VIDEO: Jason Gotay and Michael Hartung Star In New Music Video for Bandits on the Run

Bandits on the Run have released a short film to accompany their song, "Love in the Underground," which they call their "love letter to New York City." At a time when New Yorkers - and the rest of the world - are isolated, the film depicts beauty and love with a story told through music and dance.

The song describes the moment when two out of the three bandits - Adrian Enscoe and Sydney Shepherd - met and fell in love while Enscoe was busking in a subway station. Rather than acting as themselves to portray their story literally, the band cast actor and dancers with Broadway experience - and another real-life couple - Jason Gotay and Michael Hartung as the lovers. Choreographed by Lane Halperin, the film follows Gotay and Hartung through a dance segment on a moving train and into a speakeasy. The transition between the first half of the film, for the official single, and the second half ("B-side," which is shot on 16mm film), depicts two very different sides of the song, and of love itself.

The production of "Love in the Underground" was a collaboration between various members of the music, theatre and film communities. Gotay has appeared on Broadway in Bring It On: The Musical and Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark, while Hartung has appeared on Broadway in Hello, Dolly! In addition, Gotay is attached to the Gossip Girl reboot coming to HBO Max. The Bandits themselves are also actors, with Enscoe starring in Dickinson on Apple TV+, and recently cast in The Avett Brothers musical, Swept Away. Shepherd starred in the world premiere of August Rush (directed by John Doyle) and has appeared on Broadway in First Date, while Regina Strayhorn was featured in Village of Vale at Lincoln Center. The Side A portion of the "Love in the Underground" film was produced by Chucklehead (Luke Slattery and Paul Emile Centron) and Side B by Must B Nice (Jamie Dolan and Adam Faze).

"We're proud of our scrappy little production - we pulled together a cohesive story without a spoken word, using only the two songs and Lane Halperin's beautiful choreography," the band says. "We wouldn't have been able to do it without this without the incredible team we assembled, whose every member was just brimming with creativity and passion for telling this story. We hope this video lives on as a reminder not only of the magic of meeting a stranger by chance and falling in love, but of the beauty that we can all create together with the people and places that surround us."

Comprised of Enscoe (who goes by the Bandit alter-ego moniker, "Roy Dodger") on guitar, Shepherd ("Bonanza Jellyfish") on cello, and Strayhorn ("Clarissa") on melodica and accordion, Bandits on the Run released their debut album, The Criminal Record, in 2017, to much critical acclaim. The following year took them on various international tours, playing to crowds everywhere from grungy bars in LA to living rooms in London to old town squares in France. The band continued to build momentum, with 2019 being incredibly kind to them, as they crisscrossed Europe on tour and released the EP, Bandits Live at the Power Station. A live version of "Love in the Underground," filmed for NPR's 2019 Tiny Desk Contest, earned a "Top Shelf of the Tiny Desk" feature, among other accolades.