THE BAND'S VISIT to Open in Boston in Fall 2023

The Huntington and SpeakEasy Stage will co-produce the Tony Award-winning musical The Band's Visit which features music and lyrics by David Yazbek and book by Itamar Moses, as part of their respective 2023-2024 seasons.

The Band's Visit will be performed at the recently renovated Huntington Theatre from November 10 - December 10, 2023 and directed by award-winning SpeakEasy Founder and Producing Artistic Director Paul Daigneault.

The Band's Visit won an astounding 10 Tony Awards in 2018 - among the highest in Broadway history - as well as the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theatre Album in 2019. The show was hailed by The New York Times as "One of the most ravishing musicals you will ever be seduced by," and The Hollywood Reporter called it, "Gorgeous, intoxicating, and soulful."

This co-production marks the first time that SpeakEasy Stage and The Huntington have jointly staged a production, though the two companies have been longtime partners and collaborators, and worked together with Company One Theater to produce a festival of Annie Baker's Shirley, VT plays in 2010. They also work together closely on a regular basis as The Huntington built and manages the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA where SpeakEasy Stage is the Calderwood Pavilion Resident Theatre Company at the Boston Center for the Arts. This co-production of The Band's Visit allows both companies to expand their partnership and reach new audiences for this highly acclaimed new musical.

The Band's Visit centers on an Egyptian band of musicians who become stranded in a small Israeli town after a transportation mix up. With no lodgings available, the locals take them into their homes for the night. By morning, surprising connections have been made and friendships forged over moments of shared humanity and love of music. In this beautiful, feel-good musical, a brief visit can have a lasting impact.

Based on Eran Kolirin's 2007 film of the same name, this original musical first premiered at the Atlantic Theater Company Off Broadway in 2016 before transferring to Broadway in 2017. The tour was scheduled to perform in Boston in 2020 but was cancelled due to the pandemic.

"We at SpeakEasy are thrilled to team up with our good friends at The Huntington to bring this sublime, beautiful musical to life," says SpeakEasy's Paul Daigneault. "It is also an incredible honor to be the first to direct a musical on the new Huntington Theatre stage, to invite the city's amazing talent on this artistic journey, and to share the many wonders of this surprising and joyous show."

"This gorgeous musical won 10 Tony Awards, and it now will delight Boston audiences for the first time," says Huntington Artistic Director Loretta Greco. "We're thrilled to whole-heartedly collaborate with our partners at SpeakEasy Stage, and it's a privilege to welcome their founder, our friend and colleague Paul Daigneault, in his Huntington debut."

SpeakEasy Stage and The Huntington will each announce their full seasons in early April, and season ticket packages will be available for purchase at that time. This production of The Band's Visit is licensed by Music Theatre International.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

David Yazbek

(Music & Lyrics) is an American writer, musician, composer, lyricist and recording artist. He wrote the music and lyrics for the Broadway musicals The Full Monty (2000), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (2005), Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (2010), The Band's Visit (2017), and Tootsie (2019). His album The Laughing Man won the 1997 N.A.I.R.D. Award for Best Pop Album. Other albums include TOCK and Damascus! For theatre he has also composed original music for Boy's Life at LCT; Mojo, Atlantic Theatre; The Pope's Nose, Promenade Theatre and over two others. He has done a lot of scriptwriting for TV, including a brief, Emmy Award-winning stint with "Late Night with David Letterman" and the co-creation of the groundbreaking yet cloying "Puzzle Place" for PBS. He's composed scores for a wide range of films and shows for HBO, NBC, Fox, and Nickelodeon and is responsible for the unrelenting theme song to "Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?" He has been nominated for four Grammy Awards, winning in 2019 for the original cast recording of The Band's Visit. As a songwriter and/or producer he has worked with such artists as XTC, Tito Puente, Space Hohg, The Verve Pipe, Ruben Blades, Rockapella, and the Persuasions. More can be learned at davidyazbek.com

Itamar Moses

(Book) is the author of the full-length plays Outrage, Bach at Leipzig, Celebrity Row, The Four of Us, Yellowjackets, Back Back Back, Completeness, and The Whistleblower, the musicals Nobody Loves You (with Gaby Alter), Fortress of Solitude (with Michael Friedman), and The Band's Visit (with David Yazbek), and The Evening of Short Plays Love/Stories (Or But You Will Get Used to It). His work has appeared Off Broadway and elsewhere in New York, at regional theatres across the country, and in Canada, Hong Kong, Israel, Venezuela, Turkey, and Chile, and is published by Faber & Faber and Samuel French. Awards for his work include Lucille Lortel, New York Drama Critics Circle, Outer Critics Circle, and Obie Awards in New York, as well as awards from the Portland, San Diego, Dallas, and Bay Area Theatre Critics Circles. He's received new play commissions from The McCarter, Playwrights Horizons, Berkeley Rep, The Wilma Theater, South Coast Rep, Manhattan Theatre Club, Lincoln Center, and The Goodman. On television, Itamar has written for TNT's "Men of a Certain Age," HBO's "Boardwalk Empire," WGN'S "Outsiders," and Showtime's "The Affair." He holds an MFA in dramatic writing from NYU and has taught playwriting at Yale and NYU. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild and is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect. Born in Berkeley, CA, he now lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Paul Daigneault

(Director/SpeakEasy Founder & Producing Artistic Director) is a New England-based freelance director, producer, and teacher. Since founding the award-winning SpeakEasy Stage in 1992, he has produced over 150 Boston premieres. As a director, he is especially proud of his projects that have centered gay and queer stories as well as his passion for contemporary American musicals. His professional directing highlights include The Inheritance; Fun Home; Admissions; The Scottsboro Boys; Significant Other; Violet; Mother & Sons; Big Fish; In the Heights; Next to Normal; Nine; Some Men; Zanna, Don't!; Parade; Caroline, or Change; Take Me Out; Company; A Man of No Importance; Bat Boy - The Musical; Passion; A New Brain; Floyd Collins; Love! Valour! Compassion!; and Jeffrey. In 2014, Paul was the recipient of the Elliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence, the highest honor presented by the Boston Theater Critics Association. Paul is currently on the faculty at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where he teaches musical theatre, producing, and directing. He was honored in 2007 with the Boston College Arts Council's Alumni Award for Distinguished Achievement, and served as the college's 2011-2012 Rev. J. Donald Monan S. J. Professor in Theatre Arts. Outside the theatre, Paul has served on the Board of the ICU Patient & Family Advisory Council at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He is a lover of National Parks and plans to visit all 63!

ABOUT SPEAKEASY STAGE

Now in its 32nd year, SpeakEasy Stage is an award-winning, not-for-profit, professional theatre company in residence at the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts. Founded and led by Producing Artistic Director Paul Daigneault, the company has consistently won acclaim for its intimate, top-quality, original productions of bold contemporary plays and musicals that, for three decades, have sparked conversations that challenge, connect, and inspire its audiences and the Greater Boston community. In addition, as part of its mission to build and support a thriving local theatre scene, SpeakEasy works with hundreds of Massachusetts-based actors, directors, designers, and technicians each year, and trains early-career artists through its emerging artist and fellowship programs. From its humble 40-seat beginnings, the company has emerged as a leader in Boston's theatre community, a champion of diverse and emerging voices, and a staunch proponent of the transformative power of theatre to bring about social change. SpeakEasyStage.com

ABOUT THE HUNTINGTON

Celebrating 40 years of outstanding theatre, The Huntington is Boston's theatrical commons and leading professional theatre company. On our stages and throughout our city, we share enduring and untold stories that spark the imagination of audiences and artists and amplify the wide range of voices in our community. Committed to welcoming broad and diverse audiences, The Huntington provides life-changing opportunities for students through its robust education and community programs, is a national leader in the development of playwrights and new plays, acts as the host organization for a multi-year residency of The Front Porch Arts Collective, a Black theatre company based in Boston, and serves the local arts community through our operation of The Huntington Calderwood/BCA. Under the leadership of Norma Jean Calderwood Artistic Director Loretta Greco and Managing Director Michael Maso, The Huntington reopened the historic Huntington Theatre this fall after its transformational renovation. A storied venue with a bold vision for the future, the renovation and building project will allow us to innovatively expand our services to audiences, artists, and the community for generations to come. For more information, visit huntingtontheatre.org.

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