No one involved knew what to expect as the musical with the bizarre title prepared for its arrival on Broadway in 2011. There had been no tryout. Two of its authors, Trey Parker and Matt Stone of “South Park” fame, were newcomers to the theater, except that, as teenagers, Parker played Sammy Fong in “Flower Drum Song” and Stone played Danny Zuko in “Grease.”

Robert Lopez, the third collaborator, and a pint-size Jet in his fifth-grade “West Side Story,” had more experience: With Jeff Marx, he’d come up with the concept and co-written the songs for the raunchy 2003 hit “Avenue Q.”

Still, “The Book of Mormon,” named for the holy text of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, pushed tastelessness considerably further than any of those shows, soaring past even “The Producers,” the 2001 taboo-busting champion with its adorable Nazis and swastika kick line.

“Mormon” cast members, knowing they were the show’s first line of offense, were especially anxious. Those who played young missionaries about to embark on their maiden mission had to parrot articles of faith that, while accurate to the church’s dogma, sounded satirical on a Broadway stage. (“Did you know that Jesus lived here in the U.S.A.?”) And those who played Ugandans in a village where two of the missionaries were posted had to sing cheerily about AIDS, clitoridectomy, baby-raping and one man’s maggoty scrotum.

Taking precautions against a potentially hostile response, the production hired extra security for a few weeks around opening. And if some cast members worried that an army of the offended might sooner or later run them out of town, the authors were more worried about running at all.