'The Band's Visit' is the sleeper hit must-see of the PNC Broadway in Louisville season

“Once, not so long ago, a group of musicians came to Israel from Egypt.

You probably didn’t hear about it.

It wasn’t very important.”

Those three lines bookend "The Band's Visit," the 10 Tony Award-winning Broadway musical by David Yazbek and book by Itamar Moses, based on the 2007 Israeli film of the same name that began its weeklong engagement Tuesday at the Kentucky Center in downtown Louisville.

And that brief, innocuous description is pretty, well, accurate.

"The Band's Visit" is a tale of how the mundane nonevents in our lives can shape who we are and how our differences, be them language, cultural or otherwise, are the things that really bring us together. And all of that is told through the universal language and power of music, which transcends all differences. 

In short, the production — which won Best Musical at the 2018 Tony Awards when it starred actor Tony Shalhoub, best known for his role in "Monk" — tells the story of a group of Egyptian musicians with the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra who accidentally land in a small "nothing" town in Israel after a wayward mispronunciation lands them in Bet Hatikva instead of Petah Tikvah, where they are set to perform at the Arab Cultural Center.

(Interestingly enough, this mix-up happens because there's no hard "p" in the Arabic language, so the two town names sound absolutely identical when the band members attempt to pronounce them at Israel's border).

Background:'The Band's Visit' brings a story of love set in Middle East to Louisville

The band members stop at a local cafe — maybe the only cafe? — in Bet Hatikva, where the owner, Dina, played beautifully by the enigmatic Chilina Kennedy, takes pity on the men and offers them a place to stay with herself and other locals for the evening before they can catch a bus out of the town the next morning for their performance. 

And that's it, mostly.

But it's also so much more. It's a story that takes place over the course of one evening that is both honest and earnest and just a little bit "boring" in the sense that the problems these characters face are just as easily your everyday problems. 

There's no historical context, action or blow-your-socks-off musical moments like in "Hamilton" and no out-of-control lie like "Dear Evan Hansen." It's just life in all its boring, ugly, funny glory.

And that's what makes the stories compelling. 

The show is told through multiple short storylines in English, Arabic and Hebrew that weave the seemingly ordinary lives of the townspeople of Bet Hatikva into the lives of the band members. Centrally there's Dina, who seeks love and sees a possible Omar Sharif-inspired love story with the band's leader, Tewfiq, played by Sasson Gabay, who originated the role in the Israeli film of the same name.

Kennedy as Dina absolutely shines in her performance of "Omar Sharif," where she talks about the intimacy and curiosity she felt watching Egyptian movies and hearing Egyptian music in her Israeli home as a young girl, and in her duet "Something Different" with Gabay, where she toys with the idea of falling madly, wildly in love with Tewfiq — if only for one night — with lines such as "something new I've never seen before / through this walls I've built ... something new I didn't notice I was hoping for / nothing is as beautiful as something that you don't expect."

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Alongside is the story of a young couple, Itzik and Iris, played by Pomme Koch and Kendal Hartse respectively, who have grown apart and out of love, and a young man named Papi, played by Adam Gabay, who is so painfully shy around women that he loses all sense of himself and freezes. Then there's Haled, the soulful crooner in the band played by Joe Joseph who is dreading returning to Egypt where he'll have to enter into an arranged marriage, and Simon, the second in command in the band who has stalled composing a concerto.

But underneath all the stories, which range from the comedic song "Papi Hears the Ocean," to the heart-wrenching confession Tewfiq makes to Dina at the end of the show, is an undeniably moving score and delightfully talented musicians in "The Band."

The onstage musicians play classical Arabic music throughout the production that helps weave the entire story together. The musicians — Tony Bird, George Crotty, Evan Francis, Roger Kashou and Ronnie Malley — are so talented that it's not the least bit surprising these men, in their powder blue Egyptian police band uniforms, get the loudest standing ovation and cheers from the audience during a surprise encore after the curtain call (so don't leave early!).

In a PNC Broadway in Louisville season that also features "The Lion King," "Miss Saigon," and "Jesus Christ Superstar," a simple story like "The Band's Visit" is definitely the sleeper of the season. But it's also the most relatable. It's a story of love, missed opportunities and the power of music to overcome any difference.

It's a story of life.

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Reach Features Editor Kathryn Gregory at kgregory@courier-journal.com. Follow her on Twitter at @kitgregory.

'The Band's Visit'

Winner of 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical

WHAT: "The Band's Visit" rejoices in the way music brings us to life, to laughter, to tears, and ultimately, brings us together. In an Israeli desert town where every day feels the same, something different is suddenly in the air. Dina, the local cafe owner, had long resigned her desires for romance to daydreaming about exotic films and music from her youth. When a band of Egyptian musicians shows up lost at her cafe, she and her fellow locals take them in for the night. Under the spell of the night sky, their lives intertwine in unexpected ways, and this once sleepy town begins to wake up.   

WHEN: Now through Sunday

WHERE: The Kentucky Center, 501 W. Main St.

TICKETS: Starting at $40

RUN TIME: Approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes with no intermission 

MORE INFORMATION: kentuckycenter.org and 502-584-7777