After 22 previews which had been delayed a week due to the September 11, 2001 attacks,[1] the musical opened at the Plymouth Theatre on October 25, 2001.

The cast starred Craig Bierko (Laurent LeClaire), Norbert Leo Butz (Camille Raquin), Debra Monk, and Kate Levering (Therese).

The jazz pianist Laurent LeClaire returns to New Orleans from World War II and runs into his old friend Camille Raquin who is a frail man with an overprotective mother.

After waiting a year, Laurent marries his friend's widow, but every time he tries to touch her, the ghost of Camille appears and drives them apart.

Stroman's late husband, Mike Ockrent, had asked his employees to recommend material to be adapted into musicals during his two-year production deal at Warner Bros. His assistant recommended the Zola novel, and began developing the idea in detail with the production executive.

"He finished the show and went to the opening night party," spokesman Philip Rinaldi said at the time, "but the next day he was hemorrhaging and had to be brought to the hospital.

"[citation needed] Kate Levering had previously co-starred with Craig Bierko in the show The Music Man (reported in some articles as being "very close friends" at the time).

Norbert Leo Butz Norbert Leo Butz, as the murdered husband, received a Tony nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Musical, and a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Musical.

Ben Brantley, in his review for The New York Times, wrote, "It takes a singing dead man to bring a spark of life to Thou Shalt Not.

"[5] The Village Voice wrote, "Unlike Zola's sexually depressed characters, everyone in the Broadway version seems to be getting it in spades...Dramatically, the bubblier context of David Thompson's book raises more questions that it cares to answer...songs that neither advance the plot nor illuminate the characters' secret logic.