Stereophonic mines the agony and the ecstasy of creation as it zooms in on a music studio in 1976. Here, an up-and-coming rock band recording a new album finds itself suddenly on the cusp of superstardom. The ensuing pressures could spark their breakup — or their breakthrough. Written by David Adjmi, directed by Daniel Aukin, and featuring original music by Arcade Fire's Will Butler, Stereophonic invites the audience to immerse themselves — with fly-on-the-wall intimacy — in the powder keg process of a band on the brink of blowing up.
Structurally, it’s a three-and-a-bit-hour interrogation of the creative process that features little more than the band chatting to each other or recording. Set solely in a windowless studio, director Aukin has supreme confidence in the play’s pacing and rhythms. There is a lot – like a lot – of fannying around over drum sounds and guitar tones, but the play leads us to the right psychological space to understand that there’s much more to this than musos muso-ing. A blizzard of coke, exhaustion, the enormous pressure to follow up their previous album, and of course cataclysmic inter-band tensions all go some way to explain why the band and their affable engineers Grover (Eli Gelb) and Charlie (Andrew R Butler) find themselves agonising over every detail.
In its huge favour: after three hours of eavesdropping on a lovingly recreated retro recording studio (anachronistic Yamaha monitors aside), you’ll likely emerge from the theatre feeling elated and attached to the unnamed band – two fractious couples and a drummer with a fraying marriage back home. They slog through sessions, and verbally slug it out, tended by a pair of geeky but laid-back sound engineers. There’s idle chat and cocaine, spliffs and tiffs, and gilded moments when the music (impressively performed live by the cast) goes from side-show to main event.
| 2023 | Off-Broadway |
Playwrights Horizons Off-Broadway Production Off-Broadway |
| 2024 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
| 2025 | West End |
West End |
| 2025 | US Tour |
US Tour |
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