Jonathan Z. "Jon" Kaplan (born April 6, 1976) and Alexander "Al" Kaplan (born July 23, 1978) are brothers who are American composers, lyricists and comedy writers. They are best known for creating the musical Silence! The Musical, a parody of the film The Silence of the Lambs, which began life on the internet in 2002 before becoming a successful stage musical starting in 2005. They have also created musical parodies of other films and television shows, including various Arnold Schwarzenegger films such as Conan the Barbarian, Predator and Commando. Jon and Al scored and co-wrote the films Zombeavers (2014) and The Drone (2019), along with the Shudder series Critters: A New Binge (2019).
Early life and family
Jon and Al Kaplan were born in Manhattan and grew up on Staten Island, several minutes drive from the Fresh Kills Landfill. The Kaplans' father Nathan was a music teacher/composer-turned dentist, who exposed his sons to concert music, film music and musicals at an early age, before his death. Their mother, Elizabeth Kaplan, now referred to as Liz Alt, continues to teach chorus at P.S. 53. They have a younger sister, Caroline, who is a portrait artist who used to collect leaves and coins.
Jon and Al moved to Los Angeles in 1996 to study concert composition and film music at USC. They graduated in 1999 and 2000, respectively.
After graduation, Jon and Al went to work at the offices of Film Score Monthly magazine, where they did everything from write and edit articles to stuff thousands of subscription renewals into envelopes. This period would see the Kaplans pursue screenwriting, with the brothers penning several spec scripts, none of which sold. Their most notorious project was Peni5 (1999), later titled Bigger, the story of a high school student with a small penis who takes black pills to make his penis gigantic, but he overdoses and his penis keeps growing and starts to murder people.
Works
Silence! The Musical
In 2002, the duo composed, performed and produced a nine-song Silence of the Lambs musical, Silence! The Musical, which they put online to avoid burning CD-Rs for their friends. Despite social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace not yet having taken hold, Silence! quickly became a viral sensation, appearing in magazines such as Entertainment Weekly and Maxim, and on radio shows like Opie & Anthony and Howard Stern's 100.
In 2005, the brothers composed several new songs and expanded Silence! into a full stage musical. They wrote an Airplane!-styled screenplay, Silence! The Musical, that was adapted for the stage by Hunter Bell, and the show was mounted by director Christopher Gattelli at the 2005 NYC Fringe festival, where it won the "Overall Excellence Award" for Outstanding Musical. In 2010, Silence! re-opened in London at the Above The Stag Theatre to positive reviews. In June 2011, Silence! returned to New York, opening off-Broadway at Theatre 80, starring Brent Barrett as Hannibal Lecter and Jenn Harris as Clarice Starling. The NYC show moved to the Elektra Theatre at Times Square, closing in July 2013. In August 2012, Silence! opened at The Hayworth Theatre in Los Angeles and played 67 performances.
24: Season Two: The Musical
In 2008, Jon and Al composed their second full-length musical, 24: Season Two: The Musical. In 2014, the Kaplans finally began producing videos, uploading them to YouTube.
The Schwarzenegger musicals
In 2010, Jon and Al launched a series of one-off musicals on their YouTube channel 'Legolambs' that would feature entire films distilled into single songs in a matter of three to four minutes. The most successful of the videos featured Al performing the singing voice of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Conan the Barbarian: The Musical, Predator: The Musical, Terminator 2: The Opera, Commando: The Musical and Total Recall: The Musical are among the Kaplans' most widely seen works to date.
Other musicals
Jon and Al's musicals have also targeted Sylvester Stallone in Rambo: First Blood Part II and Peter Weller in RoboCop. Other YouTube musicals by the brothers include John Carpenter's The Thing, Super Mario Bros. The 8-Bit Opera, Schindler's List and Rocky IV.