It is 1976, and we are in a recording studio in California, where a fictional Anglo-American rock band has just started recording their sophomore LP, when they learn that their first album has unexpectedly climbed back up the charts. Their new-found fame comes with added pressures, from the record company’s inflated budget and the glare of artistic expectations. The creative stress takes its toll, as does the tedium of living together out of a suitcase and the long hours holed up in the studio; a strain appeased, or perhaps exacerbated, by a daily diet of cocaine and alcohol. No wonder there are fractures in the band’s professional and personal relationships.
This is the extraordinary play, Stereophonic, which recreates the band’s struggles to record their album. The play is a riveting, fly-on-the-wall depiction of both the magic and the monotony of collaborative, artistic endeavour, as the cast recreates in real-time the process of making music, and play out the price they pay for their art and fame.
Stereophonic premiered at Playwrights Horizons in New York City in October 2023, before moving to Broadway in April 2024, where it was nominated for 13 Tony awards — more than any other play in Broadway history — and won five, including Best Play. The play was written by David Adjmi, directed by Daniel Aukin, and includes original songs written by Will Butler, formerly of rock band Arcade Fire. As we record this episode the show is on stage at the Duke of York’s theatre in London’s West End, with four new British actors joining three of the original cast, all of whom give astounding performances that include singing and playing the instruments as a real live band.
I am thrilled to be joined by the play’s author, David Adjmi, who has enjoyed a whirlwind ride with the success of Stereophonic over the past eighteen months, although it is not true to say that this was an overnight success, as I believe that Stereophonic was ten years in the making. The long gestation could partly be attributed to the fact that Stereophonic is not a conventional play. Nor is it a musical. One might try to label it as a hybrid of the two, a play with songs. But that doesn’t do it justice. It is its own thing.
