After going through a workshop revision phase, the show was premiered at the Willow's Theatre in Concord, California, on September 24, 2004. Cole wrote preliminary forms of the book and lyrics, which earned him the 2000 Kleban Award for Most Promising Librettist, while Richardson composed a score.

Lyricist-librettist Stephen Cole and composer Claibe Richardson started working on a musical adaptation sometime in the late 1990s, releasing a concept album in 1998 through the Fynsworth Alley label. Despite its critical success, The Night of the Hunter remained the only film ever directed by Laughton. The film version has earned ranks in numerous movie lists and was added to the National Film Registry in 1992. In 1955, the book was adapted by Charles Laughton and James Agee as the film The Night of the Hunter. The plot was based on the true story of Harry Powers, who was hanged in 1932 for the murders of two widows and three children in Quiet Dell, West Virginia. He uses tropes of the Southern Gothic genre to explore issues such as social corruption and instability. Grubb explores the presentation of the American South during the Great Depression.

After killing their mother, he embarks on a hunt for the children, who have sensed his evil and are running from him. Acting on a story told to him by his now-dead cellmate, 'Reverend' Powell cons the cellmate's widow, Willa Harper, into marrying him in hopes that her children will tell him where their father hid the money from his last robbery. Murderous ex-convict Harry Powell misrepresents himself as a prison chaplain upon his release from prison. The book was a national bestseller and a finalist for the 1955 National Book Award. The Night of the Hunter is a 1953 thriller novel by American author Davis Grubb.

The Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb