Review Roundup: STEREOPHONIC National Tour

Stereophonic, the 2024 Tony Award winner for Best Play, is now on its first National Tour. Read the reviews for the tour as they come in here!

The national touring cast features Jack Barrett as Grover, Claire DeJean as Diana, Steven Lee Johnson as Charlie, Emilie Kouatchou as Holly, Cornelius McMoyler as Simon, Denver Milord as Peter, and Christopher Mowod as Reg, with Eli Bridges, Andrew Gombas, Quinn Allyn Martin, Jake Regensburg, and Lauren Wilmore rounding out the company.

Written by David Adjmi, directed by Daniel Aukin, and featuring original music by Arcade Fire’s Will Butler, Stereophonic mines the agony and ecstasy of creation as it zeroes in on a 1976 recording studio, where a young rock band stands on the edge of superstardom. Over the course of one album, tensions flare, relationships fracture, and the line between collaboration and chaos dissolves — all captured with startling intimacy and realism.

The Broadway production of Stereophonic made history in 2024 as the most Tony-nominated play ever, earning 13 nominations and winning five awards, including Best Play, Best Direction (Daniel Aukin), Best Scenic Design (David Zinn), and Best Sound Design (Ryan Rumery). 

Originally slated for a 14-week Broadway engagement, Stereophonic was extended twice by popular demand, closing at the Golden Theatre on January 12, 2025, after 305 performances. The production began a West End engagement in May 2025 at London’s Duke of York’s Theatre, with the U.S. national tour launching later that year.

Gemma Wilson, The Seattle Times: Yes, it’s a long play, and long, naturalistic plays aren’t for everyone, nor are scenes and conversations that stretch out in real time. (And could this radio edit have trimmed an additional 15 or 20 minutes without losing the narrative? Sure.) But if you can tap into your presmartphone attention span, you’ll be rewarded with a funny, tense, deeply human drama — if you’re into that sort of thing.

Steve Murray, BroadwayWorld: Stereophonic is about creation and we see snippets of songs being written, reworked, and argued over. With a score by Grammy-winning musician Will Butler, formerly of Arcade Fire, both musicologists, producers and engineers will have a field day with the attention to details. The tempo is slow and measured, and with its running time of close to three hours, audiences are tested for their patience.

Leslie Katz, Piedmont Exedra: At times, playwright David Adjmi’s plot and dialogue feel truly authentic. The musicians’ conversations and gossip, the starts and stopping, the waiting around, the numerous takes of the same song — everything so characteristic of a recording session — feel real.

August Hammel, Golden Gate Xpress: Throughout the show, its highs and lows alike, Daniel Aukin’s sublime direction balances everything out. A show like this, which brings the claustrophobia of producing an album in a confined space to the fore, lives and dies by its blocking. Aukin bluntly but masterfully arranges his performers like chess pieces and crafts a striking composition with them in every scene.

David John Chavez, KQED: Here in the Bay Area, there’s something special about seeing Stereophonic — a co-production between ACT and BroadwaySF — finally performed in its spiritual home. The studio is clearly modeled after the Record Plant in Sausalito, where Fleetwood Mac recorded Rumours. Band members take breaks to eat at Juanita’s, the famed Sausalito restaurant-slash-three ring circus run by the region’s most colorful owner and chef. There’s also a terrific vintage T-shirt (period costumes were designed by Enver Chakartash) from a venerable San Leandro sports bar, some potent weed from Santa Cruz, and references to Tiburon, Stinson Beach and Oakland.

Lily Janiak, San Francisco Chronicle: Directed by Daniel Aukin, the show occasionally cradles its pregnant pauses or indulges monologues like a pampering mother. We don’t need to hear about every character’s dream or movie hot take, and loading those digressions with more weight than they deserve looks portentous. At these moments, it’s like the show’s so in love with itself that everything it comes up with is de facto brilliant. But most of the time, “Stereophonic” is brilliant, and such lapses are instantly forgivable.

Average Rating: 83.3%