“The Book of Mormon,” one of Broadway’s biggest hits, resumed performances on Wednesday night after a three-week shutdown prompted by a damaging three-alarm electrical fire at the theater where the musical comedy has been running for 15 years.
Just after 7 p.m., Matt Stone, one of the show’s creators, clambered onstage to welcome an excited crowd.
“This is the third time we’ve opened this show — in 2011 we opened the show, after the pandemic we opened the show and then we had a little fire three weeks ago,” he said while standing in front of the curtain. “And in New York City, there’s no such thing as a little fire. That just doesn’t happen.”
The fire, on May 4 at the century-old Eugene O’Neill Theater on West 49th Street, drew a sizable response — 192 firefighters and emergency medical workers — and took two hours to control. Fighting it required cutting holes in the building’s roof.
At Wednesday’s reopening, Brad Hoylman-Sigal, the Manhattan borough president, presented a proclamation to the Fire Department in recognition of the efforts to save the theater. Then the officials left the stage and a group of actors playing Mormon missionaries stepped on to begin the show’s signature opening number, “Hello!”
The production and the theater owner, ATG Entertainment, have declined to answer questions about the scope or cost of the fire damage or the subsequent repairs. A fire official initially said there had been “substantial damage” in an electrical room; the production, in a news release on Tuesday, said the fire “was isolated to the theater’s spotlight booth.”
When Stone was asked about the fire’s cause during an interview on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” this month, he said, “I think it was just a piece of electrical equipment.”
The production missed 25 performances during its shutdown. Extrapolating from its most recent pre-fire grosses, that means it missed out on about $2.3 million in ticket sales. The production did not say whether those losses would be covered by insurance.
Photographs released by the city’s Department of Buildings just after the fire showed damage to a lighting booth at the back of the theater, and that area remains under a “vacate order,” meaning it cannot be occupied. The lighting booth was still boarded up when performances resumed, and smoke stains remained visible. (The production had found other ways to operate the show’s lights.)
A Buildings Department spokesman said that the theater’s roof and the lighting booth ceiling have been repaired, but that the lighting booth itself would “likely require electrical and general construction permits in order to be returned to code compliant condition.”
The theater’s interior is protected by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, which said it had been told that the fire did not spread into the landmarked area, but that some of the plaster in that area suffered minor damage during the firefighting and inspection work. The theater owner plans to repair that cosmetic damage in the future, the city said.
The fire struck at a time when “The Book of Mormon” is celebrating its 15th anniversary. The musical, a boundary-pushing satire, has been an enormous hit and is now the 10th-longest-running show in Broadway history. It has been staged around the world and is currently also running in London’s West End, and on tour in Britain, Australia and North America. But its Broadway grosses had softened recently, and the production was looking to the anniversary to bolster sales.
Members of the show’s original cast are planning to perform at the Tony Awards ceremony on June 7. During the following week, original “Book of Mormon” cast members are scheduled to perform scenes and songs at each Broadway performance during what the show is calling “Magical Mormon Mystery Week.”
The production and the theater owner declined to say whether workers had been paid during the three-week shutdown. Local 802, a union representing musicians, said the “Mormon” musicians had received their base salary while the theater was closed; Actors’ Equity did not respond to inquiries about pay.
The Broadway performance on Wednesday went off without incident, and without further reference to the fire. Some in the audience seemed unaware what the fuss was about.
“I was wondering why all the press was there,” said Deb Yarbrough, who was seeing the show while visiting from Chicago with her daughter, Sarah Yarbrough, as part of a trip celebrating Sarah’s recent high school graduation.
To incentivize people to return to the show, the production offered $15 tickets for Wednesday’s performance at the theater box office, beginning at 10 a.m. Rita Neri arrived at 10:15 a.m. and grabbed a pair for herself and her friend, Anne Crawley, in Row K of the orchestra.
“That’s why I figured I better dress up a little bit,” Crawley, who wore a floral sundress, said as she stood in line outside the theater before the show. “My son saw it and said it was really good.”
“We’re really lucky,” Neri said. “It’s a real bargain.”
Michael Paulson is the theater reporter for The Times.
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