Crafting ‘Stereophonic’: How ‘Terrifying’ Rehearsals, Creative Clashes and a Soundproof Studio Led to Broadway’s Buzziest Show
variety.comEthan Shanfeld A little over 10 years ago, David Adjmi was on an airplane, listening to Led Zeppelin’s “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You,” and picturing Robert Plant recording the vocals. “It’s communicating desire and pain and anguish and torture and lust,” Adjmi says of the song. “I was thinking about all of these conflicting emotions and imagining him singing the raw vocal in a studio — the state he must have gotten into to sing it.” Adjmi then started envisioning the room — what it might look like — in his mind.
He was captivated by the thought of using a recording studio as a dramatic landscape. “It felt high concept in a way that my ideas usually are not,” says Adjmi, who’s known for “The Evildoers” and “Marie Antoinette.” More than a decade later, on April 19, he makes his Broadway debut with “Stereophonic,” an epic, seemingly impossible production chronicling a rock band making its sophomore album in 1976.
Set entirely in a studio, “Stereophonic” examines the evolving relationships between musicians in a battle of egos and creative control.
There are standout performances and Tony-worthy songs, but the show’s most intriguing aspect is how it plays with sound, conducting audio through a permeable glass barrier separating the control room and the live room. “The idea felt pregnant with theatrical possibility,” says director Daniel Aukin, who was approached by Adjmi in 2014 and signed on even before there was a script.
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