First look at West End premiere of Stereophonic

Written by Penny for Theatre and Tonic.

The play Stereophonic was a huge hit on Broadway. Its 2024 limited run extended multiple times and it achieved a record 13 Tony nominations, winning five, including Best Play. Written by David Adjimi, with original music composed by Arcade Fire’s Will Butler, it follows a fictional British-American 70s rock band as they record that “difficult second album”.

Now Stereophonic is transferring to the West End, directed once again by Daniel Aukin who led the production to such huge success on Broadway. Ahead of its opening in London, I went along to Old Street Records – a fitting location for rock fans – to find out more about the play and enjoy a preview of what audiences can expect to enjoy this summer.

Our host, DJ Lauren Laverne, introduced the creative team behind Stereophonic. She asked writer David Adjimi to take us through the story. He explained:

“Stereophonic takes place in California. It’s about a band recording an album over the course of a very long year. They’ve just come off of a tour in support of their first album which is steadily creeping back up the charts as they record the second, and they’re starting to see little bits and pieces of this encroaching new fame that they’re starting to experience. As the fame starts to get closer and closer, the pressure is mounting. It’s about these people and their personal and professional relationships and how these things bleed together and are intertwined”.

Talking about his inspiration for the play, he remembered being on a flight and listening on the in- flight radio to a Led Zeppelin song:

“I knew it because my brother, who is 12 years older than me, used to practice guitar in his room playing these chords and so I knew the them but this was the first time I ever heard the song and something weirdly alchemical happened. I was listening to the song and remembering it and my childhood and my brother and I Robert Plant’s vocals are electric and crazily emotional and there was something he captured in these vocals, this weird bleed between desire and aversion and begging and heartbreak and lust.  I tried to imagine what it had been like in that studio, to be in this intimate space in front of a microphone performing and then I just suddenly saw it as a set for a play”.

Director Daniel Aukin talked about the opportunities presented by setting the play in a studio environment:

“You get to have the possibility of people having conversations which they think are private and that other people can overhear and you also have the possibility of people screaming behind sound proof glass and you can’t hear, you can switch the sound off. Those kind of things could be almost like a farce. We didn’t know until we got onto the set if it would really work”.

Songwriter Will Butler then talked about the challenge not only of writing songs that could credibly be huge 1970s hits, but also writing them as fragments and demos, as well as the finished product. 

“The character Diana has a song she’s working on and we see it in a bunch of forms. Then there’s a song called Masquerade and the band plays the first 30 seconds of it six times. So it has to be funny, then the next time it has to feel really epic, and then you have to hear it again and it should also feel good but NOT be funny!

It’s a delightul puzzle at times. I’d have to just write one verse of a song, so it’s liberating to not have to think about the second verse. But I had to make that one verse so heartbreaking and just focus on one verse of theoretically one of the best songs of the 70s!”

On how he knew when he’d got the music right, Will said:

“Doing it in the workshops I could see what the music was doing for the cast and if the cast was feeling right. You can see the syllables in other people’s mouths and that tells you if something is true or false and sometimes you have a half assed miracle and someone sings it and you’re like ‘Oh they’re a REALLY good actor, that means something now, it was just filler but they’ve made it really emotional, that works!”

To round off the afternoon, the London cast of Stereophonic performed some excerpts from the play. Will introduced Diana’s song that he had previously spoken of, first singing a section himself before handing over to Lucy Karczewski, who plays Diana. She sang with acoustic accompaniment before finishing with the full band experience – three very different interpretations.

Finishing off with “Masquerade”, we were given a taste of the talent that has led this fictional band to the brink of superstardom. With impressive riffs and proper rock vocals, it was a fantastic end to the afternoon and the perfect trailer for Stereophonic.

It’s safe to say London is going to ROCK this summer!

Stereophonic runs at the Duke of York’s Theatre from 24th May. Find out more and book here.