Producer brings ‘The Kite Runner’ to Broadway

The New York Times bestselling novel, “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini has hit the stage for a limited engagement on Broadway.

Since its arrival in New York City, the performance has gained notoriety from several theater critics for its interpretation of the award-winning story about a powerful friendship between two friends from Afghanistan, driven apart by an unforeseeable incident.

Adapted for the stage by Matthew Spangler, the theatrical production premiered at the San Jose Repertory Theatre in 2009 before making its way across the pond, where it was picked up by director Giles Croft for a limited run in London’s famed West End.

It was during its UK run in 2017 when the play caught the attention of Broadway and Beyond Theatricals, an independently-owned theatrical touring agency and production company, co-founded by Long Island natives, Victoria Lang and Ryan Bogner, who felt that its transition to Broadway was a no brainer.

“We had a bit of a tour booked before Covid,” Lang said. “So that went on the back burner and then the Helen Hayes theater became available for a limited engagement this past summer and so we jumped at the opportunity to pitch ‘The Kite Runner.’ They liked the idea. It was a good meld with their programming and their subscribers and off we went.”

Due to the unforeseen shutdowns caused by the pandemic, plans for the show stalled for more than two years before it finally opened in July 2022.

Bogner, a Rockville Centre native who has been working on the development, production, financing, and licensing of theatrical productions for more than 10 years, said that what makes the theater such a great venue for a story like “The Kite Runner” is that it makes the experience more personal to the audience.

“The main character of the novel is telling us his story of redemption directly to us and how he got there and it makes it more visceral in some ways because it’s personal. You’re in the room with him as he’s telling this story to the audience,” Bogner said.

Unlike the book, the theatrical performance is told through a series of vignettes, told through the eyes of the main character as his journey transitions from childhood to adulthood.

“So you see the same actor go on the entire journey, whereas in the film, you’re seeing younger kids portraying the role. It takes a different tack and it opens up a different focus and feelings about the story,” Bogner said.

In order to put on such a large-scale production, Bogner said that it took hundreds of people working in tandem to pull it off—from the actors and set designers to the box office staff and security.

“It really does take a village to do theater,” Bogner said. “That’s one of the rewarding things about it. It takes a big group to make it happen.”

According to Bogner every performance is unique and lives in the context of the times that they’re being produced. This means that the perspective of the audience changes based on what’s going on in the world today.

“We have to think about that. That’s how we frame the conversation of why you would want to see the show,” he said. “If we were doing ‘The Kite Runner’ today means something different than five years ago when things were a little calmer in the region. And as we know, right now, Afghanistan is in a much more difficult way since we’ve left. And that reality, the audience brings that with them into it.”

Tickets to see “The Kite Runner” on Broadway are limited as the show must end on October 30. For more information on the performance visit TheKiteRunnerBroadway.com, and be sure to look out for future dates as plans have been announced for a North American tour in 2024.