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Music Is a Time Machine: A Review of “The Band’s Visit” at Writers Theatre

by Amanda Finn | February 20, 2024

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Writers Theatre’s “The Band’s Visit,” with Rom Barkhordar/Photo: Michael Brosilow

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If we can have intentionally small-scale straight theater, so, too, should we have intentionally small-scale musicals. Some shows are best done in intimate spaces. Seeing “The Band’s Visit” in a massive theater with hundreds if not thousands of other people, even at a distance, was a moving experience. Yet that doesn’t hold a candle to seeing it at Writers Theatre . Shows like “Band’s Visit” and “Once” are just too fragile to be tossed onto any old stage.

They’re like music boxes. Meant to be appreciated, delicately, with great care.

After all, the show by David Yazbek and Itamar Moses is all about human connection. In theater, particularly Chicago theater, that connection is at its peak when you’re mere feet from the actors at all times. When you can almost feel the wistful sighs from Michael Joseph Mitchell (Avrum), you know a show has found its home.

An ironic sentiment as the premise of “Band’s Visit” comprises a band trio and their conductor visiting Egypt from Israel—but end up in Bet Hatikva instead of Petah Tikvah. What follows is a whimsical, heartstring-plucking day when the band members await tomorrow’s bus to take them to their concert location. Based on the charming 2007 film by Eran Kolirin, this musical reminds us that we can bypass cultural and linguistic differences when we try.

Writers Theatre’s “The Band’s Visit,” with Adam Qutaishat, Dana Saleh Omar, Dave Honigman/Photo: Michael Brosilow

Don’t take the music-box metaphor too literally. Director Zi Alikhan gives us an evenhanded production that allows audiences to see each of these characters as the vibrant people they are. Bet Hatikva is a small town—no one can hide in a corner and not be noticed.

Tewfiq (Rom Barkhordar), the band’s conductor and Dina (Sophie Madorsky), the townsperson who shepherds the band to homes for the night, are a truly dynamic pair of foils. In completely different places in their lives, the universe throws these two together to learn to open up to others, even the smallest bit. Madorsky plays off of Barkhordar so well that their character-building chemistry is off the charts. When you see this show in a huge audience far away, you miss the subtle moments of connection. But you’d have to be trying to miss them here.

Because this show is so heavily ensemble-focused, everyone gets their moment to shine. At the same time, you may feel a twinge of heartache when those spotlight sections are over. I’m going to need someone to cast Armand Akbari (Haled) in more croon-heavy parts and Sam Linda (Papi) as a musical’s lovable leading man stat. While we’re at it, Harper Caruso (Telephone Guy) is going to need some more centerstage, golden-age Broadway power ballads.

At one point in the show, Avrum says, “music is a time machine.” He’s absolutely right. “Band’s Visit” takes so many of the traditional musical theater-type songs and mashes them together into an enchanting story about what it means to be a person in the world with other people in the world. And suddenly, we’re reminded, hearts full, that we’ve heard this song before.

On stage through March 17 at Writers Theatre, 325 Tudor Court, Glencoe. Tickets are $65-$75; available at writerstheatre.org .

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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 review – entrancing musical about nothing and nowhere

Donmar Warehouse, London When an Egyptian orchestra accidentally tips up in a sleepy Israeli backwater, lives are changed in the quietest of ways

‘N othing is as beautiful as something you didn’t expect.” That’s the story of this 2016 musical, and also its entrancing effect. Based on a 2007 Israeli film about an unplanned encounter between Egyptian musicians and the people of an Israeli backwater, the musical is a charmer about lives changed in the quietest of ways.

We first see a luggage carousel, and a clutch of men in incongruous powder blue uniforms. This is the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra, booked for a prestigious gig in the city of Petah Tikvah. A mid-flirt mistake at the ticket office lands them in Bet Hatikva, a nowhere town in the Negev desert, “basically bleak and beige and blah blah blah”. It’s a place where nothing happens, every day.

The bus to the city doesn’t leave until tomorrow, so the musicians bed down around town. And that’s it, that’s the plot. We follow characters through a long warm evening – from a fractious family apartment to the local roller disco and a poor excuse for a park. Everything here is unfinished business: neglected ambitions, an incomplete concerto, a never-ringing payphone. Even Soutra Gilmour’s set is backed by tiers of bricks from an abandoned building project. At least the band has somewhere to sit.

And it’s music that drives the show forward, nudging the characters’ anxious minds and clouded hearts. With its klezmatic clarinet, emphatic oud and a flute like a desolate wind, it’s thrilling to hear the band’s squall and rumble. David Yazbek’s Tony-winning score begins in twitchy languor – the sigh of a place where nothing happens, the fret of wishing it would – then deepens, cradling songs of desire and disappointment.

If there is a central thread in this ensemble show, it’s the near-romance between Tewfiq and Dina, the gruff conductor and the local cafe owner. Alon Moni Aboutboul’s Tewfiq hides behind his peaked cap and mournful courtesy. As the night unrolls, he demonstrates the conductor’s art in a delicate hand ballet and scrapes the rust off his voice in lilting Arabic song.

Dina is smart, disillusioned and ragingly unfulfilled – we don’t know exactly how she feels about her ex-husband, but the decisive way she carves up a watermelon gives an idea. In a stunning performance by Israeli performer Miri Mesika, each song reveals new textures in her voice, from sardonic iron to yearning velvet. The standout number has her sink into the memory of watching Omar Sharif’s romantic movies, “floating in on a jasmine wind”.

Scenes in Itamar Moses’s tangy script often end too soon – they scarper at a song’s close rather than linger with a situation. Both hosts and visitors know each other too well, but encounters with strangers mean that people must explain themselves. Every conversation prises a lid off complex emotion, probes at tender places.

Even scene changes thrum with character in Michael Longhurst’s open-hearted production. I loved spending time with his poker-faced cast, masters of shrug and eye roll. They include Michal Horowicz’s miserable wife, too worn down to sing, Marc Antolin’s drifting manboy, Sargon Yelda’s attentive composer and Ashley Margolis, waiting by the phone like a lonesome muppet.

The smallest things can lift them. A doleful waiter (Harel Glazer), easily panicked by women, gets romantic advice at the roller disco. A tearful baby is soothed by a clarinet lullaby. This unexpected night may not change lives forever – but it helps people face a new day.

At the Donmar Warehouse, London , until 3 December

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The Band's Visit May Be This Year's Best Musical

By Adam Green

As the composer and lyricist of such high-octane Broadway musicals as The Full Monty , Dirty Rotten Scoundrels , and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown , David Yazbek has mostly been, he says, “able to rely on Faster, Louder, Funnier.” Yazbek had to abandon that credo for The Band’s Visit , the quietly ravishing new musical, written with Itamar Moses, that, after a rapturously received run at the Atlantic Theater last season (it beat Dear Evan Hansen for the New York Drama Critic Circle’s Best Musical Award ), opened on Broadway last month.

Based on Eran Kolirin’s 2007 art house film about an Egyptian police band accidentally stranded for the night in the dreary Israeli desert town of Bet Hatikvah, it is unlike any musical I’ve seen—understated, with a dry wit and a yearning soul. Under the masterfully nuanced direction of David Cromer ( Our Town ), and featuring a perfect cast led by Tony Shalhoub as the band’s buttoned-down conductor Tewfiq and Katrina Lenk as the worldly wise Israeli cafe owner Dina, not much happens on the surface, while underneath worlds collide and hearts and minds open. “It’s about romantic love, and it’s about connecting with people from another culture and dissolving boundaries between self and other,” Yazbek says. “Ultimately it’s about longing for connection with God. And I think that’s why people are so moved by it, though we never say it.”

The son of a Lebanese-American father and Jewish-American mother, Yazbek remembers discovering the sounds of the Middle East at age seven, during a family vacation in Lebanon, when he heard the Egyptian singer Oum Khalthoum on a taxi radio (“My head was spinning,” he recalls). His lush (and catchy) score mixes the exotic tonalities of Arabic music with the more familiar strains of the American Songbook, and his poetic lyrics blend his own brand of wise-ass humor with elements of Sufi mysticism. For the characters of The Band’s Visit , music is, as one lyric puts it, “a gift from God...Music and love, who can tell them apart?”

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The song that most gorgeously captures music’s transcendent power is “Omar Sharif,” sung with heartbreaking simplicity by Lenk about her character’s memories of falling in love with Egyptian culture as a girl. “Oum Khalthoum and Omar Sharif/Came floating on a jasmine wind,” she sings. “From the west, from the south/Honey in my ears/Spice in my mouth.”

Lenk, who grew up outside Chicago, first made a splash on Broadway as the fiddle-playing Reza in Once . With her luminously pale skin, almond-shaped blue eyes, and Marlene Dietrich cheekbones, she already looks like a star, and her sensuous, soulful performance in The Band’s Visit , which comes on the heels of her exquisite turn in last season’s Indecent , should make her one. Lenk says that she sees Dina, who finds herself getting older, alone and childless, as a kind of hero. “I love that she’s not perfect,” she says. “She’s a strong person, and she’s very aware that she’s where she’s at because of her own choices, but she doesn’t have any self-pity. She’s just like, This is my life, it is what it is. Yet she’s also incredibly vulnerable underneath that tough exterior, and in the course of the show, she reconnects with the wonder and hope of childhood—all those things that scare us as adults.”

Among the many small stories in the show, the centerpiece is Dina’s not-quite romance with Tewfiq, a man whose outward brusqueness and formality hides a well of infinite sadness. Though Shalhoub is best known as the obsessive-compulsive title detective from the TV series Monk , he is a superb stage actor, here taking his first stab at a musical since appearing in the chorus of his sister’s high school production of The King and I at age six. “There was a lot of terror, and I went kicking and screaming into this,” he says with a laugh. Tewfiq’s life, he says, “has been shattered, and he's trying to hold on desperately to the only thing he has left—his role as this conductor, as leader of these men—and to hold on to some sense of order and control. But then this woman, this unexpected and unique creature, catches him completely unaware. You could call it a kind of love story, but because of the damage that’s been dome to him—and that he’s done to himself—he can’t allow himself to feel joy fully.”

Shalhoub says that he was attracted to the part because it was unlike any he had played before while, as a Lebanese-American, it also felt very familiar. “It's like a feeling of returning home,” he says. “It's not all simple and necessarily positive. It's complicated, and it's deep, and there's something valuable and very moving about that. And at the same time, it’s universal. It sort of sneaks up on you, and then it sticks with you.”

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Broadway Review: ‘The Band’s Visit’

Seamless transfer of this heart-warming musical brings Tony Shalhoub and Katrina Lenk together in a drowsy Israeli village in the middle of the desert.

By Marilyn Stasio

Marilyn Stasio

Theater Critic

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The set’s a bit grander and the music sounds richer, but success hasn’t spoiled this embraceable musical fable about the surprising friendships that bloom in the middle of a political desert. In this Broadway transfer of an Off Broadway hit , human error sends an Egyptian military band to a depressed Israeli outpost in a desert wasteland — and human connections bring Arabs and Israelis together on common ground.

Tony Shalhoub remains steadfast as lovable Colonel Tewfiq Zakaria, the modest commander of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra. The band was headed for the Arab Cultural Center in sophisticated Petah Tikvah, but was misdirected to Bet Hatikvah, a bleak little village in the middle of nowhere. Katrina Lenk is even more earth-shaking as Dina, the beautiful and incredibly vital café owner who is wasting away in Bet Hatikvah but comes alive when the band unexpectedly arrives in her little ghost town.

Broadway theatergoers looking for something off-the-beaten-musical-track should be charmed by this unassuming show, written by Itamar Moses (book) and David Yazbek (music & lyrics) and tenderly directed by David Cromer . But this disarming musical has the emotional depth that holds up to repeated viewings and the offbeat charm that could make it a cult hit.

“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.”  That unassuming statement, projected on the back wall of Scott Pask’s plain and simple (and amusing) set, is enough to grab the most jaded audience.

Actually, the visit turned out to be very important, on a universally human level. But not at first glance, when Tewfiq turns up at a bus station in Israel with his little band of musicians. The show’s musicians are onstage, trying to look like villagers, but members of that extraordinary band are occasionally called upon to pick up instruments of their own — and in some cases, play them very well.

Although the band is smartly outfitted in costumer Sarah Laux’s baby-blue ersatz-military uniforms, their government funding is in peril, and they absolutely must not screw up their assignment to perform at the initiation ceremony of the Arab Culture Center in Peta Tikva. The political and cultural significance of this mission weighs heavily on the fanatically steadfast Tewfiq, who stands ramrod straight (but is dying inside) in Shalhoub’s painfully honest performance.

Like other obsessive characters he has played, most notably Adrian Monk, the beloved OCD-wracked detective he inhabited for seven years on TV, Tewfiq transcends conventional character comedy. In Shalhoub’s hands, he is simultaneously funny and sad and a little bit crazy, and you absolutely have to love him.  When disaster strikes, Tewfiq stiffens his spine and stands straighter. And strike it does when the musicians are misdirected at the bus station. Instead of sophisticated Petah Tikvah, they find themselves in Bet Hatikvah, a dreary town in the middle of the desert.

Thanks to the revolving set and some quicksilver lighting changes by Tyler Micoleau, we can take in the whole town at a glance.  In “Waiting,” the first of the many nuanced (vaguely Arabic, vaguely Israeli, altogether enchanting) musical numbers in Yazbek’s wonderful score, the depressed residents are quick to tell the band what their uneventful life is like.  And in “Welcome to Nowhere,” Dina is joined by other disheartened residents to express their sense of isolation and their hopeless yearning for some kind of human connection.

With nowhere to go and nothing to do until the first bus arrives in the morning, the Egyptians are warily taken in by the Israelis, who reluctantly feed them, house them, and in one scene that is simply out of this world, entertain them at the circa 1970s roller rink.

Although no one exchanges a word about incendiary Arab-Israeli political matters, visitors and hosts slowly begin to acknowledge their common humanity. In “Haled’s Song About Love” (sung with romantic intensity by Ari’el Stachel), the tall, handsome ladies’ man in the band takes pity on a bashful young man (Etai Benson) and shows him how to woo a girl.

There’s nothing big or grand here. Connections are made on little things, everyday things, common things we all share. The transcendent moment of the show comes when the so-called Telephone Guy (the fantastic Adam Kantor) makes one final, desperate effort to reach someone on that infuriatingly silent telephone.  “Can you answer me?” he begs. And the entire ensemble does exactly that.

Broadway Review: ‘The Band’s Visit’ Ethel Barrymore Theater; 1,046 seats; $169 top. Opened Nov. 9, 2017. Reviewed Nov. 4. Running time: ONE HOUR, 35 MIN.

Production A presentation by Orin Wolf, StylesFour Productions, Evamere Entertainment, Atlantic Theater Company, David F. Schwartz, Barbara Broccoli, Frederick Zollo, Grove*Reg, Lassen Blume Baldwin, Thomas Steven Perakos, Marc Platt, The Shubert Organization, The Baruch / Routh / Frankel / Viertel Group, Robert Cole, Deroy-Carr-Klausner, Federman-Moellenberg, Roy Furman, FVSL Theatricals, Hendel-Karmazin, Horipro, IPN, Jam Theatricals, The John Gore Organization, Koenigsberg-Krauss, David Mirvish, James L. Nederlander, Al Nocciolino, Once Upon a Time Productions, Susan Rose, Paul Shiverick, and Executive Producer Allan Williams of a musical, originally presented by the Atlantic Theater Company, in one act with book by Itamar Moses, based on the screenplay by Eran Kolirin, and with music & lyrics by David Yazbek.

Creative Directed by David Cromer. Choreography by Patrick McCollum. Music director & additional arrangements by Andrea Grody. Orchestrations, Jamshied Sharifi. Sets, Scott Pask; costumes, Sarah Laux, lighting, Tyler Micoleau; sound, Kai Harada; projections, Maya Ciarrocchi, hair & wigs, Charles G. LaPointe; production stage manager, Richard Hodge

Cast Tony Shalhoub, Katrina Lenk, John Cariani, Ari’el Sachel, Andrew Polk, Etai Benson, George Abud, Adam Kantor, Bill Army, Rachel Prather, Jonathan Raviv, Sharone Sayegh, Kristen Sieh, Alok Tewari, Ossama Farouk, Sam Sadigursky, Harvey Valdes, Garo Yellin.

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Review: 'The Band's Visit' turns the theater into a garden of sound

Asu gammage's fourth show of the season whispers a song of loss and romance.

A scene from the musical "The Band's Visit" performed on Sunday, June, 23, 2019.

" The Band’s Visit " forces you to listen harder than any other show, to drink deeply of the joy and the loneliness baked throughout. 

Rather than exciting you with over-the-top dance numbers and high-octane belting, the show embraces silence, with multiple scenes absent of any music or dialogue, leaving audiences desperate for the next pluck of a string.

The show follows an Egyptian band, the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra, on their journey to Israel for a concert, but a linguistic mixup at the bus terminal sends them to Bet Hatikva, a small town in the middle of nowhere, rather than the similarly named Petah Tikva.

The band’s leader, Tewfiq (played by Sasson Gabay), realizes their dilemma when he asks a local cafe owner, Dina (standby Hannah Shankman), for directions. She then explains where they are and that they are stuck there until the next bus comes the following morning. Suddenly stranded, Dina opens up her home and offers to help find other locals to take in the band for the night. 

Tewfiq and the easy-going Haled (Joe Joseph) stay with Dina while Camal (Yoni Avi Battat) and Simon (James Rana) spend the night with the new father Itzik (Clay Singer) and his family.  

As day slowly turns to night, the plot turns into three storylines: Dina decides to take Tewfiq out on the town, Haled joins Papi (Coby Getzug) on a double date to the roller rink and Camal and Simon stay with Itzik, his wife Iris (Kendal Hartse) and his father-in-law Avrum (David Studwell) for dinner. 

In the subtext of every interaction is the long and rocky history between neighbors Israel and Egypt, with the controversial beginning of Israel's statehood leading to multiple wars and living conditions of Palestinians in Israeli-occupied zones. Although Egypt was the first country to recognize Israel in 1979, the relationship since has been characterized as a “cold peace” with very few relations outside of military operations.

But the conflict is never made explicit, leaving the subtleties of the characters’ dialogue lost on some. While there is never outright hostility, there is level of distrust between two strangers. 

The strange and unfamiliar feeling is a part of nearly every scene, in particular those between Dina and Tewfiq, as she opens up to this quiet, closed-off man and they discover just how much they have in common.

Dina sings about how "the ship from Egypt always came / Sailing in on radio waves" in " Omar Sharif " when she and her mother would listen to Egyptian singer Umm Kulthūm and watch movies starring Omar Sharif. She was entranced by this taste of Arabic culture as a child and Tewfiq could share in those memories with her, recounting scenes with Dina over dinner.

The relationship between Dina and Tewfiq is the core of the show and even stronger than in the 2007 film the musical adapts, also titled "The Band’s Visit." The movie tells the exact same story, just without any of the singing. The emotional foundation is built upon by Tewfiq’s actor, Gabay, who reprised his role for the national tour and finds even more depth in the character on stage than on screen.

This evolution is made most clear and most heartbreaking in " Itgara’a ," a song that follows Dina asking him how it feels "to do music." Unable to express it in words, he begins faux-conducting and singing a hymn in Arabic, that in English is the crux of the show, "When you drink, drink deeply / Drink deeply of the moonlight / drink deeply of the dark / of the loneliness/of the joy."

Dina falls back into the same trance she described in "Omar Sharif," mimicking his movements and inviting the audience into the wonder they didn’t see coming, "Nothing is as beautiful as something that you don’t expect." 

It’s clear why "The Band’s Visit" swept the 2018Tony Awards winning 10 awards, including Best Musical — beating out "Mean Girls," "Frozen" and "SpongeBob SquarePants: The Musical." It pulls you into a dreary world and tells you one of the most fanatical stories you’ll see on stage. 

With a Gammage season as star-studded as this one, including "Hamilton," "Hadestown," "Come from Away" and "Mean Girls." "The Band’s Visit" is an essential viewing for any musical theater fan and anyone looking for something magic.

"The Band’s Visit" plays at ASU Gammage Feb. 8-13, with tickets ranging between $10-$174 .

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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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Review: Desert Awakening in ‘The Band’s Visit’

By Ben Brantley

• Dec. 8, 2016

Boredom has never sounded sexier than it does in “The Band’s Visit,” the beautiful new musical by David Yazbek and Itamar Moses that opened on Thursday night at the Atlantic Theater Company. Most of the show is set in a small Israeli town where, its residents are eager to tell you, absolutely nothing happens.

The name of this unhappy little village is not to be confused (as it crucially is by one of the show’s characters) with that of the bigger and more eventful Petah Tikvah. No, Bet Hatikva begins with a B, as in “basically bleak and beige and blah blah blah.”

Yet as intoned in the opening song of this slyly seductive show, directed by an inspired David Cromer and starring a chemically bonded Tony Shalhoub and Katrina Lenk, such arid adjectives have a way of springing into bloom, perfuming the air with a yearning that teases the senses. All that “blah blah blah” is steeped in a somnolent restlessness that promises sweet awakenings.

Never mind its reputation as dullsville. Bet Hatikva is a place you want to visit if you’re looking for signs of new and exciting life in the contemporary American musical. In this case, that includes one of the season’s most exquisitely wrought scores (by Mr. Yazbek , of “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” and “The Full Monty,” who here seamlessly folds Middle Eastern rhythms and inflections into Broadway balladry).

Based on Eran Kolirin’s 2007 film of the same title, “The Band’s Visit” uses a well-worn formula that hasn’t stopped being recycled since Oedipus stumbled into Thebes. That’s the good old story of a stranger — or in this case strangers, an entire Egyptian police band — arriving in a sleepy town and shaking it to its foundations.

Think of “The Rainmaker,” “Shane” or even “The Music Man,” in which that stranger’s kiss (or gunshot or con act) winds up transforming lives forever. “The Band’s Visit” flirts with the clichés of such a scenario, and then triumphantly fails to consummate them. Just when you think it’s going to deliver big on an anticipated clincher, it pulls back, and that withdrawal feels far more satisfying than the expected obvious climax.

Consider, for example, the possible political implications of the plot. A group of Egyptian musicians — the grandly named Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra — comes to Israel to open an Arab cultural center but winds up in the wrong place. (When booking the tickets, they crucially confuse that previously mentioned “P” and “B.”)

Uninvited Arabs in Israel? Surely, we can anticipate a fraught cultural collision and a subsequent feel-good reconciliation, proving that even perceived adversaries have more in common than they thought. But nationalistic tensions are touched upon only glancingly.

Instead, the Bet Hatikvans are delighted, in their low-key way, by the mere novelty of these traveling musicians, led by their dignity-conscious conductor, Tewfiq (an affectingly understated Mr. Shalhoub), who wear robin’s-egg-blue uniforms that make the townspeople think of Michael Jackson. Bet Hatikva, after all, is the sort of place whose inception is described in these lyrics:

“Stick a pin in a map of the desert./Build a road in the middle of the desert./Pour cement on the spot in the desert.”

That helpful geography lesson is delivered early by Dina (Ms. Lenk, in a knockout performance), the proprietor of a cafe where unfamiliar customers are unheard-of. It is Dina — whose wry ennui seems both provincial and worldly — who arranges lodging for the band’s members when it emerges they’ll be stuck in Bet Hatikva for the night.

Yes, just one fateful night, in which anything can happen, right, especially among such a desperately lonely crew? Among the Alexandrians, there’s Haled (Ari’el Stachel), the trumpeter and a ladies’ man with two ready-made pickup lines; Simon (Alok Tewari), the clarinetist and the composer of an unfinished concerto; and the laconic Camal, the violinist (George Abud).

The Bet Hatikvans of note include the unhappily married young couple Itzik (John Cariani) and Iris (Kristen Sieh), who live with her father, Avrum (Andrew Polk), and their baby; the girl-wary Papi (Daniel David Stewart, who has a fabulous tongue-tied solo) and that unnamed, defeated-looking guy (Erik Liberman) who can be found loitering with intent beside an outdoor public telephone that never rings.

Now try to imagine the points of connection for these archetypal figures, who conveniently (for New York audiences) communicate in English, a language they (sort of) share. You’ll be wrong. Like the movie that inspired it, “The Band’s Visit” finds its compelling texture not in dramatic consequences but in the abiding truths of unfulfilled lives.

This wistfulness permeates every aspect of the show. That includes Scott Pask’s set, which makes devilishly clever use of its rotating stage; Sarah Laux’s unobtrusively characterful costumes, and Tyler Micoleau’s desert-night lighting. Mr. Cromer, who delivered an innovative “Our Town” for the ages in 2009, brings out the eloquence in the surrounding silence and in small, often aborted gestures.

Though Mr. Moses’s efficient script operates from a similar sense of understatement, the spoken scenes can occasionally drag, making you a shade too conscious of the assumed foreign accents. But whenever the show sings, Mr. Yazbek’s music transports you to a place both exotic and touchingly familiar.

By that I don’t mean so much a remoter region of Israel as a state of mind in which we all exist at times. That’s the land of never-was and might-have-been, of the ache of lost illusions that we massage into something pleasurable.

This sensibility is given especially ravishing life by Ms. Lenk (seen on Broadway in “Once,” which “The Band’s Visit” resembles in its delicate, off-center charm). With her matter-of-fact sensuality and embattled confidence, she summons the jaded yet sensitive allure of the European film sirens Anouk Aimée and Simone Signoret.

Dina, recalling the childhood pleasures of experiencing Egyptian music and movies sings, about, “A jasmine wind from the west, from the south/Honey in my ears, spice in my mouth.” That’s the sound of Ms. Lenk’s voice, too, which seems steeped in a longing that feels complete unto itself.

There’s not a performance, or a sung note, that feels out of key here, though. When the ensemble, led by Mr. Liberman, delivers the show’s final number, “Answer Me,” the music takes on a transcendent harmonic shimmer that stops the heart. An answer is hardly guaranteed, but there’s untold enchantment in the asking.

A theater review on Friday about “The Band’s Visit,” which is set in Israel, at the Atlantic Theater Company in Manhattan, misstated the name of an Israeli city. It is Petah Tikvah, not Pet Hatikva.

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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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Theater Review: THE BAND’S VISIT (National Tour)

by Marc Wheeler on December 7, 2021

in Theater-Los Angeles , Tours

LOST IN THE DESERT

Winner of 10 Tony Awards including Best Musical of 2018, Itamar Moses’s The Band’s Visit is one of the most highly-awarded shows in musical theater history. And yet, those expecting the razzmatazz of a Big Broadway Musical in The Band’s Visit ’s “post-shutdown” North American  Tour are likely to be at least somewhat disappointed in this understated work, even with its quirkiness and desert-breeze beauty. To its credit, the piece clamps lofty expectations from the start. “Once not long ago a group of musicians came to Israel from Egypt,” it projects onto the stage. “You probably didn’t hear about it. It wasn’t very important.” Potential sarcasm of this statement aside, any importance we do ultimately take away from this piece relies heavily upon what we project into its palpable restraint. 

You see, not much really happens in The Band’s Visit . A small orchestra from Egypt mistakenly travels to the wrong Israeli town for a performance. In kindness, the townspeople welcome them into their homes, offering them a place to crash before the morning bus sends them back on their merry way in time for their concert. That’s it. No big dance numbers. No crashing chandeliers. No revolutions. Just an unimportant day in an unimportant town, after which life returns to relative normalcy. 

Or does it? If transformation is a door, The Band’s Visit is the hinge on that door. By forcing our attention on the axis, not the wide-swinging results, it’s up to audiences to write the ever-afters. With such subtlety at work, it should come as no surprise that The Band’s Visit is inspired by a 2007 Israeli film of the same name (film being more properly suited for magnified nuance). This  is where choice of venue is imperative. Home of many Academy Award ceremonies, Hollywood’s 3,400-seat Dolby Theater is grand and majestic. It’s also a cavernous space in which to tell such a fine-spun story. While I left The Band’s Visit less moved than I had hoped, I think only a fraction of that is due to the work itself. Even without seeing the show in a more intimate venue (200 seats or less, like the original off-Broadway production), I can say with assurance that while the Dolby Theatre (alongside Scott Pask’s scenic design) may have highlighted the ever-present barrenness of the work’s desert town and its inhabitants, it also swallowed a lot of the subtlety this musical requires to thrive. 

With songs like “Waiting” and “Welcome to Nowhere,” it’s clear that existential ache is the primary language of Bet Hatikva, Israel — the fictional “Dodge” of the Middle East where the story takes place. It’s only natural that music must be their second language (how else are they going to process their existence?) This is where David Yazbek brings the work to life. Imbuing his haunting Middle Eastern score of quarter tones and minor chords with fresh, poetic lyricism, he sustains a sense of yearning throughout the show. Rare is a group number; solos and duets work in establishing a sense of isolation and loneliness. Sparingly, like in the sensual “Omar Sharif” and the gorgeous slow-build of “Answer Me,” he allows passions to swell and reveal themselves, then return ever-quickly to the slow drip of humdrum life. Having band members onstage playing background to their own story creates an almost-separate character in the work: one allowed to say the “unsaid.” Brimming with hope for what’s just out of reach, the exoticism of the music reinforces the cultural divide between geographic neighbors, even as it provides a means of connection and understanding. 

Under the direction of David Cromer, the cast plays well with this cultural tug-and-pull. Janet Dacal is fiery and passionate as Dina, the owner of a local café who welcomes band-conductor Tewfiq (a delicately reserved Sasson Gabay) into her home. In the role of Haled, the orchestra’s jazz-loving lothario, Joe Joseph is smooth as silk. And Coby Getzug as Papi, the local shyboy, is delightfully comical in his self-deprecating anthem “Papi Hears the Ocean.” 

Long after curtain, I admit I’m still haunted by The Band’s Visit . It’s a bit short for a musical, with no intermission, and it ends just when it seems to take-off — I guess they left me wanting more. But truly, I can’t seem to shake the notion that in a more intimate venue I could actually have a much richer experience with it. (Oh, the cruel irony of “rewarding” small works with giant theaters that overwhelm their delicacy.) I want to smell the sweet jasmine, taste the deep longing, and behold the slight shift from ennui into possibility. Separately, I want neighbors who aren’t repeatedly reminded to put on their masks. (Yes, returning patrons, “COVID Police” are now part of our theatergoing experience.) Oh, the many desires I’m left with after such a “band’s visit.” Is this L.A. … or Bet Hatikva?

photos by Evan Zimmerman / MurphyMade

The Band’s Visit national tour reviewed at the Dolby Theatre, Hollywood tour continues for tickets, dates and cities, visit The Band’s Visit

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‘The Band’s Visit’ review

• Theatre, Musicals
• 4 out of 5 stars
• Recommended

Time Out says

This bittersweet, idiosyncratic musical about a lost Egyptian band gets a gorgeous UK premiere

The original US production of ‘The Band’s Visit’ stormed the 2018 Tony Awards and spent 18 months on Broadway. Which is pretty wild when you consider it’s a barely 90-minute musical with no interval, no dance routines, no power ballads and performed in Arabic, Hebrew and heavily accented English.

I’m sure that production was great. But it feels like the right decision to have David Yazbek and Itamar Moses’s musical effectively start from scratch in the UK, in a new production from the Donmar’s Michael Longhurst that couldn’t be in a more perfect theatre.

It’s adapted from a 2007 Israeli indie film about an Egyptian police band that arrives in Israel to play at the opening of an Arab cultural centre in the city of Petah Tikvah, but accidentally gets a bus to Bet Hatikvah , a fictional one-horse town in the middle of the desert. It has no Arabic cultural centre, or, indeed, hotel – something that becomes a problem when the band realise they’re stranded there overnight.

For a moment, it looks like ‘The Band’s Visit’ will be a sort of Middle Eastern ‘Come from Away’ – an aggressively heartwarming drama about a group of people who randomly end up in a small town and everybody grows and learns something, vom vom vom.

In fact it’s a beautiful, haunting work about loss, loneliness and the desire for human warmth. Though an ensemble production, its headed up by Alon Moni Aboutboul’s stiffly dignified old band leader Tewfiq and Miri Mesika’s restless, unfulfilled local cafe owner Dina. She takes a shine to him and much of their night is spent sat at a local restaurant, making small talk, obliquely flirting and enquiring about each other’s pasts – which they only get into tangentially, with huge revelations kept to a minimum.

The other strands to the story are similarly delicate. There’s the band member who calls the Egyptian embassy from a pay phone jealously guarded by a local lad who has been waiting a month for his girlfriend to ring. There’s Sharif Afifi’s Casanova-ish younger band member Haled, who is desperate for something to do and blithely inveigles his way onto a double date at the town’s roller rink. And there’s the stressed young married locals whose tensions are exacerbated by having clarinettist Simon (Sargon Yelda) stay with them.

All of the stories are marked by a gossamer fragility and a wilful incompleteness, a sense we’re just getting flashes. Yazbek’s songs don’t add razzle dazzle. They offer a delicate magic: exotic instrumentals, hesitant ballads and the odd, sparing bit of witty wordplay. Longhurst’s still yet fluid production feels full of the hush and intimacy of the night – the songs are little bursts of wonder, none of them blowing the roof off, all of them making the air tingle. Soutra Gilmour’s set is minimalist in the extreme, but a nifty little revolve keeps the pace up perfectly when needed. 

Much of the magic is to do with the exceptional casting (big props to casting director Anna Cooper). In an international ensemble of mostly (possibly entirely) Middle Eastern extraction, the band members all really play instruments, with many taking on substantial acting roles too. There’s something ineffably beautiful about the mournful solo trumpets or clarinets that cut through the night air; and then the percussive, rhymic roar of their final ensemble instrumental tune is pure joy, morning sun exploding over the horizon after a long night. 

It’s anchored by Israeli actors Mesika and Aboutboul: her Dina tough, charming, lost; his Tewfiq dignified, wounded, wise. They’re not big flashy roles though: everyone on stage essentially has a small part that they nail, and it feels like the sum is greater than the individual parts, a vivid snapshot of a temporary community. 

Should we make anything of the fact it’s a show about Arabs and Israelis getting on with each other? It certainly doesn’t lay it on very thick: nationality, ethnicity and religion are barely touched upon. Indeed, the wry message that bookends the show – ‘it wasn’t very important’ – is perhaps testimony to the fact the writers are wary of making a Big Statement. 

Instead it’s a romantic, inventive, deeply disarming show about how we’re all defined by the need for connection. Given it was a hit on Broadway, I’m sure it could be a hit on the West End. But I wonder how easy it would be to hold this sprawling and uniquely talented international ensemble together; and, frankly, it’s hard to see how such an intimate show could possibly have the same impact in a big, formal West End playhouse. Catch it before it slips away into the night.

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A moving portrait of hope and heartbreak in ‘The Band’s Visit’

About midway through Paul Daigneault’s exquisite and luminous production of “The Band’s Visit,” Tewfiq, the conductor of an Egyptian police orchestra, and Dina, an Israeli café owner, are swapping quotes from an Egyptian film they both like.

“Love in itself is hope,’’ says Tewfiq. “And hope is a reality in our lives. Who can live without hope?”

Two declarative sentences and one rhetorical question, each of them built on the same simple but powerful word, all three of them combining to form the bedrock of a remarkable musical that refuses to give up on that word.

In a geopolitical moment when holding on to hope is extraordinarily difficult, “The Band’s Visit” is a reminder that our experience of theater has not only to do with what we see and hear once we’re settled into our seats. There are times — and this is one of them — when our responses are ineluctably colored by events in the outside world.

The horrors that have unfolded in Israel and Gaza in the past six weeks can make “The Band’s Visit” — with its belief in building bridges one person at a time, and its message that to step across cultures is to take a step toward peace — seem naïve, even Pollyanna-ish.

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It’s neither. The undertow of melancholy pervading “The Band’s Visit” reveals a musical that knows all about human sadness, and how many shapes it can take. But it also knows about the quite real possibilities for human connection when, say, Egyptians and Israelis join together in a vigorous rendition of “Summertime,” or when they whiz and totter around a roller-skating rink together.

David Yazbek’s score is a thing of beauty, utterly unimprovable. A band hidden upstage, as well as the performers portraying the Egyptian orchestra, capture all the vibrancy and poignancy of that score. The book by Itamar Moses is restrained, almost to a fault in spots. But overall, that restraint has the effect of forcing the audience to train our attention on small moments and small gestures — a focus that, in terms of generating an atmosphere of intimacy, pays off.

A first-time collaboration by the large Huntington and the midsize SpeakEasy Stage Company (where Daigneault is the founding artistic director), “The Band’s Visit” features knockout performances by Jennifer Apple as Dina and Brian Thomas Abraham as Tewfiq.

Essaying the role that made Katrina Link a star when “A Band’s Visit” opened off-Broadway and then, six years ago, on Broadway, Apple is an unstoppable, stage-seizing force. Her portrayal burns with intensity and a churning restlessness, depicting Dina as a woman who believes in action above all but is stymied by circumstance.

Apple is mesmerizing in her performance of the gorgeous “Omar Sharif,” in which Dina reminisces about watching Egyptian movies on a black-and-white TV with her mother as a child. (Of Sharif, Dina sings: ”He was cool to the marrow, the pharaoh of romance.”)

Abraham’s Tewfiq is gravely formal, starchy, and ultimately moving, conveying the sense of a man who’s comfortable being an authority figure (he’s a colonel) but is much less certain of himself in one-on-one interactions. Even as he moves toward a possible romance with Dina, Tewfiq projects a heaviness of spirit. The reasons for that become evident by the end of “The Band’s Visit.”

Dina and Tewfiq are thrown together when a transportation mix-up strands the Egyptian orchestra, attired in smart blue suits (costume design is by Miranda Kau Giurleo), in a small and sleepy Israeli town in the Negev Desert in 1996. (The set by Wilson Chin and Jimmy Stubbs transitions among several locations in a way that is both evocative and efficient.)

Jared Troilo, one of Boston’s finest actors, excels as Itzik, an employee at Dina’s restaurant, as does Emily Qualmann as Itzik’s desperately frustrated wife, Iris. (Qualmann substituted for Marianna Bassham, who usually plays the role, at Sunday’s performance.)

Also delivering textured portrayals are Robert Saoud as Avrum, Iris’s father; Kareem Elsamadicy as Haled, a trumpeter and a would-be ladies’ man whose come-on consists of asking women if they like Chet Baker; James Rana as Simon, the band’s assistant conductor and clarinetist; Jesse Garlick as the desperately shy, anxiety-riddled Papi; his crush, Julia, played by Josephine Moshiri Elwood, always an asset to any production; Fady Demian as Zelger, Papi’s friend; Anna, Zelger’s high-spirited girlfriend, played on Sunday by Jordana Kagan; and Noah Kieserman as the Telephone Guy, who waits anxiously near a pay phone in hopes of hearing from his beloved. Kieserman sings “Answer Me,” a spine-tingling ballad of yearning, with other members of the ensemble joining in to give voice to their private wishes.

“The Band’s Visit” puts its faith in individuals, in their power to make change, but it’s also realistic about the limits on that power. It begins and ends with the same words, but those words have acquired an enormous emotional weight on the journey from start to finish. Like much else in this exceptional musical, it’s likely to live in your memory for a long time.

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. Presented by the Huntington and SpeakEasy Stage Company. At the Huntington Theatre, 264 Huntington Ave. Through Dec. 17. Tickets $30-$185. At huntingtontheatre.org or 617-266-0800.

Don Aucoin can be reached at [email protected] . Follow him @GlobeAucoin .

The Band's Visit Tickets

The critically acclaimed new musical that celebrates the deeply human ways music and laughter connect us all.

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Performances ended on Apr. 7, 2019.

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About the band's visit on broadway, video & photos.

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.

"It's time to fall in love again! One of the most ravishing musicals you will ever be seduced by." The New York Times Ben Brantley

"Worlds collide, and hearts and minds open. It's ravishing! Unlike any musical I've ever seen." Vogue Adam Green

Cast & Creative

In addition to his turn in The   Band's Visit film, Gabay has been seen on-screen in Rambo III, Mermaids, Anachnu BaMapa and Shtisel . He won an Israeli Film Academy Award for his performance in the drama Gett and an Israeli Television Academy Award for his turn in the comedy series Polishuk.

Katrina Lenk is a triple threat artist who segues seamlessly between stage and screen. She most recently starred as Dina in Broadway’s Tony Award-winning production of The Band’s Visit and earned a Tony Award, Grammy Award, Emmy Award, Lucille Lortel Award, Outer Critics Circle Award nomination, Chita Rivera Award nomination, Drama League Award nomination, Theatre World Award’s Dorothy Louden Award, and a Clarence Derwent Award for Breakout Female of the Year. Lenk starred on Broadway in Pulitzer Prize winner Paula Vogel’s Indecent (Outer Critics Circle Award nomination). Her other Broadway credits include Once, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark  and The Miracle Worker . Additional theater credits include iWitness (Mark Taper Forum), Lost Land (Steppenwolf), Caucasian Chalk Circle (South Coast Rep) and Lovelace: A Rock Opera (L.A./Edinburgh). To television audiences, Lenk is known for her pivotal roles on hit series including a recent major series arc on the The Village, The Good Fight, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Elementary, The Get Down, The Blacklist, According to Jim  and Will & Grace . On the big screen, she appeared in Look Away, Evol: The Theory of Love, Elan Vital, Crime Fiction, Kiss Me in the Dark  and Space Daze . Lenk is the ringleader of the band/performance art piece called Moxy Phinx.

Ari'el Stachel is making his Broadway debut after originating the role of Haled in The Band's Visit at the Atlantic Theatre Company (Lucille Lortel and Drama Desk Award nominations). His regional credits include  The Golem of Havana (Barrington Stage Company). He appeared in workshops for  We Live in Cairo (NYTW) and  The Visitor (Public Theatre). On screen, he's been seen in  Blue Bloods  and Jessica Jones .

George Abud is a proud Arab-American actor. Broadway:  The Band’s Visit  starring Katrina Lenk & Tony Shalhoub (Daytime Emmy Award, OBC Recording);  The Visit  starring Chita Rivera & Roger Rees (OBC Recording). Off-Broadway:  The Beautiful Lady  directed by Anne Bogart (La MaMa Experimental Theatre);  Cornelia Street  opposite Norbert Leo Butz (Atlantic Theater Company); Nerd Face in  Emojiland  (Drama Desk nomination, OOBC Recording);  The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui  opposite Raúl Esparza,  Nathan The Wise  opposite F. Murray Abraham, Ibsen’s  Peer Gynt , and Rodgers & Hammerstein’s  Allegro  directed by John Doyle (all for Classic Stage Company); also, at Atlantic,  The Band’s Visit  directed by David Cromer; and  Lolita, My Love  opposite Robert Sella (York Theatre Company). Regional: Richard Nixon in  The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical  directed by Christopher Ashley, and Marinetti in  Lempicka  directed by Rachel Chavkin (La Jolla Playhouse, Craig Noel nominations for both productions); Lewis Chapman in  August Rush  (Paramount Theatre);  Annie Get Your Gun  directed by Sarna Lapine (Bay Street Theater); and Puck in  A Midsummer Night’s Dream  (Geva Theatre Center).

Adam Kantor's Broadway credits include  The Band’s Visit  (Telephone Guy - Grammy & Emmy Awards),  Fiddler On The Roof  (Motel),  Next To Normal  (Henry), and  RENT  (Mark). Off-Broadway:  The Last Five Years  (Jamie),  Avenue Q  (Princeton/Rod). Regional:  Diner  (Signature Theatre),  Nobody Loves You  and  Two Gentlemen of Verona  (The Old Globe). TV: Billions on Showtime (Pununzio), The Good Wife on CBS (Ezra). Training: Northwestern University and British American Dramatic Academy. Co-Founder of StoryCourse - theatrical dining experiences.

Etain Benson is an Israeli-American actor based in NYC. On Broadway, he originated the role of Papi in the Tony Award-winning musical The Band’s Visit . Broadway/National Tour: Wicked (Boq); An American in Paris (Adam). TV: “God Friended Me.” Regional: The Fortress of Solitude (premiere, Dallas Theater Center), A Room with a View (premiere, The Old Globe), Next to Normal (Weston Playhouse), My Name is Asher Lev (GableStage). Workshops: The Band’s Visit (directed by Hal Prince), The Devil Wears Prada (directed by Anna Shapiro), Little Miss Sunshine (directed by James Lapine). Benson trained at the University of Michigan and the legendary Moscow Art Theatre. He is a Grammy Award winner as Principal Soloist on The Band’s Visit Original Broadway Cast Album.  

David Cromer is a New York-based director and actor. He appeared on Broadway as Karl Lindner in the 2014 revival of  A Raisin in the Sun , and Off-Broadway as the Stage Manager in  Our Town , which he also directed, at the Barrow Street Theatre. He appeared in the HBO series The Newsroom , the Showtime series Billions , and in the motion picture  The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) . As a director, his New York credits include  The Band’s Visit  (2018 Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical, Ethel Barrymore Theatre); the Broadway revivals of  Brighton Beach Memoirs  and  The House of Blue Leaves ;  The Treasurer  (Playwrights Horizons);  Man from Nebraska  (Second Stage Theatre);  The Effect, Orson’s Shadow,  and  Tribes  (Barrow Street Theatre);  Women or Nothing (Atlantic Theater Company);  Really Really  (MCC Theater);  When the Rain Stops Falling  and  Nikolai and the Others  (Lincoln Center Theater); and  Adding Machine (Minetta Lane Theatre). Other directing credits include  Come Back, Little Sheba  (Huntington Theatre Company);  The Sound Inside  (Williamstown Theatre Festival); and  Our Town  in London, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston and Kansas City. Cromer has received a Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, three Obie Awards, three Lucille Lortel Awards, a Joe A. Callaway Award, four Jeff Awards, and in 2010 was made a MacArthur Foundation Fellow.

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The eight men wear sky-blue uniforms with gold braid on the shoulders. They look like extras in an opera. They dismount from a bus in the middle of nowhere and stand uncertainly on the sidewalk. They are near a highway interchange, leading no doubt to where they’d rather be. Across the street is a small cafe. Regarding them are two bored layabouts and a sadly, darkly beautiful woman.

They are a band from Egypt, the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra. Their leader, a severe man with a perpetually dour expression, crosses the street and asks the woman for directions to the Arab Cultural Center. She looks at him as if he stepped off a flying saucer. “Here there is no Arab culture,” she says. “Also, no Israeli culture. Here there is no culture at all.”

They are in the middle of the Israeli desert, having taken the wrong bus to the wrong destination. Another bus will not come until tomorrow. “ The Band ’s Visit” begins with this premise, which could supply the makings of a comedy, and turns into a quiet, sympathetic film about the loneliness that surrounds us. Oh, and there is some comedy, after all.

The town they have arrived at is lacking in interest even for those who live there. It is seemingly without activity. The bandleader, named Tewfiq ( Sasson Gabai ), asks if there is a hotel. The woman, Dina ( Ronit Elkabetz ), is amused. No hotel.

They communicate in careful, correct English; she more fluent, he weighing every word. Tewfiq explains their dilemma.

They are to play a concert tomorrow at the opening of a new Arab cultural center in a place has that almost, but not quite, the same name as the place they are in.

Tewfiq starts out to lead a march down the highway in the correct direction. There is some dissent, especially from the tall young troublemaker Haled ( Saleh Bakri ). He complains that they have not eaten. After some awkward negotiations (they have little Israeli currency), the Egyptians are served soup and bread in Dina’s cafe. It is strange, how the static, barren, lifeless nature of the town seeps into the picture, even though the writer-director Eran Kolirin uses no establishing shots or any effort at all to show us anything beyond the cafe — and later, Dina’s apartment and an almost empty restaurant.

Dina offers to put up Tewfiq and Haled at her apartment, and tells the young layabouts (who seem permanently anchored to their chairs outside her cafe) that they must take the others home to their families. And then begins a long, quiet night of guarded revelations, shared isolation and tentative tenderness. Dina is tough but not invulnerable. Life has given her little that she hoped for. Tewfiq is a man with an invisible psychic weight on his shoulders. Haled, under everything, is an awkward kid. They go for a snack at the restaurant, its barren tables reaching away under bright lights, and Dina points out a man who comes in with his family. A sometime lover of hers, she tells Tewfiq. Even adultery seems weary here.

When the three end up back at Dina’s apartment, where she offers them wine, the evening settles down into resignation. It is clear that Dina feels tender toward Tewfiq, that she can see through his timid reserve to the good soul inside. But there is no movement. Later, when he makes a personal revelation, it is essentially an apology. The movie avoids what we might expect, a meeting of the minds, and gives us instead a sharing of quiet desperation.

As Dina and Twefiq, Ronit Elkabetz and Sasson Gabai bring great fondness and amusement to their characters. She is pushing middle age, he is being pushed by it. It is impossible for this night to lead to anything in their future lives. But it could lead to a night to remember.

Gabai plays the bandleader as so repressed or shy or wounded that he seems closed inside himself. As we watch Elkabetz putting on a new dress for the evening and inspecting herself in the mirror, we see not vanity but hope. Throughout the evening, we note her assertion, her confidence, her easily assumed air of independence. Yet when she gazes into the man’s eyes, she sighs with regret and mentions that as a girl she loved the Omar Sharif movies that played daily on Israeli TV, but play no more.

There are some amusing interludes. A band member plays the first few notes of a sonata he has not finished (after years). A bandmate calls him Schubert. A local man keeps solitary vigil by a pay phone, waiting for a call from the girl he loves. He has an insistent way of showing his impatience when another uses the phone.

In the morning, the band reassembles and leaves. “The Band’s Visit” has not provided any of the narrative payoffs we might have expected, but has provided something more valuable: An interlude involving two “enemies,” Arabs and Israelis, that shows them both as only ordinary people with ordinary hopes, lives and disappointments. It has also shown us two souls with rare beauty.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film Credits

The Band's Visit (2008)

Rated PG-13 for brief strong language

Sasson Gabai as Tewfiq

Ronit Elkabetz as Dina

Saleh Bakri as Haled

Khalifa Natour as Simon

Mad Jabarin as Camal

Written and directed by

• Eran Kolirin

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‘Illinoise' Broadway Review: Sufjan Stevens Masterpiece Album Dances Triumphantly On Stage

April on Broadway, to mangle a phrase from a showtune classic, is bustin’ out all over with no fewer than 14 new plays and musicals set to open before the April 25 Tony Award eligibility cutoff date. So crowded are the final weeks of the 2023-24 theater season that three days each will see the openings of two shows, a Broadway rarity.

Check this page to see Deadline’s takes. Whether you use this page as a guide or as an invitation to argue, drop by often for the latest on Broadway’s offerings. And there’ll be plenty of offerings indeed — here’s the schedule of April openings: The Outsiders (April 11), Lempicka (April 14), The Wiz (April 17), Suffs (April 18), Stereophonic (April 19), Hell’s Kitchen (April 20), Cabaret (April 21), Patriots (April 22), The Heart of Rock and Roll (April 22), Mary Jane (April 23), Illinoise (April 24), Uncle Vanya (April 24), Mother Play (April 25), The Great Gatsby (April 25).

Below is a compendium of our reviews. Keep checking back as the list is updated.

Opening night: April 24; Press Opening : April 26

Venue: St. James Theater

Director/Choreographer: Justin Peck

Music & Lyrics: Sufjan Stevens

Book: Justin Peck and Jackie Sibblies Drury

Cast: Yesenia Ayala, Kara Chan, Ben Cook, Gaby Diaz, Jeanette Delgado, Carlos Falu, Christine Flores, Jada German, Zachary Gonder, Rachel Lockhart, Brandt Martinez, Dario Natarelli, Tyrone Reese, Craig Salstein, Ahmad Simmons, Byron Tittle, Ricky Ubeda, and Alejandro Vargas.

Running time: 90 min (no intermission)

Official synopsis: "A company of performers brings the original story to life, set to the entirety of Stevens' album with new arrangements by composer, pianist, and frequent Stevens collaborator Timo Andres, ranging in style from DIY folk and indie rock to marching band and ambient electronics, performed live by an 11-member band and three vocalists. Peck and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury have crafted an original coming-of-age tale that blends dance, theater, live music and storytelling into a breathtakingly emotional journey.”

Deadline's takeaway: The final Broadway production of this crazy busy 2023-24 season is also one of its most exhilarating: Illinoise is a thrilling and absolutely gorgeous dance celebration of singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens’ 2005 early-career masterpiece LP Illinois , using a large cast of dancer-actors – and three excellent singers, along with that extra “e” at the end of the show title – to flesh out the loose story that might (or might not) have stayed hidden in the grooves of the concept album all along.

Stevens’ recent personal travails – a year ago, he lost his partner, Evans Richardson , of many years, and last summer was diagnosed with the debilitating Guillain-Barré syndrome – play no direct role in this new stage work, though there are possible suggestions that Richardson is very much a haunting presence in the loose storylines of the dance-musical hybrid.

But whether or not Illinoise the stage work, or Illinois the album, are or were autobiographical works is perhaps known only to the press-shy Stevens and his closest collaborators, here Justin Peck (director, choreographer, book) and Jackie Sibblies Drury (book). In the end, it’s irrelevant: Illinoise , along with Hell’s Kitchen, Suffs, and Stereophonic infuses the final stretch of this Broadway season with a vitality and ingenuity that’s worth embracing and celebrating.

Stevens’ album was a loosely constructed meditation on the state of Illinois, encompassing both historical footnotes and places (“Jacksonville,” “Decatur,” the hit song “Chicago”), personages (Andrew Jackson, John Wayne Gacy, Helen Keller) and the songwriter’s own personal history (including, in the song “The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!,” Stevens’ most discussed and debated (among fans) reference to his queer sexuality, a question that was put to rest when Stevens came out publicly last year.

The stage production – as much ballet as musical, if not more so – puts sexuality in less equivocal terms that Stevens’ music ever has. While it’s a fool’s game to parse the storyline for biography, a recurring theme of several interconnected dance vignettes depicts the very Stevens-like “Henry” (Ricky Ubeda, a former So You Think You Can Dance winner here sporting one of the ball caps that resembles Sufjan’s trademark trucker cap) crushing on a boyhood pal Carl (Ben Cook, fulfilling the long-suspected topic of “Predatory Wasp”) and, later, developing a more mature love for Douglas (Ahmad Simmons). The latter relationship, intentionally or not, is resonant of Stevens’ partnership with the late Evans Richardson.

The musical’s structure – a group of young people come together around a campfire to share the stories that make up Stevens’ 2006 album – allows for both self-contained numbers and loosely connected ones. Among the strongest of the stand-alones comes with “Jacksonville,” in which a nattily dressed Black man from a bygone era tap-dances with a young Black woman given to more hip-hop-inspired moves. A sort of pop-rock pas de deux follows, and it’s perhaps the first stunner of the evening.

Other highlights of the album are present and accounted for – “Casimir Pulaski Day,” the tragic story of a terminally ill girl; “They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhhh!”, in which the title creatures are more about undying political legacies than dirt-covered walking dead (though they are that, too); and “The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Heart,” in which Superman, in this telling, shares his powers with us earthlings.

Peck's dances are a joy to observe, with sweeping movements sharing space with small gestures that convey Stevens’ storytelling even without being overly literal. Adam Rigg’s set design – a mash-up of rural Illinois fields and Chicago-New York urban detritus – works beautifully with Brandon Stirling Baker’s lovely lighting design in which hand-held orb-shaped lights work multiple wonders throughout the production’s fleeting 90 minutes.

Mother Play

Opening night: April 25

Venue: The Hayes Theater

Director: Tina Landau

Written By: Paula Vogel

Cast: Celia Keenan-Bolger, Jessica Lange, Jim Parsons

Running time: 1 hr 45 min (no intermission)

Official synopsis: "It's 1962, just outside of D.C., and matriarch Phyllis is supervising her teenage children, Carl and Martha, as they move into a new apartment. Phyllis has strong ideas about what her children need to do and be to succeed, and woe be the child who finds their own path. Bolstered by gin and cigarettes, the family endures - or survives - the changing world around them. Blending flares of imaginative theatricality, surreal farce, and deep tenderness, this beautiful rollercoaster ride reveals timeless truths of love, family, and forgiveness.”

Deadline's takeaway: Jessica Lange returns to the Broadway stage with a sensational performance in Paula Vogel’s The Mother Play (subtitle: A Play In Five Evictions ), an autobiographical memory play that brings the queer undertones of The Glass Menagerie into full light. Co-starring Celia Keenan-Bolger and Jim Parsons as gay siblings who crash headlong into the determined expectations of their tyrannical, boozy and forever rigid single mom Phyllis (Lange), Mother Play hits some beats that out-Tennessee even Mr. Williams.

The dramedy – much of this wrenching play is genuinely funny, including a running joke about the cockroaches that seem to follow the small family from one crummy apartment to the next – brings a careful balance to the familial triumvirate: Narrated by Keenan-Bolger’s Martha (the author stand-in), we get vivid portraits of the individuals as well as their relationships to one another.

Spanning decades (1964 to the early 2000s), Mother Play is at its best when showing the sibling’s camaraderie and protectiveness as they endeavor to survive, maybe even thrive, under the cruel dominance of mommie dearest. Long periods of estrangement are followed by too-brief rapprochements – until they aren’t. Anyone who knows Vogel’s biography (or her wonderful autobiographical 1992 play The Baltimore Waltz ) knows the tragedy that awaits Carl. Few might see Phyllis’ ultimate cruelty coming.

Played out on David Zinn’s fantastically pliable set that morphs into one apartment after another, Mother Play , so insightfully directed by Tina Landau, uses the cramped rooms to suggest both stifling claustrophobia and, when three people dwindle to one, excruciating loneliness. In a roughly 10-minute, wordless solo scene, Lange’s Phyllis wanders the now empty rooms, busying herself while suffering the inevitable consequences of utter self-involvement. Lange holds the stage for every last second of the scene, doing what might seem impossible: The monster, she shows us, is human after all, and maybe even worthy of the grace Vogel offers.

Uncle Vanya

Opening night:  April 24

Venue:  Vivian Beaumont Theater

Director:  Lila Neugebauer

Written By: Anton Chekhov, new version by Heidi Schreck

Cast:  Steve Carell, William Jackson Harper, Jonathan Hadary, Jayne Houdyshell, Spencer Donovan Jones, Mia Katigbak, Alfred Molina, Alison Pill, Anika Noni Rose.

Running time:  2 hr 45 min (including intermission)

Official synopsis:  "Sonya and her uncle Vanya have devoted their lives to managing the family farm in isolation, but when her celebrated, ailing father and his charismatic wife move in, their lives are upended. In the heat of the summer, the wrong people fall in love, desires and resentments erupt, and the family is forced to reckon with the ghosts of their unlived lives. “

Deadline's takeaway: Steve Carell makes a solid Broadway debut in a fine, if not overly inspired, new revival of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya . Smoothly adapted by What The Constitution Means To Me playwright Heidi Schreck and elegantly directed by Lila Neugebauer (demonstrating once again, after this season’s excellent Appropriate , a kinetic crossing-guard facility for keeping large-ish casts moving on spacious sets), this Lincoln Center Theater production places Chekhov’s tale of wasted lives and tenuous optimism amidst a contemporary setting.

Carell plays Vanya, the middle-aged man who has spent an unfulfilling life tending – along with his niece Sonya (Alison Pill) – the family farm owned by the well-to-do brother Alexander (Alfred Molina) of Vanya’s late sister.

When the brother-in-law and his beautiful new young wife Elena (Anika Noni Rose) arrive for an extended visit, their presence – and some news – upset the entrenched, unsatisfying lives of Vanya, Sonya, Vanya’s aging mother Maria (Jayne Houdyshell), servant Marina (Mia Katigbak), friend Waffles (Jonathan Hadary) and the local doctor Astrov (William Jackson Harper) who is loved by Sonya but loves Elena.

Vanya, too, loves the lovely, if mercenary, Elena. As confidences are shared, alliances bruised and agendas revealed, the upheaval has everyone questioning – lamenting, even – their compromises and disappointments of their lives.

The cast, particularly Harper as the besotted alcoholic doctor, gets at the heart and soul of Chekov’s longing worldview, and Schreck’s decision to move the action from 19th Century Moscow to an indeterminately contemporary America accomplishes what seems to be the primary goal of showcasing both the universality of Chekhov’s existential angst and his alarm over an ever-worsening environmental situation. Still, some plot specifics don’t really translate. Being stuck down on the farm just isn’t what it used to be.

The Heart of Rock and Roll

Opening night: April 22

Venue: James Earl Jones Theatre

Director: Gordon Greenberg

Music & Lyrics: Huey Lewis and The News

Book: Jonathan A. Abrams; Story by Tyler Mitchell & Abrams

Choreography: Lorin Latarro

Principal Cast: Corey Cott, McKenzie Kurtz, Josh Breckenridge, F. Michael Haynie, Zoe Jensen, Tamika Lawrence, Raymond J. Lee, John-Michael Lyles, Orville Mendoza, Billy Harrington Tighe and John Dossett.

Running time: 2 hr 30 min (including intermission)

Official synopsis: “Set in 1987, The Heart of Rock and Roll centers on a couple of twenty-somethings on the cusp of their futures – Bobby, a rock and roller who's traded his guitar for the corporate ladder and his boss, Cassandra who's always put the family business first. When they both get a second shot at their dreams, it'll take ‘The Power of Love’ and a little help from their friends to figure out what kind of life they really want.”

Deadline's takeaway: For the MTV generation, Huey Lewis was the buddy always up for a good time. Let Michael Jackson innovate, Madonna shock and Cyndi Lauper get the laughs. Huey and his boys in The News were a good hang, with their catchy songs and nice-guy demeanors and clothes just square enough to be hip. Is it any wonder they’d find their way to a jukebox musical?

Despite a few funny moments and a likable score of Huey’s hits and album filler (with Curtis Mayfield’s “It’s All Right,” covered by Lewis in 1985, tossed in as a ringer), The Heart of Rock and Roll is jerry-rigged with a story so silly that only the “it doesn’t take itself to seriously” excuse can save it. In truth, the book, by Jonathan A. Abrams, based on a story he wrote with Tyler Mitchell, should have taken itself much, much more seriously, at least to weed out the the most egregious manipulations (when a long-lost letter from a long-lost dad tumbles out of a much-used guitar case after apparently years of hiding in plain sight, don’t waste time pondering).

A game cast is led by Corey Cott as a rocker torn between devoting his life to music or a corporate career in a cardboard factory – the musical sets this up as an actual dilemma. There are some clever sequences – a dance routine tapped out on bubble wrap, a dream sequence of domestic anti-bliss, with a baby or two or three falling from the skies into waiting arms – and a de rigueur love story with a de rigueur smarmy ex-boyfriend villain, but very little holds up to anything beyond its true purpose: to stick together a handful of memorably nostalgic hits with just enough glue to hold audience attention until “The Power of Love” or "Hip to Be Square" or "I Want a New Drug" rolls around. Reachable goal, small accomplishment.

Venue: Ethel Barrymore Theatre

Director: Rupert Goold

Written By: Peter Morgan

Principal Cast: Michael Stuhlbarg, Will Keen, Luke Thallon, Stella Baker, Ronald Guttman, Alex Hurt

Running time: 2 hr 35 min (including intermission)

Official synopsis: "Set in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union, the new Russia belongs to its oligarchs – and no one is more powerful than billionaire Boris Berezovsky. ‘If the politicians cannot save Russia,’ he insists, ‘then we businessmen must.’ When an eventual successor to President Boris Yeltsin is needed, Berezovsky turns to the little-known deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, Vladimir Putin. But soon Putin's ruthless rise threatens Berezovsky's reign, setting off a confrontation with far-reaching consequences between the two powerful, fatally flawed men.”

Deadline's takeaway: In Patriots, The Crown creator Peter Morgan turns eastward to satisfy his seemingly insatiable curiosity as to the ways of real-world power. Public power, private power, the theories of power and the execution of it – all fascinate Morgan and, when he’s in peak form, he turns that obsession into compelling, can’t-turn-away drama. Patriots , which could very well be viewed as a prequel to Russia’s criminal invasion of Ukraine, is not peak-form Morgan – it’s drama is too static for that, its history too potted – but give the man credit for drawing back a curtain on a history that could use the sunlight.

Starring a grab-the role-by-the-throat Michael Stuhlbarg as Russian child math-prodigy turned rapacious oligarch Boris Berezovsky and Will Keen as a vampiric Vladimir Putin, Patriots – directed by Rupert Goold, bringing the declamatory and mixed-media style that he used to greater effect in the Rupert Murdoch bio-play Ink – details the rise of Russia’s ’90s-era post-Communist oligarchy, as exemplified by Berezovsky, and how the country’s new capitalists carried their own seeds of self-destruction right from the start.

In Berezovsky’s case, that seed was, not to put too fine a point on it, Putin. The brilliant, greedy Berezovsky, convincing himself that he’s operating on some level for love of country, installs a young, inconsequential and heretofore failed politico from the hinterlands. No one who is anyone knows Vladimir Putin, which Berezovsky sees as all too perfect: Putin, Berezovsky assures the skeptics, will do just as he’s told.

Of course, the ruthless Putin wastes little time proving Berezovsky all too wrong. The new president has ambitions of his own – he, too, fancies himself a patriot – and by play’s end has become an outsized Michael Corleone with more than a little polonium up his sleeve.

As good as Stuhlbarg and Keen are – and they’re very good, as are Luke Thallon as oligarch-turned-Putin puppet Roman Abramovic and Alex Hurt as Berezovsky’s doomed security man – Patriots never fully conveys the emotional vitality or grand drama – in short, the Shakespearean – in the power plays. As history lesson, Patriots is more than worthy. As drama, well, it’s a history lesson.

Opening night:  April 21

Venue:  August Wilson Theatre

Director:  Rebecca Frecknall

Music: John Kander

Lyrics: Fred Ebb

Book: Joe Masteroff, based on the play by John Van Druten and stories by Christopher Isherwood.

Choreography: Julia Cheng

Principal Cast:  Eddie Redmayne, Gayle Rankin, Bebe Neuwirth, Ato Blankson-Wood, Steven Skybell, Henry Gottfried, Natascia Diaz

Running time:  2 hr 45 min (including intermission)

Official synopsis:  "Willkommen. Bienvenue. Welcome to the Kit Kat Club. Home to an intimate and electrifying new production of Cabaret. Experience this groundbreaking musical like never before. The denizens of the Kit Kat Club have created a decadent sanctuary inside Broadway's August Wilson Theatre, where artists and performers, misfits and outsiders rule the night. Step inside their world. This is Berlin. Relax. Loosen up. Be yourself.”

Deadline's takeaway:  From the elaborate (and worth an early arrival) preshow of costumed musicians setting the Weimar mood with klezmer-meets-Brecht/Weill in an August Wilson Theatre reconstructed into a showily decadent in-the-round music hall, Broadway’s latest Cabaret promises an overwhelming theatrical experience. The promise continues at least through the first appearance of Eddie Redmayne’s Emcee, crooked and twisted like some slack-stringed marionette.

Cabaret , of course, is a musical all but created for reinvention. Ever since Bob Fosse lent his magic to the 1972 film adaptation – and Liza Minelli let loose with a career-making vocal performance that tossed the Sally-can’t-sing conceit into the Berlin gutter – revivalists have attempted to inject ever more decadent trappings, ever more harsh realism and darker foreshadowing of the Hitler-around-the-corner plot. When Natasha Richardson presented a Sally with bruised arms and dead-end prospects back in ’98, the anti-Fosse approach seemed perfected, done and dusted.

But Rebecca Frecknall and her creative team (most notably scenic and costume designer Tom Scutt) are nowhere near ready to let sleeping Weimar lie. The production flirts with minimalism at some moments – Gayle Rankin’s Sally Bowles spends most of the show in what appears to be tattered undergarments and a ratty green fur coat – only to dazzle with moments of near surreality (as when Redmayne’s Emcee springs from the floor to sing “Money,” dressed as a nightmarish pierrot with skeleton legs).

For all of Redmayne’s eccentric posturing and Rankin’s Courtney Love kinderwhore onslaughts, its the more muted, naturalistic performances of Bebe Neuwirth and Steven Skybell as the unlikely and unlasting lovers Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz that carry the emotional heft of this Cabaret . (The less said of Ato Blankson-Wood’s energy-sucking Clifford Bradshaw, the better).

None of which is to say that Frecknall’s vision lacks for striking moments and sneaky gut-punches (one of those decadent Kit Kat Boys seems done up to resemble Party Monster Killer Michael Alig). The stagings of the proto-Nazi anthem “Tomorrow Belongs To Me” are suitably chilling, and Redmayne’s frequent costume changes into ever more sinister Bowie-clown garb (transformation complete when the Thin White Duke finally arrives) are among the many intriguing ideas.

Still, the vision never really coalesces in the way that Daniel Fish managed with that spooky, sexy Oklahoma a few years back. The promise of an overwhelming theatrical event just never quite makes good on itself, certainly not with Rankin’s teary, intentionally overwrought delivery of the title song. We get it. Sally isn’t meant to be a big star. I’d still rather hear Liza.

Hell’s Kitchen

Opening night: April 20

Venue: Shubert Theatre

Director: Michael Greif

Music & Lyrics: Alicia Keys

Book: Kristoffer Diaz

Choreography : Camille A. Brown

Principal Cast: Maleah Joi Moon, Shoshana Bean, Brandon Victor Dixon, Kecia Lewis, Chris Lee

Official synopsis: “Ali is a 17-year-old girl full of fire – searching for freedom, passion and her place in the world. How she finds them is a New York City coming-of-age story you’ve never felt before…Rebellious and stifled by an overprotective single mother, Ali is lost until she meets her mentor: a neighbor who opens her heart and mind to the power of the piano.”

Deadline's takeaway: Being privileged to witness the birth of a star is one of the many pleasures to be had in Hell’s Kitchen , the semi-autobiographical Alicia Keys musical opening on Broadway tonight after a successful Off Broadway run last year. Twenty-one-year old newcomer Maleah Joi Moon, who plays the 17-year-old Ali – the Keys character – seems to have arrived on stage as a fully formed Broadway presence, a marvelous singer, dancer and actress who is sure to leave every New York theatergoer hoping that Hollywood doesn’t swoop in too fast, and that Hell’s Kitchen is just the beginning of a long career in musical theater.

Directed with energy aplenty by Michael Greif, with thrilling choreography by Camille A. Brown, Hell’s Kitchen is set in the changing New York of the early 1990s, when the city’s street life was becoming safer – for some – and Rudy Giuliani could still be hailed – by some – as the man who would give neighborhoods like the one of the title back to their residents.

At least, that’s the hope for parents like Jersey, the protective, still-young single mother of a teenage girl enticed by the vibrant street life of bucket drummers and hip-hop dancers. Ali – who we know will grow up to be the singer-songwriter of such hits as “You Don’t Know My Name,” "Fallin'," "If I Ain't Got You," "No One,” and “Empire State of Mind” – craves a life beyond the safety and boredom of the one-bedroom apartment she shares with her mom.

Boredom, of course, is a relative thing. Manhattan Plaza, the real-life Hell’s Kitchen building in which Ali and Jersey live, offers affordable housing for artists, and is a terrific setting for a musical. In a delightful bit of stagecraft that makes perfect use of Grief’s direction, scenic design (Robert Brill), lighting (Natasha Katz), projections (Peter Nigrini), sound (Gareth Owen) and, not least, Moon’s performance, Hell’s Kitchen introduces us to the world of music surrounding young Ali. As she descends from her upper-floor apartment in an elevator, each level of the building offers up the sounds of its inhabitants, introducing the impressionable teenager to jazz, opera, classical and other genres. By the time she arrives on a street thumping with the beats and movement of hip-hop, she contains musical multitudes.

The plot is simple: Mother and daughter clash over the girl’s infatuation with a young man – man, as opposed to boy, being the operative word for mom – who plays a bucket drum on the street. To Jersey, young Knuck (Chris Lee) is all too reminiscent of Ali’s mostly absent piano-playing father Davis (Brandon Victor Dixon). Jersey knows these sweet, sensitive, artistic types can be heartbreakers.

An oasis amidst the turmoil is Miss Liza Jane (Kecia Lewis), an elderly Black neighbor (hints of Nina Simone and Odetta) who practices piano in the building’s communal studio and teaches the mixed-race Ali about both music and heritage. In one of the musical’s most moving sequences, old images and vintage film clips of the Black musical “patriarchs” and “matriarchs” unspool just behind teacher and student as the lesson takes hold.

While the musical’s second act falters with unnecessary emotional padding and more than a little heart-tugging – the ailing Miss Liza Jane, well, you’ll guess early enough – the cast is so good we’ll overlook anything.

Stereophonic

Opening night: April 19

Venue: Golden Theatre

Director: Daniel Aukin

Written By: David Adjmi

Original Songs: Will Butler

Cast: Will Brill, Andrew R. Butler, Juliana Canfield, Eli Gelb, Tom Pecinka, Sarah Pidgeon, Chris Stack

Running time: 3 hr 5 min (including intermission)

Official synopsis: “ Stereophonic mines the agony and the ecstasy of creation as it zooms in on a music studio in 1976. Here, an up-and-coming rock band recording a new album finds itself suddenly on the cusp of superstardom. The ensuing pressures could spark their breakup - or their breakthrough. In Stereophonic , Adjmi invites the audience to immerse themselves-with fly-on-the-wall intimacy-in the powder keg process of a band on the brink of blowing up.”

Deadline's takeaway: Even if you’d never consider spending one of your three genie wishes to travel, invisibly, back in time to witness the legendarily volcanic creation of that most fabled rock masterpiece known as Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours , you’d do well to check out Stereophonic , a masterpiece in its own smaller way.

Playwright David Adjmi has engineered a moment-in-time tale that perfectly captures its era, a near-documentary portrait of all-too-human heroes and the messy personal dynamics that go into creating not just any old art but art that’s meant to last, whatever last means in the world of Top 40 hits and rock & roll relationships. With unerring direction by Daniel Aukin and performed by a miraculous cast that so fully embodies Fleetwoo… I mean, the unnamed band at the heart of Stereophonic , the play is like the answer to a question you never knew you needed answered.

Very obviously based on the 1976 making of Rumours – creators’ claims to the contrary fall in the ‘ The Rose wasn’t about Janis Joplin’ pile – Stereophonic mines those mythically troubled recording sessions to examine the fraught creation of art, band dynamics when love comes and goes, the male arrogance that permeated every bit of breathable air in a rock world even when women were the nominal stars, and the great toll that fame, fortune and the unquenchable thirst for ever-more success takes on the suspecting and unsuspecting alike.

Playing out on David Zinn’s knob-perfect, bifurcated recording studio set, with a large, period-accurate recording consul dominating the engineers’ room closest to the audience and the recording booths visible just beyond sound-proof glass (we hear what’s going on when the mics are turned on, whether the band wants us to or not), Stereophonic unspools with a vérité accessibility. The characters, their talents, addictions and relationships are established in swift, observant efficiency. Bass player Reg (Will Brill) and singer-keyboardist Holly (Juliana Canfield) are the British husband and wife, his alcoholism getting the better of both; cocky Peter (Tom Pecinka) and insecure Diana (Sarah Pidgeon) are the American newcomers, lovers for nine years, he boasting a more developed musical talent (and the massive ego to prove it), and she self-critically revealing a nascent genius that foretells fast-rising stardom; and drummer Simon (Chris Stack), British founder of the band who watches proudly and helplessly as his control slips from his grasp under the skyrocketing popularity of the yanks.

If you need a scorecard: Reg Holly Peter Diana Simon = John Christine Lindsey Stevie Mick.

Serving as a sort of greek chorus/audience stand-ins are low-on-the-totem-pole engineers Grover (Eli Gelb) and Charlie (Andrew R. Butler), who survive through their own bluffs, skills and tolerance for inexhaustible abuse. They do what they do very well, and they hold the very large bags of cocaine.

As weeks drag into months (many, many months), the recording of the band’s follow-up to a surprisingly successful first album sees tensions and old resentments slow-boil to lid-blowing proportions. There will be tears, break-ups, reconciliations and more break-ups. Not one person, no matter how newly famous, will emerge unscathed.

Making no small contribution to the power of this play are the few original songs (written by Will Butler, formerly of Arcade Fire) that capture the late-’70s vibe with uncanny accuracy without merely copycatting. A cast album has been announced, and it’s more than deserved. Not only do the actors nail the acting, they make for a very credible hit-making band, playing their own instruments and singing their own songs. By the end, these bruised golden gods remain standing, though barely, and certain that, if nothing else, they have a smashing success on their hands. Everyone behind Stereophonic must know the feeling.

Opening night: April 18, 2024

Venue: The Music Box Theatre

Director: Leigh Silverman

Book, music & lyrics: Shaina Taub

Choreography: Mayte Natalio

Principal cast: Shaina Taub, Nikki M. James, Jenn Colella, Grace McLean, Hannah Cruz, Kim Blanck, Anastacia McCleskey, Ally Bonino, Tsilala Brock, Nadia Dandashi, Emily Skinner

Official synopsis: “In the seven years leading up to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, an impassioned group of suffragists — "Suffs" as they called themselves — took to the streets, pioneering protest tactics that transformed the country. They risked their lives as they clashed with the president, the public, and each other. A thrilling story of brilliant, flawed women working against and across generational, racial, and class divides, Suffs boldly explores the victories and failures of a fight for equality that is still far from over.”

Deadline's takeaway: Suffs is enthralling, a smart, funny and beautifully sung musical that brings its chosen moment in history to life just as surely and confidently as Hamilton did for its. That the Suffs era is female-focused — and so less known, in its details, to the general public than the doings of the Founding Fathers — makes Shaina Taub’s creation all the more potent.

The urgency comes through in every aspect of this thrilling production, from the extraordinary performances to an exquisite set design that places the Suffs of 1913-1920 squarely within a Washington D.C. of stately marble and paneled wood, right where they belong.

Taub, the composer and performer best known to New York theatergoers through her inspired work for Shakespeare in the Park in recent years, here takes a big step in scope and ambition, and handily pulls it off. She’s populated Suffs with some dozen or so women who, in one way or another, took part in the fight for suffrage, sometimes agreeing with one another, just as often not, but always coming together when history demands.

Taub, director Leigh Silverman and a pitch-perfect cast bring the era to vivid life by alternately focusing on historical sweep and the personal dramas of the (very real) characters. The Suffs plead their case more than once to no less a personage, however craven, than President Woodrow Wilson (Grace McLean, in a terrifically funny performance). But the real drama — and no small bit of the humor ( Suffs is anything but stuffy) — comes from the clashing personalities of the women who share a goal, if, as it so often seems, little else.

Taub plays Alice Paul, the young firebrand who, along with her devoted friend Lucy Burns (Ally Bonino), are determined to bring change to the Suffrage Movement, long (too long) under the cautious domination of the older Susan B. Anthony-era organizers as personified by the dismissive Carrie Chapman Catt (Jenn Colella). Carrie can’t let go of a more polite way of achieving change: the lobbying and kowtowing that for decades has gained little but promises.

Alice and her compatriots aren’t nearly so patient. They want marches, and demonstrations and, in the end, even hunger strikes, tactics that appall the establishment Suffs. But one of the most rewarding aspects of Taub’s vision for Suffs is in the suggestion of how the newcomers and their elders inspire and influence one another is significant ways. We see this in the bond, however tested, between Alice and Carrie, and in a similarly positioned friendship between the crusading Black journalist Ida B. Wells (Nikki M. James) and her older friend Mary Church Terrell (Anastacia McCleskey). James’ performance of the righteous “Wait My Turn” is a musical highlight.

Taub’s music (along with Mayte Natalio’s choreography) is an appealing meld of Americana, showtune, and hints of vaudeville and the Blues, all blending into one of the most incisive and pleasing new scores since Kimberly Akimbo . Suffs , though set (mostly) in the distant past, has much to say about the ongoing struggle for equal rights (Hillary Rodham Clinton and Malala Yousafzai are among the producers). History, and Broadway for that matter, deserve no less.

Opening night: April 17, 2024

Venue: Marquis Theatre

Director: Schele Williams

Book: William F. Brown

Music & lyrics: Charlie Smalls

Additional material: Amber Ruffin

Choreography: JaQuel Knight

Principal cast: Nichelle Lewis, Wayne Brady, Deborah Cox, Melody A. Betts, Kyle Ramar Freeman, Phillip Johnson Richardson and Avery Wilson.

Official synopsis: “Based on L. Frank Baum's children's book, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", The Wiz takes one of the world's most enduring (and enduringly white) American fantasies, and transforms it into an all-Black musical extravaganza for the ages.”

Deadline's takeaway: So much has happened in the land of Oz since The Wiz first eased on down the road to Broadway back in 1975, and the most of that so much was Wicked . Raising the bar on all things Baum, Wicked not only added new storylines, approaches and no small amount of stagecraft dazzle to the universe of witches, wizards and an intruder or four that even a teaser trailer for the upcoming film adaptation can rouse fan excitement to dizzying levels.

The once groundbreaking Wiz , in other words, is gonna have a tough yellow brick road to hoe to keep up, and the new Broadway revival, opening tonight at the Marquis, only occasionally meets the challenge. A good cast, though apparently encouraged to over-sing at the drop of a house, works hard to make up for the production’s shortcuts – painted flats are overused, special effects are few, far between and not particularly special, and director Schele Williams breezes past (or completely ignores) some of the well-worn story’s most anticipated beats.

The tornado, for example, barely registers, signified mostly by a swirling chorus of dancers in bland gray, while the Wicked Witch’s castle is rendered as a pseudo- Hadestown boiler room bathed in red light. Budgetary constraints might play a part in some of the disappointments, but surely the Wicked Witch’s liquidation could have been accomplished with something more impressive than a standard hydraulic lift, and why there’s no one to greet Dorothy back in Kansas is anyone’s guess.

The production is not without its charms, though. A relatively brief moment in the musical spotlight by Wayne Brady, as The Wiz, has enough charm (and dance moves) to fuel a cyclone, and JaQuel Knight’s choreography rises way beyond itself in full-ensemble numbers like the Act II opener “The Emerald City.” Other highlights: Melody A. Betts, as Eviline, blowing the roof off the Marquis with “Don’t Nobody Bring Me No Bad News,” and a funny Allyson Kaye Daniel as Dorothy’s good witch greeter. Best of all, the score, however overstuffed, still shines with at least two evergreens: “Ease on Down the Road” and “Home.” Some spells don’t break.

Opening night: April 14, 2024

Venue: Longacre Theatre

Director: Rachel Chavkin

Book and music: Carson Kreitzer (book, lyrics, and original concept), Matt Gould (book and music)

Choreography: Raja Feather Kelly

Cast: Eden Espinosa, Amber Iman, Andrew Samonsky, George Abud, Natalie Joy Johnson, Zoe Glick, Nathaniel Stampley, Beth Leavel.

Official synopsis: “Spanning decades of political and personal turmoil and told through a thrilling, pop-infused score, Lempicka boldly explores the contradictions of a world in crisis, a woman ahead of her era, and an artist whose time has finally come.”

Deadline's takeaway: For a musical devoted to trumpeting the new and daring, Lempicka can feel decidedly backward-looking. That’s not a bad thing when those glance-backs include vivid flashes of Art Deco elegance, invigorating ’90s dance pop, big time Evita belting and a dash or two of One Night in Bangkok ‘s jaunty decadence.

A pop bio-musical written by Carson Kreitzer and Matt Gould about the groundbreaking Art Deco painter Tamara de Lempicka, Lempicka follows the artist through such 20th Century milestones as the Russian Revolution, two World Wars, the tragic slide of Jazz Age Paree to Nazi-occupied Paris, and, for a few brief moments, a lonely 1970s Los Angeles.

Actually, the musical doesn’t so much follow the artist as latches on for a ride that’s both thrilling and tiring. Directed by the ever-inventive Rachel Chavkin, with a powerhouse Eden Espinosa ( Wicked ) in the title role, Lempicka offers up a tempting mix of retro-futurism and just plain retro, with choreography (by Raja Feather Kelly), scenic design (Riccardo Hernández) and costumes (Paloma Young) that work hard to convey the Zelig -like scope of the artist’s life. That means we see, along with some sumptuous Deco-heavy visuals, lots of energetic dancing that frequently cribs from the most arresting of “Vogue”-era Madonna (fair is fair: Blond Ambition was a Lempicka painting come to life). At its worst, though, the dancing leads the musical through some very cartoony presentations of Soviet Realism and Left Bank bohemianism.

Though the musical’s book and lyrics remain doggedly by-the-numbers, Chavkin’s direction (and a good cast that includes Andrew Samonsky, Amber Iman, George Abud, Beth Leavel and Natalie Joy Johnson) keeps Lempicka barreling through the last century’s wartime horrors, peacetime optimism and an art that grew from both.

The Outsiders

Opening night: April 11, 2024

Venue: Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre

Director: Danya Taymor

Book: Adam Rapp, Justin Levine

Music and lyrics: Jamestown Revival (Jonathan Clay & Zach Chance) and Justin Levine

Choreography: Rick Kuperman & Jeff Kuperman

Cast: Brody Grant, Sky Lakota-Lynch, Joshua Boone, Brent Comer, Jason Schmidt, Emma Pittman, Daryl Tofa, Kevin William Paul and Dan Berry, with Jordan Chin, Milena J. Comeau, Barton Cowperthwaite, Tilly Evans-Krueger, Henry Julián Gendron, RJ Higton, Wonza Johnson, Sean Harrison Jones, Maggie Kuntz, Renni Anthony Magee, SarahGrace Mariani, Melody Rose, Josh Strobl, Victor Carrillo Tracey, Trevor Wayne.

Official synopsis: In Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1967, Ponyboy Curtis, his best friend Johnny Cade and their Greaser family of "outsiders" battle with their affluent rivals, the Socs. This thrilling new Broadway musical navigates the complexities of self-discovery as the Greasers dream about who they want to become in a world that may never accept them. With a dynamic original score, The Outsiders is a story of friendship, family, belonging… and the realization that there is still "lots of good in the world."

Deadline's takeaway: A fine and catchy score that references pop, early rock & roll, country and showtune balladeering is performed by a terrific young cast in Broadway’s The Outsiders , opening in a heartfelt production at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre.

If you’ve read the book or seen the movie, you know the story. The musical’s book by Adam Rapp with Justin Levine stays close to its origins for better and worse, and the songs by the excellent folk and Americana duo Jamestown Revival, along with Levine, go a long way to fill in plot details and character histories.

Still, even with clever direction by Danya Taymor, The Outsiders never quite outgrows its Young Adult literary origins. Based on the groundbreaking S.E. Hinton novel and Francis Ford Coppola's film adaptation, The Outsiders often comes across as a precocious teen all dressed up for a night on the New York town — clearly money has been spent on a spare, efficient set, with lots of stacked tires and planks of wood, designed by AMP featuring Tatiana Kahvegian, enhanced by Hana S. Kim’s cool projections (in one case, literally — images of Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke are, if nothing else, an easy time-placer). The full talents of the designers and special effects masters come together in a terrific barn fire scene, and Brian MacDevitt’s lighting design and Cody Spencer’s sound meld well with with the choreography, especially during a crowd-pleasing slo-mo, freeze-frame, strobe-lit rumble between the vengeance-seeking cliques.

While all the production’s elements seem to be in place — the cast, even when its acting chops falter, is, musically, a full-throated and easy-to-like ensemble — The Outsiders often feels like a musical that wants to hang with the grown-ups while unable to leave behind its adolescent earnestness and self-involvement. A more thoughtfully adult production might invent some credible consequences for a negligent, deadly arson, a fatal stabbing and a train derailment, all of which are presented, true to S.E. Hinton, as temporary glitches in the self-actualization of a 14-year-old boy.

The Who’s Tommy

Opening night: March 28, 2024

Venue: Nederlander Theatre

Director: Des McAnuff

Book: Pete Townshend and Des McAnuff

Music and lyrics: Pete Townshend

Cast: Ali Louis Bourzgui, Alison Luff, Adam Jacobs, John Ambrosino, Bobby Conte, Christina Sajous, with Haley Gustafson, Jeremiah Alsop, Ronnie S. Bowman Jr., Mike Cannon, Tyler James Eisenreich, Sheldon Henry, Afra Hines, Aliah James, David Paul Kidder, Tassy Kirbas, Lily Kren, Quinten Kusheba, Reese Levine, Brett Michael Lockley, Nathan Lucrezio, Alexandra Matteo, Mark Mitrano, Reagan Pender, Cecilia Ann Popp, Daniel Quadrino, Olive Ross-Kline, Jenna Nicole Schoen, Dee Tomasetta, and Andrew Tufano.

Running time: 2 hr 10 min (including intermission)

Deadline’s takeaway: The Who’s Tommy is a nonstop surge of electrified energy, a darting pinball of a production that syncs visual panache with 55-year-old songs that sound as vital today as they must have at Woodstock. To read full review, click on show title above .

Water for Elephants

Opening night:  March 21, 2024

Venue:  Imperial Theatre

Director:  Jessica Stone

Book:  Rick Elice, based on the novel by Sara Gruen

Music and lyrics:  Pigpen Theatre Company

Cast:  Grant Gustin, Isabelle McCalla, Gregg Edelman, Paul Alexander Nolan, Stan Brown, Joe De Paul, Sara Gettelfinger and Wade McCollum, with Brandon Block, Antoine Boissereau, Rachael Boyd, Paul Castree, Ken Wulf Clark, Taylor Colleton, Gabriel Olivera de Paula Costa, Isabella Luisa Diaz, Samantha Gershman, Keaton Hentoff-Killian, Nicolas Jelmoni, Caroline Kane, Harley Ross Beckwith McLeish, Michael Mendez, Samuel Renaud, Marissa Rosen, Alexandra Gaelle Royer, Asa Somers, Charles South, Sean Stack, Matthew Varvar and Michelle West

Running time: 2 hr 40 min (including intermission)

Deadline’s takeaway: Water for Elephants is a pleasant, visually beguiling show with a cast led by The Flash ‘s Grant Gustin in a sweet-voiced Broadway debut that puts some charm into a thin book by Rick Elice that probably veered too close to the novel for its own good. To read full review, click on show title above .

An Enemy of the People

Opening night: March 18, 2024

Venue: Circle in the Square

Written by: Henrik Ibsen, In A New Version By Amy Herzog

Directed by: Sam Gold

Cast: Jeremy Strong, Michael Imperioli, Victoria Pedretti, Katie Broad, Bill Buell, Caleb Eberhardt, Matthew August Jeffers, David Patrick Kelly, David Mattar Merten, Max Roll, Thomas Jay Ryan, Alan Trong

Running time: 2 hrs (including one pause)

Deadline’s takeaway: Watching Jeremy Strong ( Succession ) and Michael Imperioli ( The Sopranos ) go head to head for two hours is a treat, as if the stars of your favorite HBO dramas had crossed over some crazy timeline to show each other what for. To read full review, click on show title above .

The Notebook

Opening night: March 14, 2024

Venue:  Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre

Directors:  Michael Greif and Schele Williams

Book:  Bekah Brunstetter

Music and lyrics:  Ingrid Michaelson

Cast:  Jordan Tyson, Joy Woods, Maryann Plunkett, John Cardoza, Ryan Vasquez, Dorian Harewood, with Andréa Burns, Yassmin Alers, Alex Benoit, Chase Del Rey, Hillary Fisher, Jerome Harmann-Hardeman, Dorcas Leung, Happy McPartlin, Juliette Ojeda, Kim Onah, Carson Stewart, Charles E. Wallace, Charlie Webb

Running time:  2 hr 10 min (including intermission)

Deadline’s takeaway: Based on Nicholas Sparks’ 1996 bestseller about a young — then older, then much older — couple who survives a lifetime of tribulations (until they don’t), The Notebook is the theatrical equivalent of Muzak, comforting in its unapologetically manipulative way and unabashed in its disregard for anything approaching the grit of the real world. To read full review, click on show title above .

Opening night : March 7, 2024

Venue:  Todd Haimes Theatre

Written by:  John Patrick Shanley

Directed by:  Scott Ellis

Cast:  Amy Ryan, Liev Schreiber, Zoe Kazan, Quincy Tyler Bernstine

Running time:  90 min (no intermission)

Deadline’s takeaway: That the play holds up as well as it does since its 2004 premiere — and it really does — is due in large part to a top-tier cast that the Roundabout Theater Company has assembled, an ensemble that keeps us guessing from beginning to end. To read full review, click on show title above .

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An East Flatbush mother and daughter, barely surviving in an oxygen-less world, must band together to protect each other when intruders arrive claiming to know their missing father. An East Flatbush mother and daughter, barely surviving in an oxygen-less world, must band together to protect each other when intruders arrive claiming to know their missing father. An East Flatbush mother and daughter, barely surviving in an oxygen-less world, must band together to protect each other when intruders arrive claiming to know their missing father.

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• Apr 16, 2024

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Theater | review: ‘stereophonic,’ about a band under pressure, is a broadway show not to be missed.

NEW YORK — Just before the end of playwright David Adjmi’s masterful “Stereophonic,” a three-hour dissection of ego, insecurity and the messy, messed-up gorgeousness of the creative process, I decided I’d had enough of these beautiful people in the recording studio with their complaints, their cocaine, their obsessive-compulsive neuroses, their phenomenal talents. A Zen-like “Let it be” had twisted in my skull to “Let me out.”

And then I realized that was precisely what Adjmi wanted everyone at the Golden Theatre to be feeling at the final curtain. He’d just explained why great bands break up; why famous geniuses who seemingly have all the gifts, money, autonomy, adulation and sex that anyone could possibly want just can’t hold it together; why having a Billboard hit does not stop the childhood-driven imposter syndrome ringing inside your brain but actually makes it louder.

Heck, I’ll go even further: He’d just explained why things end. Period.

What a brilliant piece of must-see Broadway. It’s Chekhovian, babe.

Adjmi is hardly the first playwright to figure out that the expression of deep truths only flows from obsessive attention to detail: that’s true of his characters, who spend what feels like hours adjusting a rattling drum, and it’s true of Adjmi’s writing, Daniel Aukin’s phenomenal direction, David Zinn’s mind-blowing set, and the fearless acting from Sarah Pidgeon and Tom Pecinka, especially, but really an entire cast also made up of Will Brill, Andrew R. Butler (playing the Firs in this “Cherry Orchard”), Juliana Canfield, the deceptively complicated Eli Gelb and the rich Chris Stack. Everything and everyone feels real. Relentlessly so.

“Stereophonic,” first seen at Playwrights Horizons, is about a famous British band making a studio album in California between the summers of 1976 and 1977. You never see their lives outside of the recording studio laid out before you on the stage, but you do hear them sing. The show clearly was influenced by Peter Jackson’s restored “The Beatles: Get Back,” a killer marathon documentary about the making of the album “Let it Be” in 1970 even as the band was battling for control and well outside the edenic strawberry fields. But we’re watching a band with male and female members, thus suggesting the story of Fleetwood Mac, the band known for its internal sexual shenanigans as well as its love of locking itself inside a studio for weeks or months at a time and fighting, crying, composing and birthing a phenomenal album.

The cast of "Stereophonic" on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre in New York. (Julieta Cervantes)

Chris Stack and Will Brill in "Stereophonic" on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre in New York. (Julieta Cervantes)

Since this band is fictional, they sing way-cool original songs by Will Butler that feel like they could be on a Fleetwood Mac album like “Mirage.” The singing is live and everything you’re hearing is (I think) analog, as run through the console controlled by Gelb’s Grover, the engineer who has to hold this crazy crew together, maybe benevolently, maybe for his own benefit, maybe both. Few playwrights are as unsentimental as Adjmi and no one here gets a pass: Pidgeon, who should break out with this performance, hurts your heart.

In the end, the show hardly is just about music, but any time people get together to create, including a Broadway show. Pecinka’s  Peter, the Paul of this show, is that guy, the man who feels like he needs to collaborate but really can’t because he knows he can do it all better himself. That’s his gift and his curse.

The rest of us can just watch, thrilled and afeared.

Those are the twin channels of “Stereophonic.” Don’t wait. Tickets will be hard to get.

At the John Golden Theatre, 252 W. 45th St., New York; stereophonicplay.com

Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.

[email protected]

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Review: THE BAND'S VISIT at Writers Theatre

The Tony-winning musical runs through March 17.

About halfway through the 2017 musical THE BAND'S VISIT, an Israeli cafe owner named Dina listens to the singing of an Egyptian policeman as the two sit in the ruins of a park in the middle of the desert. Dina, who does not speak Arabic, cannot understand the literal meaning of the man's song but feels as though she comprehends it emotionally, asking herself, "What's he saying? Is he praying? And why does it get to me?" In other words, how is it that a life so different from hers can have the power to touch her in such a profound way? Thankfully, this question receives its enthusiastic answer in a gorgeously lyrical and profoundly moving new production at Writers Theatre in Glencoe, now running through March 17.

Winner of ten 2018 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, THE BAND'S VISIT tells the story of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra, which has been invited to give a concert in the culturally rich Israeli city of Petah Tikvah. But due to a linguistic mix-up (Arabic does not use "p" sounds), the band ends up in the virtually desolate town of Bet Hatikvah. Stuck with their instruments until the next bus out of town, the conductor Tewfiq ( Rom Barkhordar ) and his colleagues must spend the night with Dina (Sophie Madorsky) and her fellow villagers. What follows is less a plot in the traditional sense and more of a character study of how people from different and historically conflicted walks of life can impact one another in subtle yet substantial ways. 

Director Zi Alikhan has gifted Chicago audiences with a production of THE BAND'S VISIT whose talent and creative execution equal---and may even exceed---those of the Broadway and touring productions. Writers Theatre's relatively smaller size lends itself to the intimacy necessary for the characters to connect with one another as well as for the audience to connect with the characters. Alikhan and choreographer Sebastiani Romagnolo move their performers through the playing area in ways that feel natural while also creating evocative portraits of conflict and resolution in progress (scenic designer Afsoon Pajoufar conjures wonders using little more than a shipping container, a dilapidated billboard, and some diner chairs). It's not uncommon for actors to brush past the leg of an audience member or waft through the aisles. But the effect of such movements always feels immersive, bringing us into an unexpectedly refreshing oasis without breaking the fourth wall.

Even more impressively, in a creative choice that will remind audiences of Writers Theatre's 2023 hit musical ONCE, most of the performers play their own instruments while effortlessly singing through David Yazbek 's deceptively challenging score. With the help of sound designer Willow James , music directors Andra Velis Simon and Jason Burrow ensure that all the show's parts---vocal and instrumental---seamlessly blend together while also being crisp and clear enough to stand on their own. In the show's penultimate number, "Answer Me" (captivatingly led by Harper Caruso), the cast scatters throughout the audience and hits a chord so richly textured with pained hope that it can't help but bring a tear to the eye.

While the musical does its best to give equal stage time to the various villagers and musicians, Tewfiq and Dina are the undeniable leads of the piece due to the charisma of the performers who bring them to life. Barkhordar has a commanding voice with an impressive range that leaves viewers hanging on his every word. In one particularly memorable scene, his shouts thunder through the air before fading into whispered confessions that express the heartbreak and warmth lying under his coldly militaristic exterior. His gruff formality finds its complement in Madorsky's witty cynicism but its match in her pained existentialism. Her solos " Omar Sharif " and "Something Different" show off her keen sense of dynamics, her whispered mutterings carrying the same weight as her defiant belts. 

While the entire ensemble deserves praise for their individual talents and collaborative cohesion, several performers deserve to be recognized for their stand-out performances. As the shy nebbish Papi, Sam Linda delights as he hilariously laments his failures with women while rollerblading through increasingly intricate configurations of other skaters. Armand Akbari charms as the jazz-loving trumpet player Haled (with the crooning skills to match), as does Michael Joseph Mitchell (Avrum) as a free-spirited widower recalling the night he first danced with his wife. As Itzik and his wife Iris, Dave Honigman and Dana Saleh Omar effectively capture the fear, regret, and confusion that plague all new parents. Their eventual reconciliation just as dawn arrives provides the musical with a satisfying---if tenuous---resolution. But to end the show with any greater degree of certainty would be to abandon the verisimilitude that drives it in the first place.

I must admit that I was hesitant to revisit this show since I last saw it in 2020. Given that the conflict in the Middle East has reached even more horrifying heights since October, the musical's message of hope and connection developing in spite of cultural and political differences feels quaintly naive, if not unrealistic. And yet, Writers Theatre's production of THE BAND'S VISIT feels so refreshingly human that one can't help but get swept up in its beauty. One can't help but wonder if empathy and understanding really could help us reach one another across unfathomable divides. Perhaps the music speaks to us, even if we haven't yet learned the words.

Photo Credit: Michael Brosilow

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