STEREOPHONIC Extended for Three Additional Weeks at Playwrights Horizons

Playwrights Horizons will present a three-week final extension of David Adjmi’s Stereophonic, directed by Daniel Aukin with original songs by Oscar nominee and Grammy winner Will Butler, formerly of Arcade Fire. The world premiere production now runs through Sunday, December 17, on the Mainstage at Playwrights Horizons (416 West 42nd Street).
 
 
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. With Stereophonic, Adjmi invites audiences to be flies-on-the-wall in the studio, and into the powder keg process of a band on the brink of blowing up.
 
David Adjmi (Elective Affinities, Stunning, Marie Antoinette; author of Lot Six: A Memoir) has been hailed by The New York Times as “virtuosic,” and celebrated in their pages for his “lifelong devotion to art as an identity-defining tool of self-expression” and “his talent for laugh-out-loud funny set pieces.” Stereophonic is a nuanced exploration of its characters’ relationship to art as an externalization of self—and asks how that functions in the collective formation of a band. Its sonically and spatially bisected set (with a control room and sound room, the latter completely sound-proofed from characters outside) creates a painfully funny confusion between public and private.
 
Stereophonic also marks a stylistic shift for Adjmi, in which he takes a hyper-naturalistic approach to the storytelling; Adjmi presents characters’ constructive and destructive propensities; their artistic processes; and their stylistic and personal affinities (and disaffinities) with such meticulousness as to almost seem documentarian.
 
The cast is tasked to create harmonies and dissonances both sonic and emotional: all actors portraying band-members make the band’s music—as they achieve moments of revelation and hit countless walls in the studio—live. Aukin (Catch as Catch Can, Rancho Viejo, Placebo at Playwrights Horizons) guides them in inhabiting a play that simultaneously builds and deconstructs the mythology of fictional to-be-icons. The cast includes Will Brill (Oklahoma! on Broadway, A Case for the Existence of God) as Reg, Andrew R. Butler (Rags Parkland Sings The Songs Of The Future, The Skin of Our Teeth) as Charlie, Juliana Canfield (Fefu and her Friends, “Succession”) as Holly, Eli Gelb (Skintight, The Squid and the Whale) as Grover, Tom Pecinka (He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box, Torch Song) as Peter, Sarah Pidgeon (“Tiny Beautiful Things,” “The Wilds”) as Diana, and Chris Stack (Your Mother’s Copy of the Kama Sutra at Playwrights Horizons, Marie Antoinette) as Simon.
 
The Stereophonic creative team includes David Zinn (scenic designer), Enver Chakartash (costume designer), Jiyoun Chang (lighting designer), Ryan Rumery (sound designer), Justin Craig (music director), Gigi Buffington (vocal, text, and dialect coach), Tommy Kurzman (wig and hair design), and Matt Carlin (props supervisor). Erin Gioia Albrecht is the production stage manager, and Andie Burns is the assistant stage manager.
 

Performance Schedule and Ticketing
 

Stereophonic began previews on October 6, opened October 29, and now runs through December 17 on the Mainstage at Playwrights Horizons (416 West 42nd Street). 
 

About Playwrights Horizons
 

Playwrights Horizons is a writer's theater dedicated to the development of contemporary American Playwrights, and to the production of innovative new work. In a city rich with cultural offerings, Playwrights Horizons' 51-year-old mission is unique among theaters of its size; the organization has distinguished itself by a steadfast commitment to centering and advancing the voice of the playwright. It’s a mission that is always timely, and one that’s necessary in the ongoing evolution of theater in this country.
 
Playwrights Horizons believes that playwrights are the great storytellers of our time, offering essential contributions to civic discourse and illuminating life’s greatest paradoxes. And they believe in the singularity of a writer’s voice, valuing the broad, eclectic spectrum and diversity of American writers. At Playwrights Horizons, writers are supported in every stage of their growth through commissions (engaging several of today’s most imaginative playwrights each year), New Works Lab, Soundstage audio program, and Almanac, the organization’s literary magazine.
 
Playwrights Horizons presents a season of productions annually on their two stages, each of which is a world, American, or New York premiere. Much like Playwrights Horizons’ work, their audience is risk-taking and adventurous; and the organization is committed to strengthening their engagement and feeding their curiosity through all of its programming, onsite and online.