Trey Parker and Matt Stone on Their B’way Book: ’Mormons Are Going to Like the Show’

From Tom Cruise to Islamic radicals, South Park masterminds Trey Parker and Matt Stone have angered their fair share of people during the show’s 15-season run. The Broadway-bound scribes are not, however, feeling threatened at the thought of protesters outside the theater (as happened earlier this season with Kander and Ebb’s The Scottsboro Boys) when their new musical, The Book of Mormon, begins performances on February 24.

“We never like the protesters,” Parker told Broadway.com. “We want everyone to like what we do. We don’t sit down and say ‘Who can we make mad and how can we cause trouble?’ We’re entertainers, so we want to make people laugh.”

Parker notes that any people rallying to boycott the show probably won’t even be followers of its namesake religion. “There may be protesters, but they probably won’t be Mormons because [they’re] just really nice.” Stone agrees, adding, “I think Mormons are going to like the show and the protestors will be the weird freaky people who get the wrong idea about everything.”

While this is the duo’s first foray into Broadway (they’ve collaborated with Avenue Q composer Robert Lopez on the show’s book, score and lyrics), they’ve had their eyes on the Great White Way for some time. “Broadway has always been in the back of my mind as the ultimate thing,” Parker said. “That’s why I kind of forced Broadway’s [musical style] into the South Park movie and [2004 action satire film] Team America. Broadway is such a pure form of entertainment. A good Broadway show can change your life"

The puppet-filled Team America sends up the Tony-winning musical Rent with a performance of a song called “Everyone Has AIDS.” Parker and Stone don’t have plans to take shots at other Broadway shows in The Book of Mormon, however: “There are shows we’d like to give it to, but not in this. We made a conscious decision to say, ’Let’s not parody or make fun of other musicals.’ We wanted this to be a musical that stood on its own feet.”

The Book of Mormon opens March 24 at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre. Until then, take a look at the team’s Rent parody below!