Silence! the Musical

A few years ago I had my first musical theatre experience when my family took my little sister to see Disney’s Tarzan the musical for her birthday.  While I understand that the majority of the Broadway going audience is educated middle-aged Caucasian women and a handful of sharply dressed men; watching a guy swing across the stage in a loincloth for 2 hours is not my idea of money well spent.  Especially, since I still had the dry heaves from the previous night out with friends. I completely swore off theater.

My parents are fairly regular theatre goers and after my reaction to Tarzan they thought better then to invite me to future outings. I was done.  Finished. The fat lady sung.  But then I met a girl.  She worked it theatre so when she suggested I take my family to see Avenue Q, I had enough faith in her sense of humor and theatre background to give it a try.  Also, she’s really hot. 

Avenue Q is basically Sesame Street for adults. I didn’t know a musical could be so crude and hilarious. I highly recommend Avenue Q for anyone who has a sense of humor and doesn’t get offended easily. From then on I was going to shows with family and friends. In the past two years I’ve seen Avenue Q, Wintuk, Spiderman (the Julie Taymor actors-could-get-killed version), 39 Steps, Jersey Boys and a little show you might have heard about The Book of Mormon.

This past weekend I went to see Silence! the Musical, a musical parody of the Silence of the Lambs.  Almost as fun as actually seeing the show was telling people I was going.  Since the movie was so dark and gruesome I suppose I can understand their raised eyebrows at the thought of singing serial killers.  Um,  Singing Serial Killers = AWESOME!  The show had a Naked Gun tongue-in-cheek style where the lead character, FBI trainee Clarice Starling, is portrayed as a complete moron.  Keeping to the original story, Clarice has to pick the brain of one of the most notorious serial killers, Hannibal Lector, in order to catch the diabolical Buffalo Bill. However in the stage version Clarice’s quest is narrated by five delightfully low budget signing lambs. The musical has laugh- out- loud songs such as, “Put the Lotion in the Basket” and “If I Could Smell Her C**t”. Now those are songs you’ll catch me humming around the water cooler!

If you can’t get tickets to The Book of Mormon until 2012 – I suggest you check out Silence! The Musical.  But be careful, it might turn you into the giggling musical theatre geek that I have become.