David Yazbek & Itamar Moses to Chat THE BAND'S VISIT on THEATER TALK This Week

An all-new THEATER TALK explores the evolution of Broadway's rapturously received new musical, The Band's Visit, now at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, with its creators, songwriter David Yazbek and book writer Itamar Moses. For the interview, series host Susan Haskins is joined by guest co-host Jesse Green of The New York Times.

Based on the popular 2007 Israeli film, The Band's Visit on-stage originated as an idea by producer Orin WOLF and was first performed Off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theater Company. Directed by David Cromer and starring Tony Shalhoub and Katrina Lenk leading an ensemble cast, the show is about members of an Egyptian police orchestra which - due to a miscommunication at the bus station - finds themselves stranded for one night in a tiny Israeli desert village, where locals take them in.

The show is Yazbek's fourth Broadway musical (and, as he tells THEATER TALK, "the most satisfying"; the others are The Full Monty, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Women on the Verge of A Nervous Breakdown) and Moses's third musical (Nobody Loves You, The Fortress of Solitude). The two discuss the delicate creative process of making a musical out of an intimate film.

"It doesn't SCREAM anything," says Yazbek of the film, and the writers affirm that they didn't want to expand the intimacy of the film in any way. Now, however, Moses says that music is one of the central metaphors of the piece. Yazbek immersed himself in the "modalities and microtones" of Arabic music, and enlisted authentic-looking and -playing musicians to be on stage. Arab musicians, says Yazbek, play - and even tune - their instruments differently from their Western counterparts.

Following is the broadcast/cable schedule for this episode in the New York area:

CUNY TV

Monday, December 11 at 8:00 PM
Saturday, December 16 at 8:30 PM
Sunday, December 17 at 7:00 AM
Monday, December 18 at 7:30 AM, 1:30 PM

PBS/Thirteen

Friday, December 15 at 1:30 AM (Saturday morning)
Sunday, December 17 at 11:30 AM

WLIW/21

Monday, December 18 at 5:30 PM

NYC LIFE/25

Thursday, December 21 at 11:00 PM
Monday, December 25 at 3:30 AM

Coming next week: A holiday celebration with Amy Schumer and Agosto Machado!

THEATER TALK - 2017 Emmy Award winner as Best Interview/Discussion Show in the NYC area - is jointly produced by the not-for-profit Theater Talk Productions and CUNY TV. The program is taped in the Himan Brown TV and Radio Studios at The City University of New York (CUNY) TV in Manhattan, and is distributed to 100+ participating public television stations nationwide. THEATER TALK is made possible in part by The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and The Friends of Theater Talk.

*CUNY TV, the City University of New York television station, is broadcast in the NYC metropolitan area on digital Ch. 25.3 and cablecast in the city's five boroughs on Ch. 75 (Spectrum & Optimum/Brooklyn), Ch. 77 (RCN), and Ch. 30 (Verizon FiOS). THEATER TALK episodes are available online anytime at www.cuny.tv and www.theatertalk.org and via iTunes.

Pictured: Susan Haskins, David Yazbek, Itamar Moses, Jesse Green (Photo courtesy CUNY TV and Theater Talk Prods.)