This week on Playbill's The Tyler Mount Vlog, Mount welcomes Ari'el Stachel from the new Broadway musical The Band's Visit. Stachel plays Haled, a young Egyptian man with a soft spot for romance and jazz musician Chet Baker.
Watch the episode above to find out how Stachel landed the part (and his subsequent Broadway debut), and what he and the cast like to do backstage to prepare for each show.
Stachel originated the role of Haled in the world premiere of The Band's Visit at Atlantic Theater Company Off-Broadway. His other New York City credits include workshop productions of We Live in Cairo at NYTW and The Visitor at The Public Theater. He has performed in Barrington Stage's The Golem of Havana and on television in Blue Bloods and Jessica Jones.
The Band’s Visit, David Yazbek and Itamar Moses’ heartfelt tale of life and love in a small Israeli town, opened last fall on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, where it continues to play. Based on the screenplay by Eran Kolirin, with direction by David Cromer, the musical is about an Egyptian police band, who, after a mixup at the border, find themselves in a remote village in the middle of the Israeli desert. With no bus or hotel in sight, the band members are led into unlikely friendships with some of the locals, causing their lives to intertwine in unexpected and spectacular ways.
