Eamon Lujan, Guest Writer
Stereophonic is a new play written by David Adjimi and directed by Daniel Aukin with original songs by Will Butler. It debuted at Playwrights Horizons, a theatre that fosters new work by playwrights hoping to break into the business. The play became the most nominated play ever at the 2024 Tony Awards with 13 nominations, beating the previous record of 12 held by Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play. While it did not win every nomination, it did win Best Play, Best Direction of a Play, and Best Sound Design of a Play. Will Brill won the award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his role as Reg, and Sarah Pidegon won Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as Diana. The show we saw had the full principal cast, although Sarah Pidegon and two other original cast members, Tom Pecinka and Juliana Canfield, had left the show by this point.
The play follows a band trying to record their next album after their first received international acclaim. They’ve recently become quite well-known, and the pressure of fame weighs heavily on them. We watch the band, their producer, and assistant with a kind of fly-on-the-wall view.
Early we see the seeds of discontent being sewn within the band, seeds that blossom into anger and resentment as they spend longer and longer in the recording studio. We are often without context as to what time of day it is, until one of them complains that it’s 3 AM and they’re at take 34. At one point, Grover, their producer, hears something loose in Simon’s drum. Fast forward and they have spent 6 days trying to get rid of the rattle sound. It takes them a full year to record the album, a slow and torturous time for our characters, but not for the audience, despite the show holding four acts and a runtime of three hours and fifteen minutes.
The greatest praise I can give to this play requires some context. The day I saw Stereophonic was the day we flew into New York. I woke up at 5 AM to catch a 7 AM flight, landed at LaGuardia at 1 PM, took a hellish ride on the Q70 bus to the Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Avenue/74th Street-Broadway subway stop, took the 7 Train into Times Square, spent far too long trying to check in to our hotel, caught a 5 PM show of Oh, Mary!, left the Lyceum at 6:20 PM, rushed to grab coffee somewhere, and was finally seated right at 7pm to see Stereophonic.
Despite the long and arduous travel day, my attention never wavered during Stereophonic. It is a captivating piece of theatre; I found myself quickly invested in these characters despite knowing them for so little time. Part of this is due to Enver Chakartash’s wonderfully 70’s costume designs, and Robert Pickens and Katie Gell’s hair and wigs, adding the touches needed to complete the characters’ looks. It firmly establishes a time, setting, and attitude for everyone onstage. Other little touches like prop cigarettes and joints bring it all together. Those props were lit with a real lighter onstage and they produced real smoke the audience could smell. The other part of what grabbed me so quickly were the performances.
Prior to seeing the show, I had heard some naysayers on the internet claiming the show had lost its “je ne sais quoi” since the three original cast members left the production. The new members “couldn’t capture the energy” or whatever. However, the cast I saw was electric. They embody the play’s deeply naturalistic style, just people having candid conversations about life and work and tensing up when ill-tempered characters enter the recording studio. I cannot imagine how the performances could have been better beyond nitty gritty preferences on character interpretations.
Special shoutout to Eli Gelb who played Grover, the primary sound engineer. Grover is a chill man who unravels at the seams slowly as he is enveloped by the hellish working conditions the band put him through. Perhaps I connected with him because he feels like he’s part of the audience, watching everything unfold helplessly and trying to stay out of it. When Eli came out for bows, I had a hard time believing that Gelb was the man who played Grover and not just Grover himself.
Will Brill is also brilliant, rightfully deserving of his Tony Award. He starts the show particularly inebriated, and we watch his slow journey to sobriety as he reckons with the fact sobriety alone cannot solve all his issues. Early in the show, there’s a particularly amusing moment when Reg goes on an incoherent stoned rant about houseboats and the “secret war” happening between rich houseboat owners. It is a wonderful bit of acting from Brill, and had sold me on the validity of his Tony win long before he even started to have his character arc.
The real cherry on top is getting to hear the band play music live. The foreground of the stage has the soundboard and acts as a “hangout” area, and the background is a full recording studio area. Ryan Rumery’s sound design gives a distinct quality to the actors’ voices when they are speaking on the recording microphones, giving an extra layer of authenticity to the whole thing.
The music in this show is really, really good. The most gripping and magical moments of the show come from watching a take finally come together, waiting with bated breath to see if the band can nail it this time, and sharing a sigh of relief with the characters when they do in fact nail it. I think perhaps the only critique or gripe I have with this show is the ending, or rather the feeling I was left with as it ended. There was so much drama and tension and yelling and when it ended, I asked “well, what was it all for?”. It doesn’t feel like it leads to a neat conclusion, but I feel perhaps that’s the point. You can stream the album they made (really just a cast album for the show), and it hits differently after seeing everything that made the music possible. It feels almost tainted, and even though the music is bopping, you can’t justify the pain people went through to make it.
The show officially closed on January 12th, but I am so glad to say it will be going on tour! Playbill reports that the tour will begin in October at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle. Recently, The Denver Center for the Performing Arts (DCPA) has been featuring touring one play per Broadway season, so I have very high hopes it will be in Denver in the next two years. The DCPA 2025-2026 season will be announced sometime in March. Alongside that, it is going to transfer to the West End at The Duke of York Theatre, with performances beginning in May of this year.