Davis Gaines and More Star in SILENCE! THE MUSICAL's West Coast Premiere at Hayworth Theatre Tonight, 8/31

Winner of the 2012 Off Broadway Alliance Award for Best Musical, SILENCE! The Musical 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 Christopher Gattelli, will open a Los Angeles company with performances beginning tonight, August 31, at the Hayworth Theatre. This engagement marks the West Coast Premiere of the Off-Broadway hit. The press opening is scheduled for Saturday, September 8, 2012. SILENCE! The Musical is produced by Theater Mogul.

Two of the creators of SILENCE! The Musical won 2012 Tony Awards—director-choreographer Christopher Gattelli for his choreography for Newsies, and lighting designer Jeff Croiter for his work on Peter and the Starcatcher.

Davis Gaines, one of Los Angeles most popular musical theatre performers, plays Hannibal Lecter. Gaines performed the title role in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of The Opera more than 2,000 times at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, in San Francisco, and on Broadway; he recently played the role of King Arthur in Musical Theatre West’s production of Spamalot. He is joined by Christine Lakin, in the role of Clarice Starling. Lakin is known for her role on the series “Step by Step” and as news anchor Joyce Kinney on “Family Guy.” SILENCE! The Musical original cast member Stephen Bienskie is also in the Los Angeles Company, playing the role of Buffalo Bill which he created. Kathy Deitch, Jeff Hiller, John Kassir, Jesse Merlin, Jeff Skowron, and Karl Warden are also cast.

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 featured newly composed songs by the brothers. Fueled by a rabid cult following, SILENCE! The Musical shattered every box office record at the 2005 FringeNYC Festival, winning the award for Best Musical. SILENCE! The Musical met with further success in London at the Above The Stag Theatre.

The New York Off-Broadway run opened on July 9, 2011. The show immediately became a sold-out phenomenon and was selected by Time Magazine as one of the year’s Top 10. The show also won four 2012 Tina Awards. The New York Company recently celebrated its first anniversary and it continues performances at the Elektra Theatre.

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 wicked 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, scary as ever, sings about the life he'd like to lead someday outside the prison walls.

A long list of luminaries have turned up in the audience at the hit show over the past year in New York including Jodie Foster, Matt Bomer (twice!), Joan Rivers, Jonathan Demme, Kelly Ripa, James Earl Jones, Josh Groban, T.R. Knight, Jonathan Groff, Justin Kirk, Neil Simon, Corbin Bleu, Ben Schwartz, Lisa Lampanelli, Willie Garson, Mario Cantone, Erin Cummings, Linus Roache, Stephen Schwartz, Jeremy Jordan, David LaChapelle, Steven Pasquale, James Lapine, John Kander, Chita Rivera, Georgia Engel, Shuler Hensley, Brent Barrett, Danny Burstein, Donna McKechnie, John Rando, Christian Campbell, Reed Birney, Stephen Flaherty, Tovah Feldshuh, Karen Ziemba, Kara Lindsay, Alec Mapa, Chris Barron, Barrett Foa, Cady Huffman, Barbara Feldon, Seth Rudetsky, Eden Espinosa, Telly Leung, Daniel Reichard, John Cunningham, Andrew Keenan-Bolger, Charlotte d’Amboise, Lindsay Nicole Chambers, John McDaniel, JohAnna Day, Carol Woods, and Anthony Heald.

The playing schedule for SILENCE! The Musical is Thursday through Saturday evenings at 8 PM, and Sundays at 3 & 7 PM at the Hayworth Theatre, 2511 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, Calif.. Tickets are available online at www.silencethemusical.com or 866-811-4111.

Jon & Al Kaplan (Music and Lyrics, Screenplay) Composers/Songwriters/Writers Jon and Al Kaplan moved to Los Angeles in 1996 to study music composition at USC. The brothers went on to compose the music for two seasons of the animated series Code Monkeys, and scored the Syfy Channel film Dinocroc Vs. Supergator. They have also written comedy for the 2009 MTV Movie Awards and the 2011 Academy Awards. Jon and Al recently launched a series of viral internet musicals led by their Arnold Schwarzenegger cycle, featuring Conan the Barbarian, Predator, Commando and more. The Kaplans’ original Internet musical and concept album, SILENCE! The Musical, garnered critical praise and became a cult hit. It was staged at the 2005 NYC Fringe festival, where it won the “Overall Excellence Award” for Outstanding Musical, and had two recent productions in London.

Hunter Bell (Book) Hunter Bell earned an OBIE Award, a Drama League nomination, and a Tony nomination for Best Book of a Musical all for the original Broadway musical [title of show].Other credits include the books for SILENCE! The Musical (NY Fringe Festival, Above the Stag-London, Theatre 80), Bellobration! (137th Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus), Villains Tonight! (Walt Disney Imagineering Creative Entertainment/Disney Cruise Lines) and Now. Here. This. (Vineyard Theatre). He has created and contributed original material for numerous benefits and events including BC/EFAs Easter Bonnet/Gypsy of the Year competitions, Broadway Bares 18 & 19 (Wonderland & Click It!) as well as specialty material for the 53rd Annual Drama Desk Awards, The Actor’s Fund’s 125th Anniversary Gala, and NYCLU’s Broadway Stands Up for Freedom. Hunter is a co-creator of the web series the [title of show] show and recently co-created and wrote the half-hour pilot “Glass Houses” for ABC Studios/Television and Cherry-Wind Productions. He is a distinguished alumnus of Webster University, a proud member of WGA, Actors Equity, the Dramatists Guild, and AFTRA, as well as an honorary member of the Yale Dramat and a MacDowell Fellow.

Christopher Gattelli (Director and Choreographer) As director, Chance and Chemistry: A Tribute to Frank Loesser starring Sir Paul McCartney, Jo Sullivan Loesser and Audra McDonald; Departure Lounge at The Public Theater for SPF; Emmet Otters Jug-Band Christmas, Radio Girl (both at Goodspeed); SILENCE! The Musical (Fringe Best Musical, Off West End); Broadway concert of Hair starring Jennifer Hudson; Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown w/music by Andrew Lippa. As choreographer, Broadway: Newsies (Tony Award), Godspell, South Pacific (Tony and Outer Critics Circle nominations), Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Sunday in the Park With George (also West End), The Ritz, Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me, 13, High Fidelity. Off-Broadway: Altar Boyz (Lortel, Callaway, Helen Hayes Awards), Bat Boy: The Musical (Lortel Award), tick, tick BOOM!

Theater Mogul (Producer) Established in Iceland in 1999, Theater Mogul, an international theatrical Production Company, has produced in over 50 countries spanning 6 continents. We are very proud to have sold over 9.6 million tickets to productions of Defending the Caveman alone. Theater Mogul is so pleased to be a part of SILENCE! The Musical and with our International teamwork we fully expect SILENCE!to be a screaming success worldwide. For more, visit www.theatermogul.com.