The Band's Visit

Description

After a mix-up at the border, Egypt's Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra, bound for the cosmopolitan Israeli city Petah Tikvah, is stranded in a small desert town. With no transportation until the next day, the band is taken in by the locals. By morning, the lives of visitors and hosts are forever altered. Itamar Moses and David Yazbek's stunning musical adaptation of the 2007 acclaimed film finds transcendence in the surprising and tender relationships that are forged between strangers under the desert sky.

David Yazbek is a writer, composer and lyricist. Previous musicals includeThe Full Monty, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. A graduate of Brown University, he received an Emmy Award as part of the writing team on the Late Show with David Letterman. Itamar Moses 's plays include Outrage, Bach at Leipzig, Celebrity Row, The Four of Us, Yellowjackets and Completeness. Previous musicals includeNobody Loves You (with Gaby Alter) and Fortress of Solitude (with Michael Friedman). TV credits include TNT's Men of a Certain Age, HBO's Boardwalk Empire and WGN's Outsiders.

"Quietly ravishing... It is unlike any musical I've seen--understated, with a dry wit and a yearning soul."-- "Adam Green, Vogue" There's music in the air at the Barrymore: sweetly lush, jasmine-scented melody which bathes the stage--and the audience--in an evening of enchantment.-- "The Huffington Post" 'Beautiful' is a word we bandy about in the daily pursuit of adjectives to describe the things we love. But even in an entertainment world overrun with superlatives, this is the one you're compelled to use to describe The Band's Visit.-- "The Washington Post" "A tender comedy of international manners... If you've been feeling oppressed of late by the relentless rigors of reality, I can't think of a better cure for what ails you than the sweet hopefulness of The Band's Visit. It's downright therapeutic."-- "Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal" "Book writer Itamar Moses and composer/lyricist David Yazbek have created a play of deep integrity--funny, generous, sweet without sentimentality, poignant without melodrama, and emotionally expansive... The Band's Visit is quietly modeling real theatrical and musical courage... It gave me more hope for what Broadway might welcome, might foster, might become than any musical in a long time. It's a deceptively radical jasmine wind blowing through a stuffy room, bringing with it the possibility of change."-- "Sara Holdren, New York Magazine" "It's time to fall in love again... One of the most ravishing musicals you will ever be seduced by... The Band's Visit is a Broadway rarity seldom found these days outside of the canon of Stephen Sondheim... Miraculous."-- "Ben Brantley, New York Times"