One of the best-loved and most highly acclaimed novels of our time, THE KITE RUNNER is a powerful play of friendship that follows one man’s journey to confront his past and find redemption. Afghanistan is a divided country and two childhood friends are about to be torn apart. It’s a beautiful afternoon in Kabul and the skies are full of the excitement and joy of a kite flying tournament. But neither of the boys can foresee the incident which will change their lives forever. Told across two decades and two continents, THE KITE RUNNER is an unforgettable journey of redemption and forgiveness, and shows us all that we can be good again.
Adapting novels for the stage is a noble endeavor; a healthy culture should be eager to translate its new (or classic) narratives into other media. I've seen revelatory theatrical versions of Dostoyevsky's Demons (twice), Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (verbatim in the marathon masterpiece by Elevator Repair Service) and others-many at New YorkTheatre Workshop. While popular fiction generally gravitates to movies or streaming series, there is an argument to be made for transforming novels into live performance. The Kite Runner, long on talking and short on showing, does not make that argument very strongly.
Onstage, of course, we don't have hundreds of pages to let the ambitious tale breathe. We've got 2½ hours. So the sheer number of tragedies makes 'The Kite Runner' an especially tough story to adapt without turning it into a soap opera - an emotional shellacking. That treacherous trap, however, is shrewdly avoided on Broadway, where a moving stage adaptation of the book opened Thursday night, because of the actors' radiating warmth and the production's generosity of spirit. It's a straightforward, to-the-point play, but one that's easy to embrace and gripping as it unfurls.
| 2017 | West End |
West End Transfer West End |
| 2017 | West End |
2017 West End Transfer West End |
| 2022 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
| 2024 | US Tour |
North American Tour US Tour |
| Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Theatre World Awards | Theatre World Awards | Amir Arison |
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