Camas native joins ‘Book of Mormon’ cast

Clayton Lukens focused on the beat and kept smiling. “I faked it till I made it,” he said of his dance audition for the Broadway Across America touring production of “The Book of Mormon,” which will come to Portland’s Keller Auditorium next week. Actually, Lukens did a lot more than fake it. The Camas native had worked with a friend in a practice room for days, drilling the dance he’d need to deliver with professional polish and gusto. “Dance has never been my thing,” Lukens said. The actor and singer said he had asked his agent to stop sending him dance audition opportunities because they tended to turn into “train wrecks.” But an invitation to audition for this touring hit show was too good to pass up, so Lukens worked hard and threw himself into it. His prepared dance went fine. Then, unexpectedly, he was tasked with learning and delivering an additional dance routine — immediately. “Oh boy, buckle up,” he said. “I kept smiling. I made my face look as invested as possible while focusing on the beat. I did my best.” His best must have been excellent. Lukens was selected not only to join the singing-and-dancing company of “The Book of Mormon” but also to understudy the leading role of Elder Price. He said he will perform that role in Portland for one show on May 30. Lukens, 23, graduated from Camas High School in 2020. He said he found Camas a supportive place for a “theater kid” to grow up, and he’s still grateful for that. (Columbian readers may recall a story from nearly a decade ago about Lukens excelling in professional children’s theater.) “I never stopped the theater thing,” he said. But his first post-high school, professional drama experience — a summer 2020 run of “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho — was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moved to New York Lukens studied musical theater at the University of Arizona, scored himself an agent immediately after graduation and then slept on a friend’s couch for two months while earning money dishing out ice cream, he said. Then he moved to New York, started auditioning for anything and everything, and got that key invitation to try out for “The Book of Mormon.” Understudying the key role of Elder Price means subbing in for the touring show’s regular star for one performance out of every eight, Lukens said. Learning the role was like attending “Elder Price Boot Camp,” Lukens said. He ran the whole show in a rehearsal room, with a small handful of associate directors playing all the other roles. Those associate directors were intimately familiar with every nuance of the show, the actors and the specific ways they delivered particular lines, he said. Another associate director was the “dance captain — the encyclopedia of all the dances in the show.” “I did one week of learning the lead role. Then I did another week of learning all the ensemble dances. No college could have taught me what I learned in those two weeks,” Lukens said. “It was rocky. It was rigorous. It was developmental. I’m never going to forget it.” After all that, Lukens had to clear one final understudy hurdle, called a “put-in” rehearsal. While the rest of the cast wore street clothes, Lukens powered through a full dress rehearsal, aware that he was under the ultimate microscope. “That was a lot of pressure,” he said. “They flew in one associate director to give it the stamp of approval.” Fortunately, Lukens remembered to maintain an informal but crucial understudy responsibility: He brought donuts for everyone. As an ongoing member of the company, Lukens said he does feel the fear of blanking out on starring-role lines or moves he doesn’t perform often. “But, I also see it and hear it eight times a week,” he added. He’s also got a video of the entire show that he can rehearse along with. “I plug it into the TV and push the furniture aside and do the whole show myself,” he said. Lukens joined the touring company of “The Book of Mormon” just a few months ago. His only star turn as Elder Price so far was April 19, he said. “The Book of Mormon” has been a Broadway hit since it debuted in 2011. Created by the team that’s famous for the adult animated TV series “South Park,” it shares the same merry but sharp-edged, foul-mouthed, satirical humor that aims directly at serious subjects — in this case, Christianity and evangelism. (The story centers on missionaries in Uganda.) “Overall, it’s a satire on ‘white saviorism’ — the whole concept of these clean-cut, sheltered boys going out there and ‘saving’ people in a world they never experienced and don’t understand,” Lukens said. “It pokes fun at the perkiness and politeness” of young missionaries with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Lukens said, “but in the end, it’s still pretty respectful of religion and the passion behind it. “I think the message is, what you are preaching doesn’t really matter, as long as it’s helping. Is it helping? Because if it’s not, it might be hurting.”

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