a CU project. And since that flick managed to make even cannibalism amusing, we had no doubt they could do the same with a tunefest about Mormon missionaries in Africa.
Michael Roberts talked with the creators of that Alferd Packer epic back in 1993; read that first interview with Trey Parker and Matt Stone here.
The Tony ceremony will be June 12 -- just five days after the mayoral runoff. And no matter whether Hancock or Romer proves the victor here in Denver, we're predicting Stone and Parker will be big winners. Now, if they could just create something equally entertaining about this mayor's race...
More from our Calhoun: Wake-Up Call archive: "Denver mayor's and District 8 races just 36 hours away -- from the end of election round one."
