Tony and Grammy winner Ari’el Stachel will perform “An Evening With Ari’el Stachel” in Vancouver on Nov. 9 and 10 as part of the Chutzpah! Festival.
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Ari’el Stachel, a Tony Award winner for his featured actor performance in The Band’s Visit and a Grammy winner for the official cast recording, is set to bring his solo performance piece, An Evening With Ari’el Stachel, to Vancouver on Nov. 9 and 10 as part of the Chutzpah! Festival.
In the one-man show, Stachel presents what he describes as a deeply personal account of defining identity, including the experience of “masking my identity and trying to find different ways of fitting in to be able to get along in the world.”
Stachel said his upbringing and background shaped how he approached identity as he grew up, explaining that for a period of about eight years he claimed to be half-Black, before later “came out” as Middle Eastern in college. He described the overall challenge of identity as “something of a mind melt to come to terms with,” saying it involves shifting global politics, traditions, and what it means to call himself an Arab-Jew.
Stachel also spoke about the foundations of the work, saying “Who I thought I was when I started the play and who I am now are obviously different,” while adding that “the root is always about the fact that you never quite feel like you fit in anywhere.”
The artist traced how his involvement in Middle Eastern theatre companies and cultural groups eventually led him to The Band’s Visit, a musical based on the 2007 Israeli film, which follows the 1996 trip by the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra to Tel Aviv.
After that role, Stachel said he wanted to create a project that reflected his own experiences more directly, adding that it helped him share something “important to me with the world,” and describing the goal as creating “a living, breathing, autobiography designed to entertain.”
An Evening With Ari’el Stachel is being presented as part of the Chutzpah! Festival, which has been running since 2001 and features performances examined through a Jewish cultural lens, with tickets listed at chutzpahfestival.com.
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