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The first musical I ever saw was The Book of Mormon. A little over a decade ago, my best friend Salman and I secured student-priced, nosebleed tickets to see this crass, new show from the creators of South Park. We were high up in the Altria Theatre in Richmond, Virginia, so far from the stage that it was sometimes difficult to make out the finer points of the plot. But I remember crying from laughing so hard. I remember, very clearly, feeling that I had found love for something I hadn’t before: love for theatre.
Because Sam is no longer with us, The Book of Mormon will always carry a special charge for me. It is a show built on jokes and profanity. But for me, beneath all of that, it is also tied to memory, friendship, and the strange ways art becomes personal, becomes ours. Returning to it now, at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami, in June 2026, directed and choreographed by Jennifer Werner, I saw the plot from the orchestra instead of the rafters. What had once registered to me mostly as comedic slapstick now revealed itself as a surprisingly precise machine. The pacing was sharper and quicker than I remembered, with jokes landing in rapid succession and the cast rarely allowing the audience to catch its breath before the next punchline arrived. The Book of Mormon has always depended on speed, on its ability to move so quickly that the audience is still laughing at one thing when the next thing sneaks up behind it. This production understood that rhythm beautifully.
The show’s humor remains as blunt and offensive as ever. It is not a musical interested in subtlety, nor does it pretend to be. It is not for everyone. But what makes The Book of Mormon endure is the way that shock is paired with classic musical theater craft. The score is bright, catchy, and often deceptively traditional; like the Roger & Hammerstein-vibe they intended. The contrast is the joke, but it is also the pleasure. The production at the Arsht Center leaned fully into that tension, giving the audience a show that felt both outrageous and controlled.
The lead performances were uniformly strong. Ethan Davenport brought a great blend of confidence and innocence to Elder Price, capturing a young man whose certainty fractured the moment life didn’t follow the script he had been told. Jacob Aune was especially memorable as Elder Cunningham, never failing to land a line, finding that perfect balance between desperation and sweetness. Cunningham can easily become a one-note clown, but here Aune made him feel human, a lonely person whose lying behavior comes from a very real need to be loved. Charity Arianna gave Nabulungi warmth and an openhearted presence that helped ground the show whenever its satire threatened to spin off into something more sinister. So many other crew members executed to their highest with this one: Shafiq Hicks as the General; Jay Martin as the Doctor; and Jarius Miquel Cliett as Mafala, etc.
What struck me most this time was how well the production handled momentum. There was no wasted space. Scenes moved cleanly into songs, songs into jokes, jokes into visual gags, and the ensemble kept the show constantly alive; shouts to the stage team of Sam Kronhaus and Riley Gibson. That staging felt crisp, and the cast’s energy never dipped; additional shout out to the Company Manager, Ryan Buchholz. Lastly, the orchestration, led by Eric Huffman was that cherry on top, pulling all the threads together.
Seeing The Book of Mormon again reminded me that theater is never only what happens onstage. It is also what we carried into the room and what follows us out afterward. For many, this show will be a night of outrageous laughter. For me, it will be, too. It will also be a thread back to Sam, to a cheap seat in Richmond, to the beginning of a love that has shaped so much of my life.
The Book of Mormon is still playing at the Adrienne Arsht Center through Sunday, June 14. Go say hello.
The post The Book of Mormon Says Hello! To Miami appeared on South Florida Theater.
