Gabriel Kahane: The Ambassador

Part of BAM 2014 Next Wave Festival

Gabriel Kahane
Directed by John Tiffany

"One of the year’s very best albums…”

—Rolling Stone

Los Angeles—from its Golden Age of Hollywood to its post-apocalyptic future—is the subject of singer-songwriter Gabriel Kahane’s collaboration with Tony Award-winning director John Tiffany (Once, The Glass Menagerie). Anchored by Christine Jones’ (Spring Awakening, Queen of the Night) set design, rich with the cultural detritus of a century, Kahane unearths a city at once glittering and dark, mining everything from Die Hard and detective fiction to race riots and modernist architecture.

The songs—each tied to a different LA street address—play host to a kaleidoscopic array of characters: James M. Cain’s noir heroine Mildred Pierce, a lovesick arsonist, the aging doorman of the storied Ambassador Hotel.[1] Supported by a seven-piece band, Kahane offers a renewed look at a city as aching and wondrous as it is misunderstood.

Set design by Christine Jones
Lighting design by Jane Cox
Projection design by Joshua Higgason
Sound effects design by Bart Fasbender