'Book of Mormon' rules again

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The Book of Mormon continues its clean-cut, white-shirted dominance of Broadway. Last night, the Tony-winning hit by Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez picked up a Grammy Award for best musical theater album (during the untelevised portion of the ceremony). Backstage, Parker said that he was gratified by the overwhelmingly positive response to the show — including by Mormons: “For some, it’s like their Fiddler on the Roof.”

And after topping the Broadway box office charts for the first time last week, Mormon slipped to second behind perennial powerhouse Wicked for the week ending Feb. 12. While Wicked raked in $1.509 million, Mormon broke yet another house record at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre with $1.485 million. That’s quite an achievement considering that the O’Neill seats only 1,066 people, far less than the theaters hosting such behemoth hits as Wicked (1,809 seats), Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark (1,930 seats), and The Lion King (1,677 seats).

Speaking of records, there was no box-office bump for Phantom of the Opera even as that Main Stem mainstay reached its record 10,000th performance on Saturday. Earnings dipped slightly to $638,467 for the Andrew Lloyd Webber classic that has grossed $875 million since its 1988 Broadway premiere.