LOS ANGELES — If you think musicals are all dance numbers and razzle dazzle, there’s a group of out-of-town musicians who have a very different story to tell.

"The Band’s Visit" is based on a quiet, low-budget Israeli movie that star Sasson Gabay says was shot in just 21 days.

When Gabay heard someone wanted to turn it into a Broadway musical, he found it unbelievable.

“I thought to myself, this is crazy idea,” he said with a laugh. “This can’t work. I mean, the movie is so delicate. It’s so human.”

The unbelievable not only happened, but also went on to win 10 Tony Awards, sweeping the big six categories including Best Musical. Gabay is now touring in the show he found so unlikely, playing Tewfiq, the same role he played in the 2007 film and also on Broadway after taking over for actor Tony Shalhoub.

At its heart — and it has a lot of heart — the show is about the need for human connection, a need Gabay says has grown more acute since the pandemic.

“This play is talking about humanity, about connection, about breaking borders between people,” Gabay said. “So it’s more significant this time after what we’ve passed through.”

The same goes for the first song, "Waiting." Actress Janet Dacal was part of the tour before it shut down in March 2020. Like the characters in the story, she spent many months waiting and wondering.

“We did not know whether or not the show was going to come back,” Dacal said. “Many shows did not come back.”

That's why Dacal is doubly grateful to be back in the fictional town of Bet Hatikvah, with a "B." Performed in English, Arabic and Hebrew, the play makes audiences truly listen, and Dacal says the journey of the characters grabs people by the gut.

“It makes you lean in,” she said.

Dacal is also thrilled to be back in Los Angeles, where she grew up and was first introduced to musical theatre. She remembers seeing the "Les Misérables" tour at the Pantages when she was a little girl.

“I remember what I wore,” she said, beaming a huge smile. “I had this little white dress on. It was such an amazing, special experience.”

And so is stepping into the role of Dina each night, Dacal added. She is so connected to her character and the material that she even named her new puppy Omar Shariff after one of the most haunting songs in the score. For her, this show is exactly what’s needed right now.

"As human beings, part of being alive is sharing the human experience," she said. "When a person is in front of you and has a problem, our human instinct is to step in and help regardless of where they are from, and that is a great message, I think."

The story is set halfway around the world, in a small town that couldn’t be more different from LA, but composer and lyricist David Yazbek says the lessons are universal. So often, he explained, many of the boundaries that separate people are imagined and unnecessary.

“People’s labels of who they are or who they are supposed to be are forcing humans apart on a daily basis and in a very strong and dangerous way,” he said. “As soon as we start the process of connecting, they kind of disappear. That’s a very important lesson right now.”

Yazbek, who has another show, "Tootsie" that is coming to the Dolby later this season, has seen the spell "The Band’s Visit" casts on audiences coast to coast. And while he says he selfishly wants people to walk away humming his songs, he is also glad when they are still and silent.

“I love watching an audience, after laughing really hard at one song, getting really quiet in the next song or scene and literally leaning forward to see why a character is moving that way,” Yazbek said.

Yazbek gives a lot of the credit to Gabay’s ability to evoke empathy even when his character isn’t saying a word. It’s an honor having him in the show, Yazbek said.

“He’s just an amazing actor.”

Gabay, on the other hand, credits the power of the story, the music and silences, and the pauses as characters reach across voids, carefully trying to find each word.

"People can find themselves when they are watching the play, how we are all alike and having the need of each other," he said.

It's a heartfelt, hypnotic musical that quietly reminds us to open ourselves to one another, lean in and connect. It’s a story Gabay has been telling in different forms for more than a decade, but one that never gets old, the actor says, because “we always need it.”