Egyptian Police Orchestra

quick, what images come to mind when I say that?

I wrote this essay early October 2023, and never published it. All of the design thoughts are still important for me to think through, though this is another show that won’t get much stage time. There was one production in Winnipeg last month … but otherwise, The Band’s Visit will collect dust on a shelf.

The Band’s Visit is trying to do the subtle hard work of humanizing. I love it. I miss it. I am sad that we can’t do a play like this one. I understand that folks don’t want to navigate the Middle East by way of a musical right now.

But! we cannot chalk this loss up to conflict-avoidance. because. Anastasia.

Evidently we are okay with navigating Russia by way of a musical right now. Even Harvard College’s production of Anastasia didn’t have a single mention of Russia in its program or online media. Whether it is a show about Russia and the aftermath of imperialism - or that is just the context for a show about self-discovery - staging a show whose pre-intermission song is called … Rus…