Itamar Moses
Completeness (2011)
Fortress of Solitude (2014)
The Band's Visit (2016)
The Ally (2024)
Early life and education[edit]
Moses grew up in a Jewish family[1] in Berkeley, California, earned his bachelor's degree at Yale University, and his Master of Fine Arts degree in dramatic writing from New York University. He has taught playwriting at both Yale and New York University.
Career[edit]
Moses wrote the play Completeness (2011) which premiered at the South Coast Repertory Theatre before transferring to Playwrights Horizons, New York City.[2] The play revolves around young people, in the Computer Science and Biology Departments of a university, talking about love, molecular biology and computer science, while going through a variety of partners.[3] Bob Verini of Variety in a mixed review praised his writing declaring, "[Moses] writes Completeness for both genders — quite well, too — with an unexpectedly fine ear for contempo sexual politics’ dizzying conversational loops".[4] The play went on to receive a nomination for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play.[5] He has written for the TNT comedy-drama Men of a Certain Age (2010–2011) and HBO drama series Boardwalk Empire (2011), the latter of which earned him nominations for two Writers Guild of America Awards.
In 2014 he wrote the book to the musical The Fortress of Solitude with music and lyrics by Michael Friedman. The musical premiered at The Public Theatre starring Adam Chanler-Berat, Andre de Shields, Brian Tyree Henry, and Rebecca Naomi Jones.[6] The musical is a coming-of-age story about teenagers in 1970s Brooklyn.[7] Marilyn Stasio of Variety praised the production but questioned its Broadway potential writing, "Is there an audience for this extraordinary show? Yes. Is there a Broadway audience? Maybe not" she added, "Make no mistake about it; this is no nostalgia piece, but the tragedy of friends who lost touch with one another and the music they grew up with."[8]
His most prominent work, the musical The Band's Visit, opened on December 8, 2016 at the Atlantic Theater Company.[9] That production won the 2017 Obie Award for Musical Theatre Off-Broadway.[10] After closing on January 9, 2017, the musical moved to Broadway.[11] It began previews on October 7, 2017 and officially opened on November 9, 2017 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. For his work on The Band's Visit, Moses won the 2018 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical.
In 2024 Moses wrote the comedy-drama The Ally starring Josh Radnor as a Jewish college professor who deals with the moral quandary of being asked to sign a petition involving the denouncement of the state of Israel. The play was originally conceived during the Obama years and was slated to premiere in 2020 but was halted due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The production directed by Lila Neugebauer has received positive reviews with Sara Holdren of Vulture praising the performances and writing adding, "Pulsing ominously at the heart of The Ally is a question — a truly frightening one for artists, for scholars, for critics — about the more perilous face of nuance."[12] In a mixed review from Jesse Green of The New York Times he wrote that while "Moses’s play offers eloquent arguments on all sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" it lacks certain narrative stakes adding, "I felt the need for more wisdom than craft".[13]