The premise is simple: it's the 90s and the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra is travelling from Egypt to Petah Tikva to perform in a concert. Due to a language barrier, they end up in the tiny desert town of Bet Hatikva with little money, no hotel to check into, and a full day's wait until the next bus out of town.
The next ninety minutes follow members of the band as they explore the town with their hosts. Café owner Dina (Chilina Kennedy), her employee Papi (Adam Gabay) and patron Itzik (Pomme Koch) each take a few members of the orchestra with them, and each provide a different look into Bet Hatikva, its residents, and their struggles. In its Toronto premiere this 10-time Tony winning musical, based on the film of the same name, is directed by David Cromer and presented by Mirvish.
Johnson Financial Group Broadway at the Marcus Center and Broadway Across America-Milwaukee announces that THE BAND'S VISIT, one of the most Tony Award-winning musicals in history, will be coming to Milwaukee from November 26 to December 1. The tour of the critically acclaimed and 10-time Tony Award-winning production launched at the Providence Performing Arts Center on June 25, 2019 and continued on to play Washington, DC starting July 9, 2019. THE BAND'S VISIT will play over 32 cities in its first season including Milwaukee.
Broadway In Boston is proud to announce that tickets for THE BAND'S VISIT, one of the most Tony Award-winning musicals in history, will go on sale this Monday, September 16, 2019. With a Tony- and Grammy-winning score that seduces your soul and sweeps you off your feet, and featuring thrillingly talented onstage musicians, THE BAND'S VISIT rejoices in the way music makes us laugh, makes us cry, and ultimately, brings us together. THE BAND'S VISIT will play the Citizens Bank Opera House March 24 a?" April 5 as part of the Lexus 2019-2020 Broadway In Boston Season.
THE BAND'S VISIT feels like an homage to the fleeting nature of live theater itself: a moment in time in which performers and audience are brought together to share a collective experience, all-encompassing yet passing swiftly and never to be created again. So too goes the narrative of the two characters at the center of this 2018 Tony Award-winning musical, Tewliq, the Egyptian conductor of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra, and Dina, an Israeli woman living in the small town of Bet Hatikva. When Tewliq and his fellow band members accidentally make their way to Bet Hatikva, instead of the city Petah Tikva in which they have a concert engagement, the cast of characters come together by pure happenstance. The magnetic and mysterious connection that Tewliq and Dina share in the one night in which their lives overlap is similarly ethereal.
It's about human connection and how we all want to seek a little bit more in life, and how we can find that in the things that are seemingly mundane or small or delicate. It's really beautiful.
I really enjoyed the Eran Kolirin's 2007 Israeli-Egyptian film 'The Band's Visit' . The story involved the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra who get lost in Israel on their way to a concert performance at the Arab Cultural Center in a large city named Petal Tikvah and instead the bus they take arrives at the small town of Bet Hatikva. With the next bus not due until the next day, the musicians are invited to spend the night with the town natives (there is no hotel) and have dinner. The moving film tackles the subject of Egyptians and Israelis in 1996 who in 1967 had a hard-fought war on the Sinai Peninsula.
The national tour, now playing the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, gave me the opportunity to take another look at the show. Let's just say I'm really glad I had the opportunity.
The first national tour of The Band's Visit is now making its way across the country after launching at the Providence Performing Arts Center in Rhode Island! BroadwayWorld has a first look at the show's leads Chilina Kennedy and Sasson Gabay in action! Check out the video
The North American Touring company of The Band's Visit celebrated their official opening night at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC last night. Check out photos from the evening!
You recently saw the television camera focus on David Yazbek seated in the audience at the Tony Awards and last night if you were at Feinstein's54 Below you saw him seated on the piano bench with his killer band and special guest Etai Benson in a thrilling performance by the composer himself.
The first national tour of The Band's Visit is now making its way across the country after launching at the Providence Performing Arts Center in Rhode Island! BroadwayWorld has a first look at the show's leads Chilina Kennedy and Sasson Gabay in action!
The first national tour of The Band's Visit is now making its way across the country after launching at the Providence Performing Arts Center in Rhode Island!
My favorite writing professor loved to say that there are two stories the world: one, a person sets off on a journey; in the other, a stranger comes to town. The second story is precisely the idea behind the 10 Tony Award winning THE BAND'S VISIT. The Egyptian Police Band is on tour, and through a simple language mixup, they wind up in a small town in the Isreali desert . With no way to leave town until the morning, and no hotels available, the police are taken into locals' homes where they start to see into the lives of the people of the village. This is an atypical Broadway musical in that it's very quiet and seemingly simple, but does a fantastic job of showing the struggles of ordinary people, and how two seemingly different groups of people have a lot in common after all.
Tickets for The Band's Visit will go on sale to the public on Friday, June 28, at 10 a.m. The show plays a one-week engagement Aug. 27-Sept. 1, to kick off the Peace Center's 2019-2020 Broadway series.