How The Producer Of ‘The Band’s Visit’ Turned A Small Israeli Movie Into A Tony Award-Sweeping Musical

“The origin story begins in 2007, when [Orin] Wolf took his wife, who was born in Israel, to the Other Israel Film Festival at J.C.C. Manhattan on the Upper West Side. There was a new Israeli film playing that they wanted to see — The Band’s Visit, a fictional story about an Egyptian police orchestra that gets stranded for a night in an Israeli desert town. Mr. Wolf was, at that point, a producer largely in his dreams.”