Matt Stone and Trey Parker, writers of the popular animated series South Park, have been recognized by many for their critical assessment of world religions, politics, and controversial current events. To the great delight of devout South Park watchers everywhere, they have taken a long-awaited stab at creating something for the Broadway scene: a musical entitled “The Book of Mormon,” which premiered Thursday, March 24 at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre (230 W. 49th St., between Eighth and Ninth avenues).

“The Book of Mormon” traces a coming-of-age story of two young Mormon missionaries who are sent to the deepest, darkest depths of Africa, far from their homes in Salt Lake City, Utah. There, they struggle to apply their religious teachings to world issues that cannot be solved simply through prayer. While the boys good-naturedly try to do all they can to help the people they encounter, they slowly learn that certain solutions for life’s problems cannot always be found in the Book.

When asked about why they chose to focus on Mormonism, Stone and Parker spoke about the mission that many Mormons embark upon after turning eighteen. “It’s a lot like graduating high school and going to college,” Parker said. “You have two kids who have lived all their life in Salt Lake City, and then are paired together, don’t really know each other, and sent off to Africa—into a place that is as far from Salt Lake City as they can get.” Parker continued that the characters are “trying to instill everything they’ve learned into people who are dealing with poverty, war, and AIDS and all of that.”

In this way, both writers feel that the play does not only capture the significance of the Mormon mission itself, but it also seems to speak to the greater journey of people everywhere coming to terms with the way the world works by taking what they’ve learned and trying—sometimes unsuccessfully—to make use of it in real life. “Your religion has been there to solve all these problems for you, and then you go to someplace like Africa. Now it’s like, take the same lessons and solve some of these problems and you realize you have nothing in your tool kit,” Stone said. “That’s what our characters have to deal with.”

Parker and Stone hoped that the play would be well received by the Mormon audience—and, happily enough, it was. When the production premiered in February, many Mormons said that the story was “sweet” and almost empathetic in reference to what they experience on their missions. “Someone even described it as ‘lovingly teasing,’” Parker said.

The light hearted-nature of the play also seems to be influenced by the fact that it was written as a musical, something Stone and Parker did intentionally to be able to fully explain all of the themes brought up in the script, while also keeping it creative and exciting. “We’ve always wanted to do a musical. You know, this isn’t a South Park episode where we had to squeeze everything into a twenty-two minute episode,” Parker said. “For this, we had a lot of time to plan out what we wanted to say and were able to cover a whole range of issues that could never fit into one episode.”

The hype around “The Book of Mormon” has grown rapidly as its audience has expanded from South Park lovers to the general masses of Broadway theatergoers. Rave reviews have flown in from publications like Entertainment Weekly and the Village Voice. Stone and Parker are enthusiastic about the play and were especially excited about its official premiere.