An Evening with Ari'el Stachel

Saturday, October 17 2026 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm Show runs 90 minutes with dessert reception immediately following Tony and GRAMMY Award winner Ari’el Stachel takes the stage at Maine Jewish Museum in OTHER, his acclaimed autobiographical one-man show about what happens when the person the world sees and the person you know yourself to be don’t quite match. Stachel shot to Broadway prominence originating the role of Haled in The Band’s Visit, winning the 2018 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. But behind that extraordinary success was a far more complicated story. Growing up as the son of a Yemenite-Israeli father and an Ashkenazi-American mother in the post-9/11 United States, Stachel learned early how quickly other people could assign him an identity. He wrestled with anxiety while distancing himself from parts of his own heritage before beginning the much harder journey toward embracing all of it. In OTHER, Stachel brings an ensemble of characters from his past to life in a performance that is hilarious, startlingly vulnerable, and deeply human. Moving from childhood reinventions to performing through chronic panic in front of thousands, he explores identity, family, ambition, anxiety, self-acceptance, and the universal desire to belong without having to edit ourselves first. Following the performance, please join us for a dessert reception and an opportunity to continue the conversation. Ari’el Stachel is a Tony® and GRAMMY® Award-winning actor, writer, and activist best known for his breakout performance in The Band’s Visit. Born to a Yemenite Israeli father and an Ashkenazi Jewish mother, his career has been shaped by code-switching, cultural erasure, and the pressure to conform — experiences that led him to create Other, his acclaimed solo show which premiered at Berkeley Rep and made its New York Off-Broadway debut in fall 2025. A vocal advocate for mental health awareness and Jewish identity, Ari’el has been featured on MSNBC speaking about cultural belonging and continues to create space for nuance and shared humanity in his art and activism. On screen, he stars in the upcoming feature Death Do Us Part and has appeared in Don’t Worry Darling (Warner Bros.) and A24’s Zola, with television credits including Law & Order: SVU, Billions, and The Night Agent. Ari’el Stachel’s Maine Jewish Museum residency and all associated programs are made possible through the generous support of the Sam L. Cohen Foundation. Friday, October 16 2026 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm Pull up a chair for a very special edition of Maine Jewish Museum’s At the Table series with Tony and GRAMMY Award-winning actor, writer, and singer Ari’el Stachel.