Silence! The Musical to Play Off-Broadway's Bleecker Street Theatre

By Andrew Gans
17 Jul 2007

The 2005 New York International Fringe Festival production of Silence! The Musical
The 2005 New York International Fringe Festival production of Silence! The Musical
Photo by Ben Strothmann

Silence! The Musical, billed as an "unauthorized parody of the 1991 movie of 'The Silence of the Lambs,'" will play an open-ended run Off-Broadway this season.

According to a casting notice, the musical — a winner of the 2005 FringeNYC award for Outstanding Musical — will begin previews at the 45 Bleecker Street Theatre Sept. 6 with an opening on or about Sept. 19. Rehearsals are scheduled to begin Aug. 13.

John Pinckard, Mark Hartman and Brian Nash are producing the New York run of Silence!, which features music and lyrics by Jon Kaplan and Al Kaplan and a book by [title of show]'s Hunter Bell that is based on a screenplay that had been written by the two Kaplans.

Christopher Gattelli will direct and choreograph the Off-Broadway run. Charlie Alterman will be the musical director.

Two staged industry readings of Silence! The Musical were presented in February at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre. Those readings featured the talents of Jenn Harris as Clarice and Paul Kandel as Hannibal Lecter as well as Diedre Goodwin, Lisa Howard, Howard Kaye and Tom Richter. No casting for the commercial run has been announced.

Silence! The Musical, according to press notes for the aforementioned reading, "follows F.B.I. trainee Clarice Starling as she uses her relationship with Dr. Hannibal Lecter to hunt serial killer Buffalo Bill. The production transforms the film's dialogue into a full-scale musical, complete with singing serial killers, unprintable titles, and a chorus of tap-dancing lambs."