SILENCE! THE MUSICAL Plays Holiday Performance Today at Elektra Theatre

SILENCE! The Musical will play a special holiday weekend performance today, February 17th at 5 PM at the Elektra Theatre in the heart of Times Square.

Following the announcement that SILENCE! would be ending its long run at the end of 2012, ticket sales unexpectedly soared, shattering all previous box office records held by the show. As a result, the producers determined that the production would reopen on January 19th. After opening at Theatre 80 on July 9, 2011, SILENCE! was extended numerous times by popular demand and transferred theatres twice, ultimately landing at the new Elektra Theatre which was constructed especially for the show.

Winner of the 2012 Off Broadway Alliance Award for Best Musical, Silence! The Musical is the unauthorized parody of The Silence of the Lambs, with book by Hunter Bell, music & lyrics by Jon and Al Kaplan, and direction & choreography by Tony Award winner Christopher Gattelli. The show was selected by Time Magazine as one of the Top 5 Musicals of 2011.

In the Academy Award-winning film The Silence of the Lambs, rookie FBI agent Clarice Starling matches wits with the brilliant but insane cannibal, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, to catch the serial killer known only as Buffalo Bill. Clarice faces her own demons while racing the clock to unlock Lecter's clues before another innocent girl is killed and skinned by Buffalo Bill. The laugh-out-loud raunchy satire, Silence! The Musical, features a singing chorus of floppy eared lambs narrating the action as Buffalo Bill gleefully dances a hoedown while kidnapping hapless Catherine Martin. Even Dr. Lecter, creepy as ever, sings about the life he'd like to lead someday outside the prison walls.

With Sean McDermott (star of Broadway's Miss Saigon, Grease, Falsettos, and Starlight Express) as Hannibal Lecter, the cast of Silence! The Musical also features David Ayers, Pamela Bob, Ashlee Dupré, Stephen Hanna, Howard Kaye, Jeffrey Kuhn, Topher Nuccio, Ronica V. Reddick, Kimberly Stern, Natalie Joy Johnson, and Chuck Ragsdale.

Created by Jon and Al Kaplan in 2002, Silence! The Musical began as a collection of songs on the internet which immediately attracted a staggering number of fans. The Kaplans' subsequent screenplay Silence! The Musical was adapted by Hunter Bell into a live stage show, which also featured newly composed songs by the brothers. Fueled by a rabid cult following, SILENCE! shattered every box office record at the 2005 FringeNYC Festival, winning the award for Best Musical. SILENCE! met with further success in London where it garnered ecstatic reviews at the Above The Stag Theatre.

SILENCE! The Musical has hosted an unusually large number of celebrity attendees including Jodie Foster, Matt Bomer (twice), Joan Rivers, Kelly Ripa, Jonathan Demme, James Earl Jones, Josh Groban, Perez Hilton, Rachel Dratch, Justin Kirk, T.R. Knight, Jonathan Groff, Lisa Lampanelli, Andy Dick, Neil Simon, Corbin Bleu, Richard Kind, Alec Mapa, Ben Schwartz, Willie Garson, Steven Pasquale, Mario Cantone, Erin Cummings, Linus Roache, Lindsey Shaw, Stephen Schwartz, David LaChapelle, Jeremy Jordan, Christine Lakin, Chad Allen, Heather Matarazzo, James Lapine, John Kander, Chita Rivera, Danny Burstein, Vicki Lewis, John Billingsley, Georgia Engel, Christian Campbell, Will Swenson, Barrett Foa, Tovah Feldshuh, Randy Harrison, Stephen Flaherty, Julie Brown, Cady Huffman, Andrew Keenan-Bolger, Audrey Wasilewski, Barbara Feldon, Shuler Hensley, Michelle Clunie, Reed Birney, Anthony Heald, Donna McKechnie, Telly Leung, and James Barbour.

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