Get a 1st Listen to 'Be The Outcast' From New Musical Fouad of Nazareth

Get a 1st Listen to 'Be The Outcast' From New Musical Fouad of Nazareth

Palestinian-American composer, and 2025 Jonathan Larson Grant recipient, Fouad Dakwar will release a concept album for the musical.

March 20, 2026 By Meg Masseron

Palestinian-American composer and lyricist Fouad Dakwar's musical Fouad of Nazareth has been developing for several years now, and was previously featured on Playbill's Songwriter Series in 2023. The musical will now be released as a concept album on March 25, and will be celebrated with a release concert at Ars Nova that evening at 7 PM. Tickets for the album release concert are available here.

Get a first listen to "Be The Outcast" from Fouad of Nazareth with the video above.

Directed by Sivan Battat, the musical centers on a teenage Palestinian New Yorker who, amidst the sudden divorce of his parents, must resolve his lifelong identity crisis at a summer camp in the most holy (and wholly controversial) place on earth. The semi-autobiographical, dark-comedy musical features an Arabic-infused pop-punk score.

The anticipated new musical was written and first developed by Dakwar as a graduate student at Berklee NYC. Dakwar has since been named a 2025 Jonathan Larson Grant recipient, a 2024-2025 Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow, a 2026 Kleban Prize finalist, a 2025 Relentless Award semi-finalist, and a member of the Joe’s Pub Council.

Fouad of Nazareth is being developed by Noor Theatre, which also serves as the executive producer of the concept album. The concept album for Fouad of Nazareth will feature 12 original songs from the musical. The cast featured on the album includes Dakwar, Sahar Milani, Layan Elwazani, and Saum Seyed, with music direction by Ben Covello and band orchestrations and performances by Ben Covello, Nathan Repasz, Jenny Giammanco, and Zafer Tawil. The album was engineered and mixed by Henry Reinach. The Fouad of Nazareth concept album was made with support from the Pop Culture Collaborative Fund, a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

Fouad of Nazareth first premiered with two sold-out concerts in February 2024 at Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater. Noor Theatre produced a 29-hour industry reading of the full musical as part of the 2024 Highlight Reading Series, and New York Theatre Workshop recently presented a second industry reading of the piece as part of its Mondays @ 3 Reading Series.

Noor, the New York City-based non-profit theatre, is dedicated to developing, producing and supporting the works of theatre artists of Middle Eastern, North African, and Southwest Asian (MENA/SWANA) descent.

For more information, visit here.