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Review: ‘The Band’s Visit’ Is a Ravishing Musical That Whispers With Romance

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By Ben Brantley

• Nov. 9, 2017

Breaking news for Broadway theatergoers, even — or perhaps especially — those who thought they were past the age of infatuation: It is time to fall in love again.

One of the most ravishing musicals you will ever be seduced by opened on Thursday night at the Barrymore Theater. It is called “The Band’s Visit,” and its undeniable allure is not of the hard-charging, brightly blaring sort common to box-office extravaganzas.

Instead, this portrait of a single night in a tiny Israeli desert town confirms a lyric that arrives, like nearly everything in this remarkable show, on a breath of reluctantly romantic hope: “Nothing is as beautiful as something you don’t expect.”

With songs by David Yazbek and a script by Itamar Moses, “The Band’s Visit” is a Broadway rarity seldom found these days outside of the canon of Stephen Sondheim: an honest-to-God musical for grown-ups. It is not a work to be punctuated with rowdy cheers and foot-stomping ovations, despite the uncanny virtuosity of Mr. Yazbek’s benchmark score.

That would stop the show, and you really don’t want that to happen. Directed by David Cromer with an inspired inventiveness that never calls attention to itself, “The Band’s Visit” flows with the grave and joyful insistence of life itself. All it asks is that you be quiet enough to hear the music in the murmurs, whispers and silences of human existence at its most mundane — and transcendent.

And, oh yes, be willing to have your heart broken, at least a little. Because “The Band’s Visit,” which stars a magnificent Katrina Lenk and Tony Shalhoub as would-be lovers in a not-quite paradise, is like life in that way, too.

There were worries that this finely detailed show, based on Eran Kolirin’s screenplay for the 2007 film of the same title, might not survive the transfer to Broadway. First staged to sold-out houses late last year at the Atlantic Theater Company, it exuded a shimmering transparency that might well have evaporated in less intimate quarters.

Yet “The Band’s Visit” — which follows the modest adventures of a touring Egyptian band stranded in an Israeli village significant only for its insignificance — more than holds its own on a larger stage. Its impeccably coordinated creative team has magnified and polished its assets to a high sheen that never feels synthetic.

This show was always close to perfect musically. (Mr. Yazbek’s quietly simmering score, which inflects Broadway balladry and character songs with a haunting Middle Eastern accent, felt as essential as oxygen.) But it felt a shade less persuasive in its connective spoken scenes.

That is, to say the least, no longer a problem. Though the lives it depicts are governed by a caution born of chronic disappointment, Mr. Cromer’s production now moves wire to wire with a thoroughbred’s confidence.

Such assurance is all the more impressive when you consider that “The Band’s Visit” is built on delicately balanced contradictions. It finds ecstasy in ennui; eroticism among people who rarely make physical contact; and a sense of profound eventfulness in a plot in which, all told, very little happens.

The story is sprung when the members of the Alexandria Ceremonial Band, led by their straight-backed conductor, Tewfiq (Mr. Shalhoub), board a bus in 1996 for an engagement at the Arab Cultural Center in the city of Petah Tikva. Thanks to some understandable confusion at the ticket counter, they wind up instead in the flyblown backwater of Bet Hatikva.

They register as unmistakably alien figures there, looking like refugees from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in their powder-blue uniforms. (Sarah Laux did the costumes.) And there’s not a bus out of this godforsaken hole until the next morning.

Just how uninteresting is Bet Hatikva? Its residents are happy to tell you, in some of the wittiest songs ever written about being bored. The “B” that begins its name might as well stand for “basically bleak and beige and blah blah blah.”

Leading this civic inventory is a cafe proprietor named Dina (Ms. Lenk, in a star-making performance), a wry beauty who clearly doesn’t belong here and just as clearly will never leave. Like her fellow citizens, she sees the defining condition of her life as eternal waiting, a state in which you “keep looking off out into the distance/ Even though you know the view is never gonna change.”

Scott Pask’s revolving set, so fitting for a world in which life seems to spin in an endless circle, captures the sameness of the view. But Tyler Micoleau’s lighting, and the whispers of projections by Maya Ciarrocchi, evoke the subliminal changes of perspective stirred by the arrival of strangers.

Connections among the Egyptian and the Israeli characters are inevitably incomplete. To begin with, they don’t share a language and must communicate in broken English. And as the stranded musicians interact with their hosts, their shared story becomes a tally of sweet nothings, of regretful might-have-beens.

That means that the cultural collisions and consummations that you — and they — might anticipate don’t occur. Even the frictions that emerge from uninvited Arabs on Israeli soil flicker and die like damp matches.

The show is carefully veined with images of incompleteness: a forever unlit cigarette in the mouth of a violinist (George Abud); a clarinet concerto that has never been completed by its composer (Alok Tewari); a public telephone that never rings, guarded by a local (Adam Kantor) waiting for a call from his girlfriend; and a pickup line that’s dangled like an unbaited hook by the band’s aspiring Lothario (Ari’el Stachel, whose smooth jazz vocals dazzle in the style of his character’s idol, Chet Baker).

All the cast members — who also include a deeply affecting John Cariani, Kristen Sieh, Etai Benson and Andrew Polk — forge precisely individualized characters, lonely people who have all known loss, with everything and nothing in common. A marvelous Mr. Shalhoub (“Monk”) has only grown in the role of a man who carries his dignity and private grief with the stiffness of someone transporting perilously fragile cargo.

As for Ms. Lenk, seen on Broadway last season in Paula Vogel’s “Indecent,” she is the ideal avatar of this show’s paradoxical spirit, at once coolly evasive and warmly expansive, like the jasmine wind that Dina describes in the breakout ballad “Omar Sharif.”

Listening to Tewfiq sing in Arabic, she wonders, “Is he singing about wishing?” She goes on: “I don’t know what I feel, and I don’t know what I know/All I know is I feel something different.”

Mr. Yazbek’s melody matches the exquisitely uncertain certainty of the lyrics. That “something different” is the heart-clutching sensation that throbs throughout this miraculous show, as precise as it is elusive, and all the more poignant for being both.

• The Band's Visit Story

Spend an evening in the company of unforgettable strangers at The Band’s Visit —now one of the most celebrated musicals ever. It rejoices in the way music brings us to life, brings us to laughter, brings us to tears, and ultimately, brings us together. In an Israeli desert town where every day feels the same, something different is suddenly in the air. Dina, the local café owner, had long resigned her desires for romance to daydreaming about exotic films and music from her youth. When a band of Egyptian musicians shows up lost at her café, she and her fellow locals take them in for the night. Under the spell of the night sky, their lives intertwine in unexpected ways, and this once sleepy town begins to wake up.

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BOSTON'S PREMIER ONLINE ARTS MAGAZINE

Theater Review: “The Band’s Visit” — Revelations of Commonality

By David Greenham

This well-directed and -performed production of a musical about the universal longing for connection delivers a stirringly heartfelt experience.

The Band’s Visit . Music and lyrics by David Yazbek. Book by Itamar Moses. Directed by Paul Daigneault. Choreography by Daniel Pelzig. Music direction by José Delgado. Scenic design by Wilson Chin and Jimmy Stubbs. Costume design by Miranda Kau Giurleo. Lighting design by Aja M. Jackson. Sound design by Joshua Millican. A co-production of The Huntington Theatre Company and SpeakEasy Stage Company at the Huntington, 264 Huntington Ave, Boston, through December 17.

Jennifer Apple and Brian Thomas Abraham in the Huntington Theatre Company/SpeakEasy Stage co-production of The Band’s Visit. Photo: T. Charles Erickson

In these American days of divisiveness, name calling, and the general condemnation of people who “aren’t like us,” what a shock it would be to discover that we all have more in common than all the harmful rhetoric might suggest.

In 2018 — which now seems like decades ago — The Band’s Visit , a 90-minute one-act musical, improbably took Broadway by storm. All the more shocking: the show, based on a 2007 Israeli independent film, contained few of the glamorous trappings of a traditional Broadway musical. Missing are big production numbers, swelling with sharp and angular choreography, a cartoonish plot, propelled by formulaic smiles and hummable tunes, and a boffo inspirational ending.

Instead, this surprisingly mature musical details a subtle, moving, and thought-provoking story of loss, one filled with loneliness, ironic mistakes, and missed opportunities. There are challenges for American audiences: the Middle Eastern musical style will be unfamiliar to many and the dialogue contains Arabic, Hebrew, and stunted English with a strong accent. None of that cultural amalgamation lessens the impact of this generously spirited show.

The tale is set in 1996. The Egyptian Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra is booked to travel to Israel to perform at an important concert in the arts-rich Israeli city of Petah Tikva. A linguistic misunderstanding at the airport sends them off course. They end up way down in the country’s south, deep in the Negev desert in the tiny fictional town of Bet Hatikva. Locals Dina (Jennifer Apple), Itzik (Jared Troilo), and Papi (Jesse Garlick) promise the band members that their visit to their village will be terrible. They sing: “This is Bet Hatikva with a B — like in boring, like in barren, like in bullshit, like in bland, like in basically bleak and beige and blah, blah, blah.”

The Band’s stoic leader and conductor, Tewfiq (Brian Thomas Abraham), tries to find a way to correct the mistake, but there’s no bus out of town until the next day. Although they are reluctant to admit it, the strangers have no option but to spend the night. Thankfully, Dina takes charge and arranges makeshift lodging for the unexpected guests.

Dina brings Tewfiq and trumpeter Haled (Kareem Elsamadicy) to her apartment. She makes Itzik invite clarinetist Simon (James Rana) and violinist Camal (Andrew Mayer) to stay with his wife Iris (Marianna Bassham) and their baby, along with Iris’s visiting father Avrum (Robert Saoud).

The arrangement generates three small stories that take place over the course of the evening. Dina and Tewfiq visit a local cafeteria for dinner; Itzik, his family, and guests have a sometimes-challenging dinner at home; and Haled meets up with Papi to tag along on a double date at a roller-skating rink with Zelger (Fady Demian), his girlfriend Anna (Emily Qualmann), and painfully shy Julia (Josephine Moshiri Elwood).

As the trio of narratives progress in unplanned ways, we also watch the patient struggles of the Telephone Guy (Noah Kieserman), who is waiting for his girlfriend to call. He’s been standing by the local pay phone for a month: no one else believes she’ll call, but he is confident that the phone will ring.

Marianna Bassham, Andew Mayer, Robert Saoud, James Rana, Jared Troilo in the Huntington Theatre Company/SpeakEasy Stage co-production of The Band’s Visit. Photo: T. Charles Erickson

Each of the stories confidently explores the emotional depths of the leading characters: Dina and Tewfiq share the loss of the idealistic plans they imagined about love; Itzik and Iris’s marriage is failing; Avrum recalls with great joy the first time he saw his late wife; Simon seems to discover the inspiration that’s needed for him to finish a concerto he’s writing; and Papi’s fear of how to win over Julia begins to disappear thanks to Haled’s support and advice.

Other nonspeaking members of the band variously come in and out, accompanying the revelations with songs that dramatically enhance the primary scenes.

The problem of changing the locations of four stories, told simultaneously, has been cleverly solved by Wilson Chin and Jimmy Stubbs’s deceptively complex set. The staging’s set pieces seamlessly move in and out: the transitions are simple and crisp. (The choreography shares that virtue as well.) A wonderful set change occurs as late as the curtain call: a wall that’s designed to look like a parked bus is raised to reveal the rest of the members of the orchestra. It also serves as a sort of makeshift party platform for the final musical numbers. Also fun is the peripatetic public phone cubicle that the Telephone Guy rolls around the stage during most of the production as he patiently waits and waits.

Miranda Kau Giurleo’s costumes seem inspired by the original designs, especially Dina’s ensembles and the powder blue military-looking band outfits. Given that so many singers and musicians are milling about the stage, Joshua Millican’s sound design needs to be spot on. It is.

Only Aja M. Jackson’s lighting seems to intrude on underlining the material’s nuances. Pin spots frequently frame the soloists as the rest of the stage lighting dims. For me, the impact — with star turn framing — often served to separate the song from the dramatic context. The sumptuous songs and music can hold their own — no need to add a nudge of “the limelight.”

Kareem Elsamadicy, Jesse Garlick, and Josephine Moshiri Elwood in the Huntington Theatre Company/SpeakEasy Stage co-production of The Band’s Visit. Photo: T. Charles Erickson

Despite the separateness of the stories and the ever-changing settings, the ensemble comes off as a beautifully coordinated team long before the glorious “Answer Me” number, which features the Telephone Guy’s (Kieserman) wonderful voice calling the entire company into a splendid unity.

But it’s not the message of universal yearning that really drives The Band’s Visit : it is the compelling depth of its characters. Front and center is the unusual and absorbing interaction between Apple’s Dina and Abraham’s Tewfiq. The highlight of the production is Dina’s wonderful “Omar Sharif,” where she sings of her love for the music of famous Arab singer Umm Kulthum and the movies of her childhood, particularly the 1960 Egyptian film The River of Love , which starred Egyptian actor Omar Sharif. Dina and Tewfiq charmingly share their passion for this cinematic romance.

Needless to say, The Band’s Visit isn’t one of those “wrap everything up in a tidy bow” entertainments. Much like the history of the land where the story is set, this musical is untidy. No easy answers are provided. But, in this well-directed and -performed production, the show’s powerful look at the longing for connection makes for a stirringly heartfelt experience.

David Greenham is an adjunct lecturer of Drama at the University of Maine at Augusta, and is the former executive director of the Maine Arts Commission. He has been a theater artist and arts administrator in Maine for more than 30 years.

This sounds like a thoughtful, subtle show. I remember critics praising it on Broadway. I hope to see a production somewhere (I don’t live near Boston) and might try to watch the original movie. Thanks for such a detailed and nuanced review.

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The Band's Visit

Writers: Itamar Moses David Yazbek

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The Band's Visit

By itamar moses , david yazbek, the band's visit analysis.

These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.

Written by people who wish to remain anonymous

The Band's Visit is a musical about many things, but vitally it is about hope and how when words fail us music has the capacity to maintain within us the endurance necessary to carry on with our lives no matter the circumstances. This is represented in Tewfiq , the leader of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra. He has lost his son and wife to suicide. His son took his own life because of his lack of relationship with his father and Tewfiq's wife ended her life from the grief of losing her son. In the scene with Dina and Tewfiq at the park we listen as Tewfiq isn't able to say what it's like to sing and conduct with the orchestra but he is able to show her. This represents Tewfiq's inability to connect with someone in the seemingly important way of conversation, but he is quite articulate when it comes to expression through music.

Tewfiq has rejected Dina's romantic advances and eventually leaves Bet Hatikva to play in Petah Tikvah. What this reveals is his belief in being the source of so much pain and death in the lives of those he loves most, and that he chooses not to do that again with Dina. This seems to be the greatest reason for his leaving her.

Similarly, we watch as Itzik sings to his son a lullaby in order to put him to sleep, and this causes frustration in his wife as she feels he has a lack of ambition in his life. She is keeping hope that he will become something more than she is and he remains steadfast in his hope that she will return to who he is: a man who simply desires to love his family. Finally, we see the Telephone Guy posted at the only payphone in town as he waits for his girlfriend to call him. It has been months so far and yet no call. He clings to hope that she will call for him and he holds onto his love for her and his belief that she truly loves him the way he loves her and we hear his passionate yearning in the song Answer Me. The play asserts that we are all waiting for something that will draw us closer to the life we imagined for ourselves, and each character represents the different ways in which we wait for this hope to bear fruit in the form of connection and love.

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Study Guide for The Band’s Visit

The Band's Visit study guide contains a biography of Itamar Moses, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Band's Visit
• The Band's Visit Summary
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Wikipedia Entries for The Band’s Visit

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The Band’s Visit tells the story of an Egyptian police band who finds themselves stranded in a remote village in Israel for a night due to a mix-up with their transportation. As the band members and the townspeople interact, language barriers and cultural differences dissolve through the universal language of music. This chance encounter leads to beautiful moments of understanding, friendship, and self-discovery. The Band’s Visit is a reminder that the shared love of music can bridge gaps and create meaningful connections.

Musical Information

Musical Type:  Contemporary (2016)

Cast Size:  18

Genre:  Drama

Setting:  1990s / Israel

Creative Team

Music/Lyrics:  David Yazbek

Book:  Itamar Moses

Cast Albums

Original Broadway Cast (2017)➝

Licensing:  Music Theatre International➝

Sheet Music:  Amazon➝

2010s , Bands , Based on a Movie , Dramatic ,  One-Act ,  Tony Award ,  Travel

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Music Interviews

The cast of 'the band's visit' on what makes the broadway smash relatable.

Ari Shapiro

The Band's Visit star Katrina Lenk performs at NPR's Tiny Desk on May 15, 2018. Eslah Attar/NPR hide caption

The Band's Visit star Katrina Lenk performs at NPR's Tiny Desk on May 15, 2018.

The Band's Visit is a Broadway musical that tells the story of human connection and commonality between cultures. When an Egyptian police band gets stranded in a tiny Israeli town, the musicians wait in a cafe — and get to talking with the locals.

The plot is simple and the set modest, but since its debut on Broadway in late 2017, the show has become the surprise smash hit of the season. Now, the musical is nominated for 11 Tony Awards, including best musical, ahead of Sunday's award ceremony.

Tony Shalhoub and Katrina Lenk play the show's leads, bandleader Tewfiq and cafe owner Dina; both are nominated in acting categories. When the cast stopped by NPR's Tiny Desk this spring to perform selections from The Band's Visit , Shalhoub and Lenk sat down afterwards to chat with All Things Considered host Ari Shapiro.

Watch: 'The Band's Visit' Tiny Desk Concert

"It's kind of a respite for all of the noise and strife out there. It's kind of the perfect antidote, really, nowadays, for all the madness," Shalhoub says of the show's plot, noting that the story focuses on people more than politics. "It's about people taking risks, reaching out toward each other, trying to communicate and coming together over the common love of music."

This show lacks the bells and whistles of typical Broadway hit. Lenk says its intimacy is what makes the show stand out. "I think the characters that are in the show are immediately relatable. Yes, they're not in America, but there's 'that guy' and everyone knows 'that guy.' ... They've been that person at some point in their lives," she says. "I think everyone can relate to the characters and also bring their own experiences to the show and take back what it means to them personally."

Hear more of the conversation at the audio link — and watch the full performance in NPR's Tiny Desk series.

Audio engineer Josh Rogosin contributed to this story.

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Review: ‘The Band’s Visit’ brings its musical poetry to Dolby Theatre

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A musical doesn’t have to make a lot of noise to dazzle. “The Band’s Visit,” the exquisitely delicate Tony-winning show now receiving its Los Angeles premiere at Dolby Theatre, treads lightly across the stage in a hush of magic.

Based on Israeli writer-director Eran Kolirin’s screenplay for his 2007 film of the same title, “The Band’s Visit” follows a group of Egyptian musicians who are stranded overnight in a sleepy desert town in Israel. Strangers in a suspicious land, they don’t expect to be welcomed. But instead of enmity, they find hospitality — their differences bridged first by courtesy, and later, as they get to know each other better, a somber-hued humanity.

Composer and lyricist David Yazbek infuses Itamar Moses ’ book with lyrical poetry. Discreetly flecked rather than dolloped, music provides a vehicle of shared expression for grief, longing and hope — a universal language that recognizes no borders.

The state-of-the-art Dolby, where the production runs through Dec. 19, is an ideal venue for a show that relies on quiet clarity. The theatergoing experience is refreshingly unharried. Spacious enough to comfortably accommodate a crowd, the Dolby manages through the crispness of its sound system and the sharpness of its lighting to feel intimate even at a distance.

And intimacy is essential for “The Band’s Visit,” a musical that moves lightly yet deeply into Chekhovian territory. The tone is playful, almost casual. But some essential truth about life is captured in the insouciant flow.

The scene is drolly set in a few sentences projected onto the stage at the start of the show: “Once not long ago a group of musicians came to Israel from Egypt. You probably didn’t hear about it. It wasn’t very important.”

Insignificance, however, marks the majority of our days. And what doesn’t make headlines turns out to matter a great deal.

The Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra, which was invited to perform at an Arab cultural center in Petah Tikva, is blown off course by a pronunciation error. The band winds up in Bet Hatikva, a fictional backwater that its own residents dismiss as “boring,” “barren” and “bland” in the wry number “Welcome to Nowhere.”

Dina (Janet Dacal), the owner of a café, greets this troupe of men with brusque bemusement. Tewfiq (Sasson Gabay, reprising the role he played in the film), the commander of the orchestra, asks with impeccable manners whether he and his musicians may dine at her establishment. With a businesswoman’s shrug, she consents.

Formality is out of place in Bet Hatikva. “Pick a sandhill of your choosing,” jokes Papi (Coby Getzug), one of the friendlier locals. But Dina is drawn to Tewfiq’s gravity and thinks he looks cute in his powder-blue Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band suit. She offers to find sleeping accommodations for the musicians after breaking the news that there are no more buses today.

The town is reluctant to open its doors, but Dina proves to be as formidable a commander as Tewfiq. She divides the men up, taking Tewfiq and Haled (Joe Joseph), a young romantic trumpet player obsessed with Chet Baker, to her place.

Haled has reason to be nervous. It was his innocent miscommunication that landed the band on the wrong bus. Tewfiq has made his impatience with dreamy-headed Haled loudly known. Haled, however, is like a puppy unable to stop chasing after fun even after getting whacked with a newspaper.

As in a Chekhov play, a busy plot isn’t needed for revelations to emerge. “The Band’s Visit” relies on the alchemy of unexpected encounters. Dina and Tewfiq, ships in the night that aren’t supposed to be in the same waters, discover a shared love of old Egyptian movies, which Dina sings about in a lovely ode appropriately called “Omar Sharif.”

The characters catch glimpses of one another’s souls. Music leads the way by lifting the banal exchanges into a sudden sublime. In one of the most moving instances of this elevation, Simon (James Rana), a clarinetist and aspiring conductor who’s staying with a husband and wife (played by Clay Singer and Kendal Hartse) in the throes of marital problems, soothes their crying baby with some strains from his instrument.

Peace breaks out in this tempestuous household, and suddenly all of the built-up resentments don’t seem all that important. Simon hasn’t been able to finish the concerto he started writing long ago, but his art has done its job of easing the daily suffering.

The unspoken hangs between Dacal’s Dina and Gabay’s Tewfiq as they share a drink in the evening air. An affectionate melancholy fills the gaps in what they have time to say.

Joseph’s Haled radiates a sensual enjoyment, made all the most precious by his awareness that his days of youthful freedom are drawing to a close. The eclectic blend of musical styles — traditional Arab, klezmer and jazz, among them — enhances the cast’s subtle emotional chemistry.

David Cromer’s fluidly directed production glides from the café to domestic settings to a roller disco, all the while keeping tabs on a phone booth, where a forlorn-looking guy (Joshua Grosso) waits eternally for a call from his girlfriend that never seems to come.

The scenic design by Scott Pask has the same jaunty quality as the show itself. The settings are sketched with a simplicity that is more like a diagram than a photograph. Yet the moonlit atmosphere lends this elsewhere a haunting individuality.

At a time when everyone seems to be so angry, conflicts appear to be irresolvable and communion no longer within reach, “The Band’s Visit” is like balm for a tired spirit. The musical touched me deeply when I saw it on Broadway in 2017, but after such a long period away from the theater, I found the show even more profoundly affecting.

Operating on a subtler-than-usual Broadway frequency, Yazbek and Moses’ musical drama invites us to transcend our rifts. I didn’t realize how badly I needed “The Band’s Visit,” but this gift of a show has arrived in just the nick of time.

'The Band's Visit'

Where: Dolby Theatre, 6801 Hollywood Blvd., L.A. When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays. Ends Dec. 19 Tickets: Start at $30 (subject to change) Contact: 1-800-982-2787 or BroadwayInHollywood.com or Ticketmaster.com Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes Also Segerstrom Center for the Arts March 22-April 3 at scfta.org

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Charles McNulty is the theater critic of the Los Angeles Times. He received his doctorate in dramaturgy and dramatic criticism from the Yale School of Drama.

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The Band’s Visit

ERAN KOLIRIN’S 2007 film, The Band’s Visit , is set in the deeply political geography of rural Israel in 1996. It tells the story of a small Israeli town where daily routines get disrupted by an unexpected visit from Egyptian musicians. Though aiming for Petah Tikvah, where they are scheduled to play a concert, the band members have found themselves — due to language miscues — in Bet Hatikva, where they stay overnight.

Efforts to communicate with the town’s residents produce opportunities for humor, drama, and problem-solving. These people from two cultures land on English and on the klezmer-influenced Mediterranean music they share to speak across barriers on matters of friendship, love, and loss.

Itamar Moses, David Yazbek, David Cromer and Orin Wolf discuss The Band’s Visit . Photo by Paul Hyde.

In December 2016, a musical theatre adaptation of The Band’s Visit premiered in Atlantic Theater Company’s Off-Broadway Linda Gross Theater. Eleven months later in November 2017, it opened at Broadway’s Ethel Barrymore Theatre. It was nominated for 11 Tony Awards and won 10, including Best Musical as well as trophies for its direction, book, score, orchestrations, lighting, sound, leading actress, leading actor, and featured actor.

Just days before the musical opened on Broadway, its lead producer Orin Wolf, director David Cromer, librettist Itamar Moses, and composer David Yazbek sat down for a panel discussion hosted by the American Theatre Critics Association, moderated by Martha Wade Steketee.

Where did the process start, who was first on the project, and who did you have to cajole to get involved? ORIN WOLF:  I saw the 2007 film at the Other Israel Film Festival. My wife is Israeli, so I was familiar with Israeli events going on around New York. I immediately hungered to put the story onstage. For me, the filmmaker Eran Kolirin made what felt like a piece of theatre about people being stuck. That’s something that always interests me theatrically: people being stuck in one place. The story dealt with language barriers, people struggling to find the right words, and it was about musicians. It felt to me like it was a natural fit for the stage. My wife was into the idea, but everybody else thought it was a horrible idea. I was naïve and stubborn and passionate.

I tried to get in touch with Eran through his agents, and everybody said no. Finally, I got his email through a relative of mine and asked him for coffee during my annual summer visit to Israel. It took him 13 years to write and make the film, he said, and he didn’t want to reopen that door. The second time I met him, almost a year later, I said, “If you understood theatre the way you understand film, I think you would have chosen to make this as a play.” That was of interest to him.

DAVID YAZBEK:  Boy, that’s a great line.

OW:  I’ll never have a line that good again. It opened a flood of information from him. He sent me hundreds of pages of scripts that I had to have translated. And then we started. I got the rights and started thinking about it as a play and worked with Hartford Stage for a while. We did a reading of the screenplay onstage. My instinct was right: hearing these stories onstage and seeing these amazing characters just seemed to work.

Then it was a process of going through different versions and people asking me if it was going to be a play or a musical. I just wanted to tell the story. I didn’t know enough about musicals to think of it that way. Eventually, Hal Prince, who is a mentor of mine, got excited about the piece and asked to get involved to help develop it. We met, and [David] Yazbek and Itamar [Moses] ended up coming to the table with some ideas. There seemed to be this perfect perception of the piece that we shared.

We started approaching it as a more traditional musical, creating compositions and hearing songs, and Itamar creating scenes and a through line. Then [David] Cromer stepped in with a very serious and very deliberate approach and an idea about how he should stage it. It took about two years to get the rights.

When did Hal Prince come into the process? Was he a key connector to Yazbek and Moses? ITAMAR MOSES:  Musicals are too hard, they take too long. In my heart I was saying: “no more musicals!” Then I and David [Yazbek] got an email from Hal Prince’s assistant. “Hal Prince would like to meet with you.” You don’t say no to that. Let’s say this was early 2013.

I hadn’t watched the movie. I knew it was a big hit in Israel and was this small but beloved indie film. The first time I watched it was with the question in mind, “Could this be on stage, could it be a musical?” I thought, “Oh no, this is a musical. I’ve got to do it.”

I felt the intimacy of the story, how much it depended on small connections between individuals, which theatre excels at. How still it was. And there was a very organic reason for there to be music in it. First, there’s this band. And second, music is one of the zones of connection between the people, a language that the characters use to communicate. I thought, “OK, that justifies it being a musical.”

I perversely really liked how unspectacular it was. I always feel that, in ideas for musicals that already seem like musicals, there’s a trap. You’re doubling down on something that’s already in the material. Something that seems to push against the musical form always interests me more.

When I first became involved, I thought I might be the right guy to do it, because my parents are Israeli, I’ve been there, I have relatives who live there, I have this tie to the region, I have voices from the region in my head.

DY:  Orin contacted me. And there was that Hal Prince lore about it. You don’t say no. Soon I was on the phone with Itamar, trying to figure out if we were seeing the same tone. You can see a movie, even a movie as unique as  The Band’s Visit , and see different things in it. I got excited about trying to create something that I’d never seen before in musical theatre. I was excited when we were speaking. I felt like we both had the same goal.

When you’re writing a musical, you’re living in a particular world for years. I was equally excited by the fact that I would get to live in the world of Arabic classical music, which I’m a big fan of. So, my trepidation turned into interest and that turned into excitement.

When did you connect to David Cromer? DY:  The story gets really interesting when David comes aboard. I felt like we connected with the flint, the spark from the flint. His sensibility is right on the nose.

DAVID CROMER:  I came in about two years ago, when I got a call from Itamar, who asked if I had seen the film or wanted to read the script or listen to the demos. I was just coming off being pretty burned out, sort of lost, running on fumes. I listened to the demos and got excited about the subject. I loved the story and loved the movie and got very excited about the music. It sounded like it could be something that would be an important and interesting little detour into how musicals generally seem, that you could execute anything if you execute this well.

Anything is an interesting idea if you find out what’s in it, if you find the DNA of it and make it manifest. And I think those guys have done that. I got very excited and campaigned. I was very nervous about the meeting we had to have, because I really, really wanted the job.

It’s largely just manifesting the writing, which is interesting enough as it is. The thing we accidentally did that was smart was to never run away from the film. The film is glorious unto itself. This is not an improvement on the film, this is not making the film better, this is not what the film wants to be. The film is the film, and we love it and we reference it and we never run away from it. We steal from it liberally. I said, “If this is a beloved film, then these are the iconic moments you have to have, like Rocky running up the stairs. You know what I mean? You have to see the front of the café, you have to see the guys lined up. You have to see the three of them at the table with the trumpet. We set about doing some workshops and started to cast it.

There are scenes without songs in this musical. There was a point where you guys were ahead of me, and it took me a while to catch up with certain things. There were developmental conversations, and we did about six months of readings and workshops when I came in. People were stopped by the nontraditional nature of it. There weren’t big group songs, and many of the songs were internal monologues.

IM:  Yazbek and I discovered that through trial and error. We wanted to listen to what the material seemed to want and to honor that, but we would have moments where we’d say, “Well, surely, we need a number that does this, we need a big solo for this guy.” And every time we tried to push something like that into the material, we could feel the show rejecting it. Like a bad graft or something.

I’ve been able to watch Cromer quite closely for a couple of years on this, and I can now articulate a couple of things that make him special as a director. First, simply stripping away an actor’s bad habits or actor’s acting. You’ll often hear him say things like “Just sit in that chair like a person would sit in it” or “Just say that like a person would say it,” reminding them not to act. He’s aware of the way in which there is inherent dramatic intention in every moment of life, simply because we as humans living don’t know what’s going to happen next. It’s dramatic that I don’t know the next question you’re going to ask, and I don’t know if I’m going to react to it effectively. It’s a matching of that to the material.

DC:  One more interesting thing happened in the process of the piece rejecting material. … There’s a major character, Iris, played by a marvelous actress and wonderful singer, Kristen Sieh, who doesn’t have a song. We’re gloriously happy to have her, and the character leaves an enormous impression on the audience, but it became clear that the character wouldn’t sing. She has a beautiful voice, but that character simply wouldn’t sing. Where she was pitched as a character and what she’d been going through, that character wouldn’t participate in the show in that way.

Tell us about composing and casting this world. DY:  Some characters can be played by actors or actresses who are not good singers, if they deliver it right. I always think of Sam Levene who played Nathan Detroit in the original  Guys and Dolls . And some of my favorite theatre singers are people who consider themselves bad singers. With a show like this, there are some characters you can say, as long as the character is in that voice, imperfections are fine.

But because this is a show about music, and because music is the deepest metaphor for the even deeper things we’re talking about in the show, you have to have some great voices. I’m not a fan of the trained theatre-type voice, you know? When Katrina Lenk came in and sat down and sang, I don’t remember what song she sang. She has an absolutely unique voice, the perfect voice for the character Dina, and the perfect voice for the song “Omar Sharif.”

IM:  None of us knew her. We needed something very specific: a woman who has charisma, can sing all of those songs, is a great actor, can do the accents, could be from the region, and is of a certain age. Who is this? This person literally may not exist. And then she walked in, did the scenes, did the song. This has happened to me only a couple of times ever, where an actor is so good and so right, but you don’t know them. You have to start making phone calls because you don’t understand why this person isn’t already a giant star. Sometimes it’s just that those talents haven’t collided with the right opportunities.

DY:  Then you learn that she’s a great violin player and a great violist.

DC:  And a ballerina!

DY:  There were so many remarkable individuals in this show, including George Abud, who is a great Arabic and Western musician who can also tap. There are eight great musicians in this show, not all of them in the band. Some of them are acting. And they all get to play from the heart. They all get to improvise. You get to hear what they’re feeling. I’ve never seen that in a show. I’ve never seen people who are world-class, not just musicians but also artists, who get to say something new every day musically.

DC:  There are songs in the show that are instrumental that are performed by virtuosic performers who are not musical theatre singers. They’re not just singing. They’re front and center performing, singing with their hands and their lungs and their skill and their articulation.

The song that you decided didn’t make sense for the character to sing that you alluded to earlier — is that music somehow still in the show? DY:  That song was a fast, pattery song for an angry character. It actually works in the context of the show, in terms of the musical lexicon of the show. The character didn’t want that much weight at that point of the story. I knew it as soon as we tried it. I was ready to get rid of it.

The character’s arc was right without it. I think the show is a great example of a certain axiom: if you try to write something cynically designed to appeal, to be about everything and to appeal to everyone, you end up writing something mushy and generic. This show is a great example of trying to be hyper-specific and authentic about a particular region and a particular group of people. Going through that wormhole, you come out the other side to a place of enormous universality.

DC:  The universal is in the specific.

DY:  That’s where the power of the show is, too: the specific, the moment, that individual split-second moment. That’s what Cromer serves, and that’s what we’re writing. That’s all I care about: the moment that you’re in.

This story appeared in the August/September 2018 print issue of  Dramatics.  Subscribe today to our print magazine.

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• Cast & crew
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The Band's Visit

A band comprised of members of the Egyptian police force head to Israel to play at the inaugural ceremony of an Arab arts center, only to find themselves lost in the wrong town. A band comprised of members of the Egyptian police force head to Israel to play at the inaugural ceremony of an Arab arts center, only to find themselves lost in the wrong town. A band comprised of members of the Egyptian police force head to Israel to play at the inaugural ceremony of an Arab arts center, only to find themselves lost in the wrong town.

• Eran Kolirin
• Sasson Gabay
• Ronit Elkabetz
• Saleh Bakri
• 73 User reviews
• 113 Critic reviews
• 80 Metascore
• 46 wins & 16 nominations

• Lieutenant-colonel Tawfiq Zacharya
• (as Sasson Gabai)

• Major-general Camal Abdel Azim

• (as Tarak Kopty)

• Man with yellow ball

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia The movie was selected to be Israel's Official Submission to the Best Foreign Language Film Category of The 80th Annual Academy Awards (2008) , but it was disqualified by AMPAS because more than 50% of the film's dialogue was found to be in English, as opposed to Arabic and Hebrew. After an unsuccessful appeal, Israel sent Beaufort (2007) instead.
• Goofs When speaking in Arabic, Tawfiq pronounces some words with the Egyptian Arabic pronunciation, and some words with the Palestinian Arabic pronunciation. Being an Egyptian, he should talk in Egyptian Arabic dialect all the time.

Lieutenant-colonel Tawfiq Zacharya : This is like asking why a man needs a soul.

• Connections Featured in Sharon Amrani: Remember His Name (2010)
• Soundtracks My Funny Valentine (From musical "Babes in Arms", 1937) Music by Richard Rodgers Lyrics by Lorenz Hart

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 27 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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The Band's Visit

November 10 - December 17, 2023

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The Huntington holds performances at multiple locations. This production is taking place at The Huntington Theatre .

Music & Lyrics by David Yazbek

Book by Itamar Moses

Based on the screenplay by Eran Kolirin

Directed by Paul Daigneault

Choreography by Daniel Pelzig

Music Direction by José Delgado

A co-production with SpeakEasy Stage

THE BAND’S VISIT is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI). All authorized performance materials are also supplied by MTI. www.mtishows.com

The Huntington Theatre 264 Huntington Ave. Boston, MA 02115

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Approximate run time: 90 minutes with no intermission.

Content advisory: Please note this production contains theatrical haze and the smoking of cocoa shell cigarettes (100% nicotine free). Please click  here for a content advisory that addresses thematic elements.

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Notable Dates:

Opening Night: 11/15 at 7 pm

Open Caption Performance: 11/21 at 7:30 pm

ASL Performance: 12/13 at 7:30 pm

Audio Described Performance: 12/9 at 2:30 pm

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In this Tony Award-winning, feel-good musical, an Egyptian band of musicians is stranded in a small Israeli town after a transportation mix up, and with no lodgings available, the locals take them in for the night. By morning, surprising connections have been made and friendships forged over moments of shared humanity and love of music. A brief visit can have a lasting impact in this stunning musical adaptation of the acclaimed 2007 film that cast a spell over Broadway.  

“Exquisite and luminous.”

– the boston globe, “in short, it’s a wonder”, – boston.com, “gorgeous there’s just everything to love about this musical”, – jared bowen, gbh, “must-see theatre a profoundly beautiful production by two of boston’s best companies.”, – joyce kulhawik, joyceschoices.com, cast & crew, jared troilo.

Jared Troilo   The Huntington: Prayer for the French Republic . SpeakEasy Stage: Jerry Springer: The Opera, Far from Heaven, Dogfight, Significant Other, The View Upstairs, Tj Loves Sally 4 Ever, The Prom . Regional: Lyric Stage, Moonbox Productions, Wheelock Family Theatre, Reagle Music Theatre, Palace Theatre, Greater Boston Stage, Winter Park Playhouse, Shadowland Stages, Umbrella Stage, TigerLion Arts, Company Theatre, and The Barnstormers.

View full biography

Jesse Garlick

Jesse Garlick Off Broadway:  Good  (PTP/NYC) ;   Who Would Be King  (Ars Nova/Liars and Believers). Regional:  A Christmas Carol, Journey to the West, Arcadia   (Central Square Theater);  Good, Assassins   (New Rep);  A Story Beyond, Yellow Bird Chase, Who Would be King   (Liars and Believers);  Hamlet, As You Like It   (Brown Box Theatre Project);  Salome  (Bridge Rep);  Beowulf   (The Poets’ Theatre).

Fady Demian

Zelger, U/S Simon, U/S Camal

Fady Demian The Huntington: Prayer for the French Republic . SpeakEasy Stage: Wild Goose Dreams ; As You Like It (Actors’ Shakespeare Project); Rocky Relationships ( Moonbox Productions); Lorena: A Tabloid Epic and Incels & Other Myths (Boston Playwrights ’ Theatre); Walls (Playback Theatre); Hamlet (Oxford Shakespeare Company); and T he Taming of the Shrew (Prague Shakespeare Company).

Robert Saoud

Avrum, U/S Tewfiq

Robert Saoud  T he Huntington: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Merrily We Roll Along . SpeakEasy Stage: Hello Again , Anna In the Tropics, Some Men, The New Century, XANADU, The Drowsy Chaperone, Casa Valentina . National Tour: GROUCHO: A Life in Review .

Josephine Moshiri Elwood

Josephine Moshiri Elwood The  Huntington: Prayer for the French Republic . SpeakEasy Stage: English, People, Places, & Things, Hand to God, The Whale . Regional:  Vanity Fair  (Central Square Theater) ; Onegin, Gabriel  (Greater Boston Stage Company) ; Old Money  (Commonwealth Shakespeare Company) ; Othello, God’s Ear (Actor’s Shakespeare Company) ; Long Ago and Far Away , The Cherry Orchard  (Walking the dog Theatre).

Noah Kieserman

Telephone Guy

Noah Kieserman  Broadway / National Tour:   Dear Evan Hansen .  Off Broadway:  Space Dogs   (MCC) .  TV/Film: “Law & Order” (NBC), “FBI: Most Wanted” (CBS), “The White House Plumbers” (HBO), “Lady i n The Lake” (Apple TV+). Education: University of Michigan’s BFA Musical Theatre Program. Special thanks to HCKR and Lexy at Framework. @nbkieserman  noahkieserman.com  

Brian Thomas Abraham

Brian Thomas Abraham  Broadway: Life Of Pi, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts 1 & 2 . Regional: ART, Berkshire Theater Group, Mark Taper Forum, Geffen Playhouse, Milwaukee Rep, San Diego Rep, Laguna Playhouse, Ensemble Theater Company, 3D Theatricals.

Marianna Bassham

Marianna Bassham T he Huntington: Sweat, Common Ground Revisited, Romeo and Juliet, Yerma, I Was Most Alive with You, Becoming Cuba, Our Town , and The Luck of the Irish . SpeakEasy Stage:  People Places and Things, Small Mouth Sounds, Hand to God, Admissions, a Future Perfect , In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play), Reckless, and Blackbird .

Jennifer Apple

Jennifer Apple  Broadway Tour: The Band’s Visit . Regional: Detroit ‘67, Romeo & Juliet (Chautauqua Theater Company); A Walk on the Moon, A Christmas Carol (American Conservatory Theater); title of show (Bridge Production Group); Theory of Relativity (Goodspeed Musicals); Fiddler on the Roof (Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival & CFRT).

Kareem Elsamadicy

Kareem Elsamadicy  Off Broadway: Find the Golden Bird, Giovanni the Fearless . Regional: Light in the Piazza, La Traviata (Ars Nova). University: Man of La Mancha (NYU).

Andrew Mayer

Andrew Mayer  Broadway: Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 ; A Christmas Carol. Off-Broadway: I Spy a Spy ; The Hello Girls (Prospect Theater) ; Dying for It ( Atlantic Theater) . Regional: Oliver (Goodspeed); The 12 (Denver Center); Appoggiatura (Indiana Rep); Fiddler on the Roof (Barrington Stage).

James Ra n a  Broadway: The Band’s Visit . Off Broadway: The Government Inspector (Red Bull Theatre); Serendib (Ensemble Studio Theatre); Marat/Sade, Macbeth, Mother Courage (Classical Theatre of Harlem); Shogun Macbeth (Pan Asian Rep); As You Like It (Worth Street Theatre). N ational / International : The Band’s Visit (1st National Tour – LA Critics Circle Nomination) ; Love’s Labor’s Lost (Royal Shakespeare Company) ; Macbeth (Bonn Biennial/Globe Neuss).

Emily Qualmann

Anna, U/S Iris, Dance Captain

Emily Qualmann  Broadway National Tours:  Escape to Margaritaville ,  Fiddler on the Roof . Off Broadway:  The Office!: A Musical Parody . Regional:  The Peculiar Tale…  (Goodspeed Opera House). Education: The Hartt School ‘19. Representation: The Roster Agency. @emilyqualmann emilyqualmann.com  

Zaven Ovian

Zaven Ovian  The Huntington: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Romeo & Juliet . SpeakEasy Stage: English, Shakespeare in Love, Big Fish . Off Broadway: Émilie: La Marquise Du Châtelet… (Duende Productions/The Flea Theater). Regional: Selling Kabul (Premiere Stages at Kean); Water By the Spoonful, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife (Lyric Stage). Education: BFA (Boston Conservatory ‘16). @zavenovian  

Elliot Lazar

U/S Papi, U/S Telephone Guy

Elliot Laz ar  National Tour: Fiddler on the Roof . Regional: Rent , Guys and Dolls ( with Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra ), The Little Mermaid (Rainbow Stage) ; Another Roll of the Dice (North Coast Rep) ; Parade (Opera NUOVA) ; A Little Night Music , The Addams Family (Dry Cold) ; James and the Giant Peach (Manitoba Theatre for Young People) ; The Trump Card (District Theatre Collective) ; American Idiot (Winnipeg Studio Theatre) ; You Were There: A Shadowplay (Pocket Frock) ; Way to Heaven (Winnipeg Jewish Theatre) ; Gianni Schicchi , The Magic Flute , Alcina , Cendrillon (Manitoba Underground Opera). Film/TV: Siberia (Saban Films). Education: BM in Vocal Performance (University of Manitoba ) ; MFA in Theatre ( Boston Conservatory at Berklee). @elliotlazar elliotlazar.com  

Jordana Kagan

U/S Julia, U/S Anna

Jordana Kagan  Regional: The Prom (White Plains Performing Arts Center). Film: Exuvia (Small Motor Skills). University: The Wolves (Fordham University).

Alex Poletti

U/S Haled, U/S Zelger

Alex Poletti  Regional: Ragtime: The Symphonic Concert (Boston Pops at Symphony Hall and Tanglewood); She Loves Me!, The Pirates of Penzance (College Light Opera Company). Education: BFA in Musical Theatre (Boston Conservatory) .

Sarah Corey

Sarah Corey  SpeakEasy Stage:  Caroline, or Change . Off Broadway:  A Letter to Harvey Milk, Love and Real Estate, Illyria.  International Tour:  Death for Five Voices.

Steven Goldstein

Steven Goldstein The Huntington:  I Was Most Alive With You . SpeakEasy Stage:  Big Fish.  Broadway:  Our Town.  Off Broadway:  Boys’ Life, Oh Hell, The Lights  (Lincoln Center Theater);  Romance, The Vosey Inheritance, The Water Engine, Three Sisters  (Atlantic Theater Company, founding member).

Ryan Mardesich

Passenger 1, U/S Sammy, Itzik

Ryan Mardesich  SpeakEasy Stage:  Wild Goose Dreams, Allegiance . Regional: New Repertory Theatre, North Shore Music Theatre, Barnstormers of NH, Sierra Repertory Theatre, San Francisco Playhouse, Broadway by the Bay, City Lights Theatre, and many others. Directing:  Sweeney Todd  (Moonbox Productions).

Daniel Rodriguez

Associate Conductor/Keyboard 2/Conductor Substitute/Keyboard 1 Substitute

Daniel Rodriguez T he Huntington: Sunday in the Park with George, A Little Night Music . SpeakEasy Stage: Jerry Springer: The Opera , The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Zanna Don’t! . Regional: Assassins, Preludes , The Last Five Years (Lyric Stage Company); Kinky Boots , Little Shop of Horrors (North Shore Music Theater); Oklahoma , Pippin, West Side Story (Reagle Music Theater); Caroline or Change, Cabaret, The Wild Party ( Moonbox Productions); In the Heights (Wheelock Family Theatre); The Lily’s Revenge, The Blue Flower (ART); Ain’t Misbehavin ’ (Front Porch Arts Collective) .

Her di Xha  He has taught and performed in various genres with artists throughout Central Mass, Boston, and the New York area. He has been a percussionist with the New England Philharmonic and Civic Orchestra of Boston as well as having worked as a pit musician on musicals and theatre productions throughout Massachusetts.

Mike Rivard

Acoustic and Electric Bass

Mike Rivard  The Huntington: Merrily We Roll Along . Regional: Wicked, The Lion King, Beautiful: The Carole King (Broadway in Boston), The Blue Flower (ART), and many others. He leads the award-winning world-dub-jazz collective Club d’Elf , and performs regularly with the Boston Pops Orchestra. 

Mac Ritchey

Oud, Acoustic and Electric Guitar, on stage

Mac Ri t chey  Multi-instrumentalist with a 20-year primary focus on the oud, or ‘Arabic lute’, and an immersion in the modal musical systems of the Middle East. Ritchey is also an acclaimed music producer and proprietor of Possum Hall Studios in Carlisle, MA, having recorded hundreds of albums and projects for clients over 30 years. Additionally, Mac is a guitar luthier, designing and building custom stringed instruments for fellow musicians. possumhall.com  

Joe LaRocca

Reeds, on stage

Joe LaRocca T he Huntington: The Lehman Trilogy . T our: Jesus Christ Superstar (50th Anniversary National Tour, Reed 1). Regional: The Lehman Trilogy (Repertory Theater of St Louis); Beautiful: The Carole King Musical (Ogunquit Playhouse, Reed 2); A Man of No Importance (Footlight Club, Reed 1); The Secret Garden, Matilda, Beauty and the Beast, Fun Home, Nine , and others.

Wick Simmons

Cello, on stage

Wick Simmons Broadway Tour:  The Band’s Visit . Wick Simmons has performed at Joe’s Pub, The Kennedy Center, The Dolby, MASS MoCA, Carnegie Hall, Maison l’Amérique Latine, and on NPR. On an international scale, Wick’s body of work spans the worlds of creative-technology, theater, installation art, kink, improvisation, older and newer music.

Fabio Pirozzolo

Percussion, on stage

Fabio Pirozzolo  The Huntington: Yerma . Italian drummer, multi-percussionist and singer currently based in Boston, Massachusetts. Originally from Terracina, Italy, he started his career as a folk percussionist in one of the most famous folk groups in his area, playing the Italian frame drums tamburello and tammorra .

David Yazbek

Music & Lyrics

David Yazbek A varied career as a recording artist, Emmy-winning TV and film writer, music producer and pianist has somehow led Yazbek to a career on Broadway. His four shows, The Full Monty, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Women on The Verge of a Nervous Breakdown , and The Band’s Visi t were all Tony nominated for Best Score. Yazbek took home the Tony for Best Score for T he Band’s Visit . The Full Monty won him the Drama Desk Award for Best Music.

Itamar Moses

Itamar Moses is the author of the full-length plays Outrage, Bach at Leipzig, Celebrity Row, The Four of Us, Yellowjackets, Back Back Back , Completeness , and The Whistleblower ; the musicals Nobody Loves You (with Gaby Alter), Fo r tress of Soli tude (with Michael Friedman) and T he Band’s Visit (with David Yazbek), and the evening of short plays Love/Stories (Or Bu t You Will Get Used To It) . His work has appeared Off-Broadway and elsewhere in New York, at regional theaters across the country and in Canada, Hong Kong, Israel, Venezuela, Turkey, and Chile, and is published by Faber & Faber and Samuel French .

Paul Daigneault

Paul Daigneault  is a New England-based freelance director, producer, and teacher .  Since founding the award-winning SpeakEasy Stage in 1992, he has produced over 150 Boston premieres. As a director, he is especially proud of his projects that have centered gay and queer stories as well as his passion for contemporary American musicals . 

Daniel Pelzig

Choreographer

Daniel Pelzig  The Huntington: Sunday in the Park with George, A Little Night Music, Company, Candide, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Tartuffe, The Mikado, HMS Pinafore . Broadway: 33 Variations , A Year with Frog and Toad , Sweeney Todd (Kennedy Center Sondheim Festival). Off Broadway: Privates on Parade, Newyorkers , The New Moon, Valhalla .

José Delgado

Music Director/Conductor/Keyboard 1

Jo sé Delgado The Huntington: Becoming Cuba, M . SpeakEasy Stage: Dogfight, The Light in the Piazza, The Wild Party , Parade, Floyd Collins, Caroline or Change, Saturday Night . Regional: Moulin Rouge .

Wilson Chin

Co-Scenic Designer

Wilson Chin The Huntington: Clyde’s , Teenage Dick , Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Romeo and Juliet , Skeleton Crew , Tiger Style! . Broadway: Cost of Living , Pass Over (Drama Desk and Lortel Award nominations), Next Fall . Off Broadway: A Bright New Boise (Signature), The Thanksgiving Play (Playwrights Horizons), Space Dogs (MCC, Lortel Award nomination), Teenage Dick (Ma-Yi/Public), This Land Was Made (Vineyard).

Jimmy Stubbs

Jimmy Stubbs Off Broadway: Richard II/Henry IV (Theatre for a New Audience); Thebes ( Rattlestick Theater). University: Alcina (Yale Opera); Marisol (University of Rochester); The Juniors (Colgate University); Cabaret (Yale Dramatic Association); Fun Home (Yale School of Drama).

Miranda Kau Giurleo

Costume Designer

Miranda Kau Giurleo SpeakEasy Stage: The Scottsboro Boys (IRNE Award — Best Costume Design); School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play ; Prom; Allegiance . Regional: The Royale (Merrimack Rep & Capital Rep – Albany); The Wickhams: Christmas at Pemberly, The Heath, Native Gardens, A Christmas Carol (Merrimack Rep); The Convert (Underground Railway Theater); Dancing at Lughnasa , The New Electric Ballroom , Lettice and Lovage (Gloucester Stage); Dry Land , Shockheaded Peter (Company One); Macbeth (Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s Second Stage).

Aja M. Jackson

Lighting Designer

Aja M. Jackson The Huntington: T he Band’s Visit, The Art of Burning . Broadway: Fat Ham . Off Broadway: A Commercial Jingle for Regina Comet, Rock and Roll Man . Regional: Hear Word (A RT / The Public Theater Under the Radar Festival) ; Lost In Yonkers, The Art of Burning, Pride and Prejudice, Simona’s Search [coming soon] (Hartford Stage) ; A Doll’s House, Harvey, World Goes Round, Behold, A Negress (Everyman Theatre); Fences (Shakespeare and Company); World Goes Round (Olney Theatre); Pimpinone and Ino (Boston Early Music Festival) ; Goddess (Berkeley Rep).

Joshua Millican

Sound Designer

Joshua Millican T he Huntington: A Little Night Music . Broadway/West End: Six, Parade (Revival), Head Over Heels, The Band’s Visit, Prince of Broadway, An American in Paris, Sunday in the Park with George, The Bridges of Madison County, Big Fish . His designs have been heard across six continents and include theatre, film, radio, and museum installations. Education: Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. joshmillican.com  

Vahdat Yeganeh

Vahdat Yeganeh SpeakEasy Stage: English . Regional: ART, Yale Repertory Theatre, the Nora, Underground Railway Theater, Boston Experimental Theatre. Film: Over There (co-producer). Teaching: Learning Lead and the director of Dialogue of Civilizations Program (ART), Theatre and Psychoanalysis (PersPsy Analytic), Theatre of Antonin Artaud and Jerzy Grotowski (New England Conservatory). Publication: Drama for dialogue of civilization (TESOL Journal).   bostonexperimenatltheatre.com      

Rosalind Bevan

Local Casting

Rosalind Bevan The Huntington:  Joy & Pandemic, Clyde’s, K-I-S-S-I-N-G, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Common Ground Revisited ,  Our Daughters, Like Pillars, The Bluest Eye,  (Line Producer);  Witch  (Assistant Director); Dream Boston audio plays:  Echoes  and  The 54th in ‘22  (Director).

Emily F. McMullen

Production Stage Manager

Emily F. McMullen  has stage managed over 30 shows over the past nine seasons at The Huntington, including John Proctor is the Villain, The Band’s Visit, The Lehman Trilogy, Clyde’s, The Art of Burning, Common Ground Revisited, Hurricane Diane, Sweat, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, Indecent, Romeo and Juliet, A Doll’s House, Part 2, Man in the Ring, The Niceties, Top Girls, Bad Dates, Tartuffe, and Merrily We Roll Along .

Lucas Bryce Dixon

Stage Manager

Lucas Dixon  The Huntington: John Proctor is the Villain, The Band’s Visit, Fat Ham, The Lehman Trilogy, Clyde’s, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Common Ground Revisited, The Bluest Eye, Hurricane Diane, Yerma .

Lyndsay Allyn Cox

Producing Director

Lyndsay Allyn Cox The Huntington (acting): Common Ground Revisited ; Our Daughters, Like Pillars ; Witch . Regional (directing): Chicken and Biscuits (Front Porch Arts Collective); Tiny Beautiful Things (Gloucester Stage); Splash Hatch on the E Going Down (The Nora Theatre Company). Regional (acting): Fairview , Men on Boats ( SpeakEasy Stage); Fabulation (or the Re -E ducation of Undine) , Barbecue, By The Way, Meet Vera Stark (Lyric Stage Company); Bright Half Life (Actors’ Shakespeare Project); The Three Musketeers (Greater Boston Stage Company); Winter People (Boston Playwrights’ Theatre); Caroline, Or Change ( Moonbox Productions); The Overwhelming , Leftovers (Company One).

Sondra R. Katz

General Manager

Sondra R. Katz (General Manager) is in her nineteenth season at the Huntington. She has worked on Broadway, Off Broadway, and regionally as a stage manager, company manager, production manager and general manager.

Dori A. Robinson

Assistant Director

Dori A. Robinson The Huntington:  Prayer for the French Republic .  Directing credits include  Silent Sky, The Elm Tree ,  Fully Committed, A Bright Room Called Day, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, The Lion in Winter ,  Winter of Discontent, Peter and the Starcatcher ,  A Bintel Brief, The Chelmites Capture the Moon .

Assistant to the Director

Huan Bui Regional: As You Like It, Picnic on the Battlefield, Shipwrecked! An Entertainment ! (Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey). University: L ove’s Labour’s Lost , God of Carnage , Marisol, The Laramie Project , In the Book Of…, Tribes (UARK Theatre). Education: MFA in Theatre Directing (University of Arkansas). Huan is a Vietnamese theatre maker and a 2023-2024 Literary and Artistic Fellow at SpeakEasy Stage.  

Lee Nishri-Howitt

Voice Coach

Lee Nishri -Howitt The Huntington: Prayer for the French Republic, The Lehman Trilogy , Romeo and Juliet, The Art of Burning . Regional: Once, Allegiance ( SpeakEasy Stage); The Book of Will, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder (Lyric Stage); Oliver!, Hair, Trayf (New Rep); Little Women, James and the Giant Peach (Wheelock Family Theatre); All is Calm (Greater Boston Stage Company).

John-William Gambrell

Rehearsal Musician/Keyboard 2 Substitute

John-William Gambrell The Huntington:  The Lehman Trilogy  (copyist) .  Other copyist credits:  The Lehman Trilogy  (St. Louis Rep);  Romeo and Juliet, The Tale of Despereaux  (The Old Globe). His original musical,  Toothy’s Treasure , made its Off Broadway workshop debut at the Theater Center in NYC in 2023. A production at the Boston Center for the Arts followed that same year.

Additional Staff for The Band’s Visit

Assisstant Director………………………Dori A. Robinson

Associate Music Director………………Daniel Rodriguez

Dialect Coach……………………………Lee Nishri-Howitt

Intimacy Consultant…………………….Kayleigh Kane

Assistant to the Director………………….Huan Bui

Vocal Coach……………………….David Freeman Coleman

Skating Consultant………………………..Pandora Bassett

Production Assistants……………………………Ross Gray, Kendyl Trott

Carpenters……………………………………..Allie Zalewski Hannah Ashe, Joe Ellard, Max Rocca, Nick Robinette Steven Asaro, Amy West

Automation Run Crew……………………..Charlie Berry

Scenic Artists……………………………………Sam Galvao

Props Artisan………………………………………..Ian Thorsell

Stitcher…………………………………………Sasha Nemi Lato

Wardrobe Run…………………………………..Jennie Fuchs

Wardrobe Swing……………………Katherine Lawrence

Wig Run…………………………………………Kiara Escalera

Season Electrician………………………Violet Gayzagian

Electricians……………………………………Anna Brevetti, Jemma Kepner, Joseph Lark-Riley, Callie Moos, Nick Robinette

Follow Spot Operators……………………Kaitlin Smith, Brian Vlasak

Audio Run A1……………………………..Lexie Lankiewicz

Robb Simring……………………………….Acoustic and Electric Bass Substitute

Read the full interview: LEGENDS OF THE COSTUME SHOP

Discount tickets.

The Huntington offers many different affiliation and aged-based discounts off our ticket prices. Discounts can be applied online, in person, or over the phone. Patrons who purchase discounted tickets must pick up their tickets and provide proof of ID or eligibility at ticketing services before the show. All discounts are subject to availability.

HYPE discounts

$40 tickets are available any time for patrons age 40 years and younger as part of our HYPE program (Huntington Young Patron Events). Valid ID required. Tickets are subject to availability and some zone restrictions may apply. Use promo code DISCOUNT to access HYPE (40 Below) pricing. I nput code DISCOUNT before seat selection. Promo will apply at checkout. Learn more about HYPE .

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$25 tickets are available to all performances for full-time students. Use promo code DISCOUNT to access Student pricing.  Valid ID required.

Active US Military

$25 tickets are available to all performances for Active US Military and their immediate family. Use promo code MILITARY to access US Military pricing.  Valid ID required.

Huntington Community Membership Initiative

$20 tickets are available to all performances for participants in the Huntington Community Membership Initiative. Use your exclusive HCMI promo code tied to your organization to redeem. Learn more about our Huntington Community Membership Initiative .

$30-$35 Tickets

In addition to our age and affiliation-based discounts, a limited number of unrestricted $30-$35 tickets are available at each performance.

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Patrons who are Deaf and/or blind/low-vision and their guests can purchase tickets to designated ASL-Interpreted or Audio Described performances for $20 each.  Learn more about accessible performances .

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At The Huntington, we believe price shouldn’t be a barrier for folks to enjoy world-class theatre. Because of this, we have a limited number of Pay-What-You-Wish tickets available for all Huntington performances for those who need them. Pay-What-You-Wish is not available online. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit Ticketing Services in person at either box office location or call us at 617-266-0800.

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Groups can save up to 20% off ticket prices for most productions. Student group pricing available.  Learn more about group rates .

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Enter your promo code into the top right corner of your screen next to “View Cart”.  Available discounts will apply automatically after entering the promo code.

For questions about promo codes, please contact our ticketing team by emailing [email protected]  or calling 617-266-0800.

In moving musical 'The Band's Visit,' strangers from distinct Mideast cultures find harmony

Magnificent writers theatre production of the tony-winning show pulls you in to the characters’ world and you don’t want to leave..

Café owner Dina (Sophie Madorsky, with Rom Barkhordar and Armand Akbari) is among the people in a remote Israeli town showing hospitality to stranded Egyptian musicians in “The Band’s Visit.”

Michael Brosilow

Quirky, character-driven, self-declared at the start as being not “very important,” the 2018 Tony-winning best musical “The Band’s Visit” has always been a modest, heartwarming show, a pixelated slice-of-life about the ways humans feel connected with each other. It’s mostly about love, but also about how music and movies help bring people together.

I enjoyed the piece immensely on Broadway, where it was directed by David Cromer, a longtime Chicago artist now on the A-plus-list in New York. He won the directing Tony for his work on this show.

But I was far more deeply moved by this intimate, intensely engaging production at Writers Theater, directed by Zi Alikhan. Alikhan worked under Cromer on the national tour of the “The Band’s Visit,” and has an impressive, mostly regional-theater resume. He’s making an extremely memorable mark in his Chicago debut.

This offbeat musical from composer David Yazbeck (“The Full Monty,” “Tootsie”) and writer Itamar Moses, based on a 2007 Israeli film, tells the story of a small Egyptian orchestra invited to perform at the Arab cultural center in the real-life Israeli city of Petah Tikvah. Instead, the musicians accidentally, and understandably, find themselves in Bet Hatikvah, a fictional, remote desert town. Stranded awaiting the rare bus, and in a town too tiny for a hotel, they must rely on the hospitality of locals who aren’t used to visitors, let alone those from another culture. Two of the songs, to give you a sense, are called “Welcome to Nowhere” and “Something Different.”

This production has the cast playing nearly all the instruments — including Middle Eastern ones like the pear-shaped, lute-like oud — with a few supplements from offstage. A benefit is that the musical interstices serve as an indication of how the townspeople manage to pass the time, given that there is so little going on in Bet Hatikvah.

• From 2019: ‘The Band’s Visit’ a marvelous, exquisitely crafted arrival indeed

Yazbek’s lovely, nuanced score, highly unusual for a Broadway show, feels deeply connected to the region, which is essential for bringing an authenticity to the setting and story, which itself is minimal but involving.

During a single evening, the strangers get to know each other. Café owner Dina (Sophie Madorsky) and the orchestra’s leader Tewfiq (Rom Barkhordar) bond over memories of Omar Sharif movies and the music of Egyptian Umm Kulthum, which Dina grew up with. Simon (Jonathan Shaboo), the orchestra’s clarinetist, finds himself observing the quarrels of a married couple (Dave Honigman and Dana Saleh Omar). The Chet Baker-loving Haled (Armand Akbari, exuding friendly charm) tags along as an extra wheel on a roller-skating date with locals (Sam Linda, Marielle Issa, Becky Keeshin, Jordan Golding).

This ensemble is extraordinary: un-showy, uniformly honest, remarkably likable.

I understand Madorsky’s Dina more than I did that of Katrina Lenk, who played the role on Broadway and just couldn’t cover up her sense of glamor, that Dina was truly stuck in this small town, so clearly out of place. While equally as compelling, this Dina may long for something more, but also very much belongs here, and she comes across as far more vulnerable.

Sam Linda and Becky Keeshin play locals in Bet Hatikvah on a roller-skating date.

Another standout is Sam Linda, a performer I’ve seen before without his making this type of impression. He seems born for this part, and his “Papi Hears the Ocean,” about what he hears when he tries to talk with girls, is wildly enjoyable, all the funnier for its fundamental believability and the careful timing of Sebastiani Romagnolo’s choreography.

I was concerned, given the current, horrifying events occurring on the Israeli-Egypt border, that this show would feel too slight for the moment, a “can’t we all get along?” message at a moment when reality suggests the answer to that is a resounding “No.”

• From 2019: David Cromer sees ‘everyday heroes’ as the heart and soul of ‘The Band’s Visit’

But from the moment this story starts, this magnificent production pulls you in to the characters’ world and you don’t want to leave. It’s an innocent, peaceful place. The actors all speak with accents — believable to my ear, for sure — as the Arabic- and Hebrew-speaking characters use sometimes-halting English to communicate. It’s about what people have in common. Politics doesn’t exist. The characters expose their inner selves to strangers; although at first surprised to be dealing with the situation, they’re ultimately emotionally unguarded.

But the show also gains deep, complex, upsetting layers from the fact that, when you awaken from the reverie of its sweetness, you realize these people — that is to say, people just like them — may be dead or hostages or at least in mourning for loved ones, and times past.

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The Band’s Visit Discussion Questions

Get the post-show conversation going with these Discussion Questions for The Band’s Visit

• In some ways, music is another character in the play, one that everyone interacts with at some point. How does music drive the plot forward and influence the relationships between characters?  
• The political history of Egypt and Israel is a source of tension and distrust between the characters. In what ways are they able to break through their discomfort?   
• The residents of Bet Hatikva describe themselves as “experts at waiting.” What do you think they are waiting for? Why have they become experts at it?  
• What types of relationships are represented in the play? How do they evolve over the 14 hours of the story?  
• Can you think of a moment in your life when you found an unexpected connection with strangers? What was the catalyst for the breakthrough?  
• The show begins and ends with Dina saying that the story “wasn’t very important.” Does she mean that? What makes a story or event “important?”   
• Most of the characters in The Band’s Visit begin the play having lost something important to them: spouses, children, romance, creativity, confidence. In what ways do the events of the play allow for them to begin to move on?  

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The Band's Visit

Original title: ביקור התזמורת.

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A small Egyptian police band travels to Israel to play at the inaugural ceremony of an Arab arts center, only to find themselves stuck in the wrong town.

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