Small Mouth Sounds

A Bess Wohl play about six strangers attending a silent spiritual retreat. 

The show has very little dialogue - the comedy and drama largely come from what these people do while they're silent.

This show has adult themes, sexuality, language, and its mostly silent.

A Silent Off-Broadway Hit

Bess Wohl’s Small Mouth Sounds follows six strangers attending a five-day silent meditation retreat, forcing the characters to communicate largely through gestures, expressions and awkward interactions.

The play premiered at Ars Nova in 2015, directed by Rachel Chavkin, with a cast including Marcia DeBonis, Brad Heberlee, Babak Tafti and Sakina Jaffrey. After selling out and extending twice, it returned Off-Broadway in 2016 and later toured nationally.

Strong Reviews

Critics praised the show’s ability to make silence both funny and emotionally revealing. Audiences responded strongly too, with the New York production earning an 85% Show-Score audience rating.

Celebrity Cast Goes Silent

The 2027 Broadway production takes a different approach, casting Julia Roberts, Paul Rudd, Sarah Paulson and Martin Freeman.

Celebrity casting does not always impress Broadway audiences, and these stars aren’t Charlie Chaplin-esque physical performers. That makes the concept particularly interesting: their dialogue is extremely limited, requiring them to rely on expressions, movement and timing rather than their voices, which is not typically a strength for each of these actors.

Comparisions To Celebrity Autobiography

Recent Broadway experiments built largely around celebrity casting have not always connected with audiences. Celebrity Autobiography, despite its rotating roster of famous performers, struggled badly at the box office and closed nearly two months early.