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For the lead actor in the touring cast of the Tony Award-winning "The Book of Mormon," Salt Lake City is more than just a metaphor.
"Its a whole different rock concert in Salt Lake," says Gabe Gibbs, a Detroit native who plays Elder Price, the self-absorbed missionary who dreams of serving in Orlando but goes on to receive a comeuppance in Uganda. "It's basically like us doing 'Motown: The Musical' in Detroit."
In Missouri, audiences would "lose their minds" when Elder Price sings that he believes that "the Garden of Eden was in Jackson County, Missouri." "Times that by 100 when we play Salt Lake City," Gibbs says. "We tip our hat to Salt Lake City, because Salt Lake City gets every joke. We don't have to wink at any jokes or lay into them. It's above and beyond in Salt Lake City. It's unlike anywhere else."
Gibbs understudied Billy Harrigan Tighe's Elder Price during the musical's first Salt Lake City tour in 2015, but didn't get the chance to take the stage of the Capitol Theatre. ("Billy was so excited to do it in Salt Lake, he was gung ho," says Gibbs, who as the understudy called himself the "second-string quarterback" who got to go on when Tighe was "hurt, sick or bored.")
On Twitter, Tighe reviewed the opening-night Utah audience as "epic." "I've never experienced an audience so eager to share a laugh. Truly one of the most memorable nights of my life," posted the actor, now playing Peter Pan creator J.M. Barrie in the Broadway tour of "Finding Neverland."
"The only nerves we have coming into Salt Lake is the laughing," which threatens to swallow the next line or song if actors aren't prepared for the groundswell of the response, Gibbs says
The actor, who followed his touring stint with a Broadway run of the musical, is a graduate of Emerson College. At 24, he says, he feels old among the show's crew of missionaries.
He grew up and still practices a nondenominational Christian faith, the oldest of four siblings born to parents who met in a college choir. His family sang together, a very "Family Von Trapp situation at the Gibbs house," he says, recalling the old gospel hymns they would practice while driving in the minivan to their grandmother's hone outside Flint.
As a high-school freshman, he broke his collarbone playing football, which prompted him to try out for the part of Seymour in the school play "Little Shop of Horrors." Along the way, he fell in love with acting. "It's such an interesting art form, the art of playing a human truthfully in front of other humans," he says.
The actor says he's a lankier version of Tighe's very physically fit Elder Price. While he tries to follow the rules for playing the character set by the musical's co-creator Trey Parker, who directed the show and tour along with Casey Nicholas, he's also working to make the character his own. It helps that he looks like "a 24-year-old boy whose legs are too long for his body," he says.
Gibbs looks forward nightly to playing Elder Price's emotional religious breakdown in the Kitguli Kafe in the second act, when his missionary companion, Conner Peirson's Elder Cunningham, finally flips his lid. "I enjoy so much his tumble down, when things don't go well," Gibbs says of his character. "It's the first time we see him as a human being, as opposed to somebody who is doing things he thinks are perfect and right. He finally says all the things he needs to say."
He also loves performing Elder Price's signature number, "I Believe." "I'm learning the less I do, the more I get out of the way of those words and let the lyrics lay themselves out," Gibbs says, "the song works every time."
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'I Believe' in 'Sal Tlay Ka Siti'
The nine Tony-Award winning 2011 musical, penned by "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone with Oscar-winning composer Robert Lopez ("Avenue Q" and "Frozen"), returns to Utah.
Where • Eccles Theater, 131 S. Main St., Salt Lake City
When • Plays Tuesday-Sunday, Aug. 1-Aug. 20. Shows at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; and 2 an 8 p.m. Saturday; and 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday.
Lottery • Sign up at the theater box office for a ticket lottery 2 ½ hours before a performance; only one entry per person. Two hours before curtain, names will be drawn at random for one or two tickets. Winners of the cash-only tickets will pay $26 each.
Also • Captioned performance at 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 12. (Theatergoers should select seats located Orchestra Right on the Main floor.)
Tickets • $35-$180 (plus ticket fees of $12-$13 per tickets), with best availability toward the end of the run; at artsaltlake.org or 801-355-2787.