Any differences between New York and touring audiences?
TP: For me, the theaters all feel so different. The audiences really feel about the same. In New York, you’re getting a lot of tourists. A lot of people who aren’t from New York. So it is kind of a sampling of the United States. And even Denver, where we started out. In Denver the theaters was very big. It was very high with four tiers and a balcony. It was all about how the room plays. More about the theater itself.
Does it feel funny that you guys are so accepted now. That upper East Side matrons are now coming to your shows?
TP: No, but I think part of that is that, you know we’re in our 40s. We’re not far from being upper East old ladies ourselves.
MS: We’re like pre-seniors.
TP: I remember having that feeling. Watching the Broadway show and seeing this little old lady with grey hair and wondering “Oh, what’s she going to think?” And then I realized, she’s like 15 years older than me. We want to think “Yeah, we’re these young twenty year old guys., We’re rebels.” We’re not.
Does your change in status change South Park at all. It still feels fresh.
TP: Well, we haven’t handed that show off. So even if it might not be a better show, it is still a fresh show because it is what we want to do at the time. We don’t want to just to say, “Oh, Cartman’s fat.” But as we grow older, it’s kind of funny, it’s kind of like a band and having all these albums to look back on, and knowing that was where we were at in our lives then, and this where we are at now.
But as you get older, the production schedule on that show is punishing. How do you handle that?
MS: I think it is more about creating storylines. And luckily we created a town because I think there are more storylines with the adults. We used to be interested in the kids’ storylines and now we’re more interested in the adults.
TP: Yeah, I was all about being Stan. Now I’m all about being Stan’s Dad. I identify way more with him.
MS: Yeah.
TP: And we have gotten into story a lot over the years. It is so important. We don’t want “South Park” to just be gag, gag, gag. We really try and get into the story. That’s what we love. It is really the love of that.
I noticed that with this musical, it is very old fashioned and you are definitely pushing the story ahead in each song. Did you always plan on doing it that way?
MS: Yeah. The thing we would always say is if the song doesn’t do [advance the story] it has to be cut. You can’t have a character stop and sing a song [for no narrative reason], the story just stops. That was the real challenge. The songs that work the best, you would almost draw out. Here’s our characters, this character starts here in the storyline and ends here. This character starts here and ends here. This message starts here and ends here. The story starts here and ends here. Everything has to move.
TP: What’s fascinating about musicals, is that when you have a song and dance number you can have a scene after it where someone says something but no one is gonna get it. Anything that is important, anything you need people to hear, you’ve got to do it with music. You have to make it at least a piece of the song, or sometimes the whole song. One time, we had fewer songs but we had these moments where we would have an event and no one paid attention because they were waiting for the next song.
MS: If it needed to land it needed to be in a song. If it is not in a song, it was not an important part of the show. The book might get people over there, or get someone over there now, but if you wanted to say something you had to musicalize it or remove it. That’s what we found out.
The Book of Mormon is on a national tour. I know Brad is checking it out in Seattle in January, and if it comes anywhere close to your town it is well worth the price of a ticket. You can click here for tour information.
