A stage adaptation of Khaled Hosseini's bestselling book The Kite Runner, which has played in the U.S. and London, debuts on Broadway for a limited engagement in summer 2022. Get The Kite Runner tickets on New York Theatre Guide now.
The Kite Runner play, like the novel, centers on a man named Amir, who grew up in Afghanistan. He and a boy named Hassan were childhood friends, finding fun and solace in each other and their shared love of kite-flying while Afghanistan is on the brink of war. On the otherwise joyful day of a kite-flying tournament, another boy attacks Hassan, believing Hassan's Hazara Afghan race is inferior to the Pashtun race he and Amir share. Amir witnesses the act, but is afraid to intervene, and their friendship breaks down.
Years later, Amir is living in America and has a successful writing career, but his home country is deep in the throes of war and Taliban control. He receives word that Hassan's son is in danger there, so he makes the risky decision to return to Afghanistan to save him, in an attempt at redeeming his past failures.
The Kite Runner novel, published in 2003, was Hosseini's first book. Though it was a modest success at first, the book soared in popularity in 2004 when it was printed in paperback and picked up by book clubs. The Kite Runner became a New York Times bestseller in March 2005 and remained one for two years, and seven million copies were sold as of 2013, when Hosseini published his third book. (His other works include A Thousand Splendid Suns and And the Mountains Echoed.)
Matthew Spangler's stage adaptation of The Kite Runner premiered in 2009, two years after a 2007 film adaptation of the book was released; the two are unrelated. The play premiered at California's San Jose Repertory Theatre in 2009 and, five years later, received its U.K. premiere at Nottingham Playhouse Theatre Company in 2014. The Kite Runner played two engagements in the West End: one at the Wyndham's Theatre in 2016, and another at the Playhouse Theatre in 2017. Croft directed all the U.K. productions, and he returns to helm the Kite Runner Broadway premiere.
Tickets to The Kite Runner in New York are available now.
