Written and Performed by Gabriel Kahane
Directed by Annie Tippe
Producer: Playwrights Horizons
Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, Off-Broadway, New York, NY, Fall 2024
Scenography: AMP feat. Oscar Escobedo
Costume Design: Wendy Yang
Lighting Design by Christopher Bowser
Sound Design by Garth MacAleavey
Production Stage Manager: Elizabeth Emanuel
Photo Credit: Marc J. Franklin
In this duo of intimate solo musical plays, composer Gabriel Kahane blends songwriting and storytelling for a singular, poignant theatrical event. Book of Travelers recounts the strangers he met on a 9,000-mile train journey through a divided America, and Magnificent Bird chronicles a year he spent entirely off-line, and the unexpected turbulence of living quietly. Performed on alternating nights, these two concept albums offer a relentless self-inquiry, and a searing portrait of a world in flux.
“An exercise in lyric beauty… [Kahane] is one of the finest, most searching songwriters of the day… Book of Travelers is a song cycle of unwavering seriousness, delivering snapshots of a broken and desperate nation.” — Alex Ross, The New Yorker
Gabriel Kahane is “a spiritual successor to people like Sondheim and LaChiusa, with a style all his own. That style is on excellent display at Playwrights.” —David Gordon, Theatermania
