Developing and staging a successful Broadway musical is a difficult task. There are years of workshops and a few tryout runs to perfect the show that one day may be so lucky as to grace the stage of a major Broadway venue. That it the norm, but there are always exceptions to that arduous and spirit breaking process and the runaway hit The Book of Mormon is that very exception.

The Book of Mormon did take a while to develop. For five years Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone worked creating a plot and songs for the project. Then the script went to workshop for another two years. Where the Book of Mormon proved the exception is when the creators took the musical straight from the workshop to the Broadway stage.

Initially, Book of Mormon tickets were going to be sold for an off-Broadway production at the New York Theater Workshop. However, producer Scott Rudin, who had worked and befriended the South Park creators previously, decided to go directly to the Broadway stage. Rudin felt that aiming small was a mistake “since the guys work best when the stakes are highest”.

It is difficult to argue against reasoning. The Book of Mormon filled the Eugene O’Neill Theatre to 102.4 percent capacity and grossed $1,274,244 from August 15-21, and the show has been putting up similar numbers since it opened on March 24, 2011.