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One N.A., member FDIC. Last

1:21

week on the show, we told you about an unusual

1:23

new play on

1:30

Broadway called Stereophonic. It

1:32

is a long, intimate, funny

1:34

and totally gripping show about a

1:37

co-ed rock band in the 1970s

1:40

as they record an album that will turn out to

1:42

be a huge hit. Stereophonic itself

1:44

has turned out to be a huge

1:46

hit. If you watched the Tony

1:49

Awards the other night, you saw superstars like

1:51

Alicia Keys and Jay-Z, Daniel

1:53

Radcliffe, even Hillary Clinton, who

1:55

co-produced a Broadway musical this season,

1:57

but it was Stereophonic, the play

1:59

with... A bunch of nobodies, as

2:01

one cast member said during the

2:03

Tony Awards, that stole the

2:05

show, winning five awards. Here

2:08

is the playwright, David Adjmee, accepting

2:10

his award for best play. This

2:13

was a very hard journey to

2:15

get this play up here. Michael

2:18

McKeel and Fran Offenhauser, who gave me a

2:20

place to live for seven years so that

2:22

I could write this play. It's really hard

2:24

to make a career in the arts. We

2:27

need to fund the arts in America. It

2:29

is the hallmark of a civilized society. When

2:34

I interviewed Adjmee a couple weeks ago, I asked

2:37

him what it's like to be at the vortex

2:39

of a huge hit. He has

2:41

been writing plays for a couple decades, but

2:43

this is his first show on Broadway. Here's

2:46

what he told us. I feel like I've been

2:48

in a car accident. We all feel that way. We're

2:50

just totally dislocated. It doesn't feel good. It feels weirdly

2:53

bad. I have a little bit of a

2:55

hard time believing that. No, I know. Everyone

2:58

does because you can't take in

3:00

what's good or bad. You're just taking

3:02

in stimuli, you're taking in the overstimulation,

3:04

which you can't take in because it

3:06

exceeds your capacity. I know

3:08

it's positive intellectually, but the way I'm

3:10

processing it isn't like joyous.

3:13

There's moments of joy. And then

3:15

we just get dislocated again because we don't

3:17

know what's happening. It's too weird when your

3:19

status changes. Everyone starts to

3:21

act really weird. I don't like

3:23

it. Maybe David

3:25

Adjme is just an unusual person. Or

3:29

maybe the people who create

3:31

theater are an unusual people,

3:34

tuned to a different frequency. Why

3:37

else would someone try to make a living

3:39

in an industry that is so financially precarious,

3:42

even in the best of times? And these

3:45

have not been the best of times. I'd

3:47

say our costs have gone up about 30% since

3:50

the pandemic. So today

3:52

on Freakonomics Radio, will the

3:54

success of stereophonic help change

3:56

this grim future? It's

3:59

not that we're waiting for it. for the

4:01

audiences to come back. It's that the core

4:03

audience entirely has shifted. Also, when

4:06

you have a hot show, how

4:08

do you think about raising ticket prices? You

4:11

kind of play a game of chicken with yourself

4:13

and with your audience. And

4:15

we will give you some backstage gossip,

4:17

too. I don't know if I'm allowed

4:19

to say this. Yes, you're

4:21

allowed. We'll hear all that

4:23

starting now. This

4:38

is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that

4:40

explores the hidden side of everything

4:43

with your host, Stephen Dubner. As

4:55

I mentioned in our previous episode,

4:57

this two-part look at Stereophonic spun

4:59

out of another series that we're

5:01

making about the economics of live

5:03

theater. The fundamental problem

5:05

here is that theater is a handmade

5:07

thing, and it doesn't get much more

5:09

efficient even as you add technology, the

5:11

way most industries do. Stereophonic

5:14

is a relatively small show

5:16

with just seven onstage performers,

5:18

but they sit atop a

5:20

pyramid of dozens of people who help put

5:23

on the show every night. Stage

5:25

managers, wardrobe and props managers,

5:27

lighting and sound technicians, the

5:29

ushers in the theater, you

5:32

even have to pay understudies, actors on

5:34

standby in case anyone from the cast

5:37

gets sick. It

5:39

would be one thing if you could scale up

5:41

a show that becomes a hit, if you could

5:43

sell five or ten thousand

5:45

tickets a night rather than the seven

5:47

hundred and seventy that can fit into

5:50

the Golden Theater where Stereophonic is playing.

5:53

The show is seen by roughly

5:55

six thousand people every week. David

5:58

Adjmee, who wrote Stereophonic he is not

6:00

one of those 6,000. Oh,

6:03

I don't watch it. I don't see my shows

6:05

because I can't stand watching my own show in

6:07

front of an audience. Sometimes I'll

6:09

have my assistant go as me. So I

6:11

teach my assistant everything that I'm looking for

6:14

and all my sticking points. And

6:16

then I say, okay, did that happen? Did that happen?

6:18

Did that happen? But I don't like to watch it

6:20

because I find it too intimate

6:23

and excruciating. Is it excruciating because it's a

6:25

thing that you made or it's excruciating because

6:27

it's a thing that you made that is

6:29

you essentially? Both, but

6:31

more the latter. And it's excruciating because it's live

6:33

and I can't control it, but

6:36

it's me also. It is the most vulnerable

6:38

thing in the world. I can't even tell you. So

6:44

if David Adjmee isn't in the audience, who

6:46

is? On Broadway right now,

6:48

there are 35 shows running. Last

6:51

week, they collectively sold 300,000 tickets. Who

6:55

are those people? Let's ask someone

6:57

who knows. My name is John Johnson. I

7:00

run a production company called Wagner Johnson Productions.

7:02

That is a producing company as well as

7:05

a general management company. Johnson is

7:07

one of the lead producers on Stereophonic.

7:10

I asked him who is coming to

7:12

the theater post pandemic? There used

7:14

to be and we used to call them carriage

7:16

trade audiences that

7:18

came from the Upper West Side and Upper

7:20

East Side that were women of a certain

7:22

age who would come down and see, the

7:25

new play from the National Theater or, oh, Glenda

7:27

Jackson's in a play. I'm going to see that.

7:30

But now? A new core

7:32

audience has emerged in this season. It

7:34

was emerging as we've gone through each

7:37

season sequentially post pandemic. This

7:39

season is the season of, oh,

7:41

it's not that we're waiting for the

7:43

audiences to come back. It's that the

7:46

core audience entirely has shifted because we

7:48

do have many more successes in season

7:50

three post pandemic than we did the

7:52

last two. Name some

7:54

of those successes in addition to Stereophonic.

7:57

You have Gutenberg, the musical, which

7:59

recouped. in the fall you have the

8:01

production of O'Mary that was a huge hit

8:03

off Broadway that then transferred. We were producers,

8:05

lead producers on Danny and Deep Blue Sea

8:07

off Broadway that started Aubrey Plaza. That

8:10

was a similar sort of success story. And

8:13

then further on Broadway we're seeing you know

8:15

Jeremy Strong and enemy of the people, Sarah

8:17

Paulson and inappropriate. Some would say oh well Jeremy

8:19

Strong was on Succession of course it's going to

8:21

be a massive sellout. Sarah

8:23

Paulson is a star as well but

8:25

this isn't Daniel Craig who I've been

8:28

fortunate enough to work with. It's not

8:30

folks that are global superstars. If

8:33

the core audience pre-pandemic was women ages

8:35

late 50s into their 70s that were

8:37

seeing shows six to eight times a

8:39

year that audience has shifted down dramatically

8:42

to folks in their late 30s to

8:44

their early 50s who have binged

8:46

every season of American Horror Story that Sarah Paulson's

8:49

in and now when she's in a play they're

8:51

going oh she's on stage now I'm

8:53

going. The folks who binged Succession four times over

8:55

are sitting there going Jeremy Strong's in a play.

8:57

I'm going to that. I don't care

8:59

how much it costs. It's event theater. Event theater has

9:02

always been there but I think the nature of who

9:04

is part of that event theater now

9:06

has shifted a little bit. The other thing

9:08

I noticed about the stereophonic audience it was the

9:10

first play I've ever been to on Broadway play

9:12

or musical where the restroom

9:14

line for the men's was longer than the

9:16

women's at intermission. Did you see Lehman trilogy

9:18

two years ago because it was the same

9:21

way Lehman trilogy? I did not. But I

9:23

agree stereophonic fits into that same generational shift

9:25

as well in terms of the new core

9:27

audience because one would think oh

9:29

it's a story about a band in the late

9:31

70s it's dead aimed towards a

9:33

boomer audience. Don't get me wrong it's not

9:35

that we don't have folks who are in that

9:37

generation who'd come and see it but the groundswell

9:39

of support the age range of it you would

9:42

think oh how is Gen Z going to tip

9:44

into a play like this when most

9:46

of these folks weren't born even 20 years

9:48

after the play but I think the nature

9:51

of rock and roll the

9:53

nature of creating music the nature

9:55

of this bubble of a studio

9:57

and the drama that that creates is timeless.

10:04

I think the reason why especially a lot of young people

10:06

are coming to the theater in 2024

10:09

is that we forget because I think

10:11

we have collective PTSD, but we were

10:13

locked in our houses for three and

10:15

a half years. I think people want

10:17

to be around each other. That

10:19

is Tom Pasinka, the actor who plays

10:21

Peter, the leader of the band in

10:23

Stereophonic. The band is never named,

10:26

but they do bear a firm resemblance to

10:28

Fleetwood Mac. Peter and

10:30

his girlfriend, Diana, are at the

10:32

center of a lot of the

10:34

show's drama. The entire cast has

10:36

remained intact since the show began

10:38

last year off-Broadway at the nonprofit

10:40

theater Playwrights Horizons. Off-Broadway,

10:43

it felt very fake until you make

10:45

it. You have to construct

10:48

intimacy. You have to

10:50

construct chemistry. I

10:52

always say that on Broadway, if you had

10:54

seen it off-Broadway, I think you're going to

10:56

see a much tighter knit group. Sarah

10:59

and I, we didn't know each other

11:01

at all. I'm

11:04

Sarah Pigeon, and I'm currently in

11:06

Stereophonic playing Diana. We've

11:09

done 50 performances and we've gotten

11:11

previews close to 70. We

11:14

did 70-something performances at Playwrights

11:16

and 20-something previews. No one's taken the

11:19

show off yet. Are you kidding? Not

11:21

at all. At Playwrights,

11:24

we canceled the first preview because

11:26

I got sick, and

11:28

then we canceled the fourth to last

11:30

show because someone lost their voice. So

11:34

we've only missed two. There's sort of

11:37

been this agreement that unless you're deathly

11:39

ill, you'll be on the stage. So

11:41

you have a bunch of pissed off

11:43

understudies? I wouldn't—I don't know. You'd

11:45

have to interview them. I

11:48

mean, I think it just requires a different type of

11:51

stamina. Live theater has

11:53

been declared dead or dying for

11:55

years. We have TV and film,

11:57

and now we have an endless stream

11:59

of movies. At

32:01

least the actor playing Peter won't be

32:03

sleeping on couches anytime soon. Tom

32:06

Pasinka has been performing his whole life.

32:08

He did musicals all through high school

32:10

and eventually went to Yale drama school.

32:13

He's kept busy ever since. Some

32:15

stage work, some TV and film,

32:17

but career success has

32:20

taken a while. Stereophonic

32:22

is a big boost for him.

32:25

I'm doing interviews for the first time. I'm doing photo

32:27

shoots for the first time. I'm doing all this stuff.

32:29

It's like so novel to me, everything. Is

32:32

it everything I've ever wanted? Like on paper?

32:34

Yeah, for sure. But experiencing

32:36

it is a very different story. We

32:39

had a big press day when the Tony nominations

32:42

came out, just going from interview to interview to

32:44

interview. I was so exhausted by

32:46

the end of it. And I went back to

32:48

the hotel room where my girlfriend and my dog

32:50

were staying. I just drew

32:52

a circle with my finger in the air

32:54

and I said, this is real life. That

32:57

is something else. I will participate

32:59

in that for my business. And

33:01

it's fun. But like, I'm so glad that

33:03

this stuff is starting to happen for me at 36 and not

33:05

21. Because

33:08

I think it's so easy to lose your head

33:11

and blur the lines between what is

33:13

real life and

33:15

what is, I don't know,

33:17

something else. When

33:19

real rock stars come to see the

33:22

show, I know Ronnie Wood is coming

33:24

soon or just came between Rolling Stones

33:26

shows. Have you met with them

33:28

afterwards? No. And this

33:31

is like a PSA to all the famous people that come

33:33

to the show. Please say hello. No

33:35

one comes back. I have a guest

33:38

book and there's one signature in it, Ellen Burstyn.

33:40

She's the only person in my guest book

33:42

and I'd love to fill it up. As

33:46

the producer John Johnson told us, neither

33:48

Tom Pasinka nor any of the other

33:50

cast members of Stereophonic are

33:52

household names. Only one of them, Will

33:54

Brill, had ever been in a Broadway

33:56

show. But they are

33:59

now responsible for helping create a hit that

34:01

may earn its producers and investors a very

34:03

good return. Traditionally, only

34:05

big stars have had profit-sharing

34:07

deals on Broadway, but lately,

34:09

thanks to the broader economic

34:11

discussions around income inequality, there

34:14

has been a movement toward

34:16

broadening this practice. So I

34:18

asked John Johnson if or

34:20

how the cast members of

34:22

Stereophonic may share in the

34:24

show's financial upside. Yeah,

34:26

we structure a lot of our deals regardless of

34:28

whether the person is a household name or not

34:31

with an upside potential because I

34:33

think in general, when everyone is

34:36

along for the ride and everyone is cut

34:38

in, it makes the

34:40

experience for all sort of spiritually

34:42

better. When you say upside potentially, I

34:45

mean if the show does well, the performers start to get

34:47

a piece of the action. Correct. And

34:49

the specific nature of the show

34:51

being an ensemble piece and being

34:53

this band, literally, who have

34:55

grown together, it just felt right.

34:57

I've done tons of shows that

35:00

have had singular A-list stars that

35:02

you pay a handsome amount

35:04

of money and it's a 14 or 16 week run

35:06

because that's what stars like to do because

35:08

then they're off to their next TV show, their next movie. So

35:12

I get paid $5,000 a week. That's

35:15

Tom Pasinka. But I

35:17

see $2,000 something of that because of

35:19

taxes and because of, you know, 20% goes

35:22

to my representation. I'm

35:25

also paying other people as well. I

35:27

think people don't realize on Broadway when

35:29

you're especially running a Tony campaign, you're

35:31

hiring a publicist. You are not

35:33

the show. The show has a publicist, but

35:35

I also elected to hire my

35:38

personal publicist, a stylist, someone

35:40

who grooms me. If it's

35:43

a Tony event and I'm a Tony nominee, the

35:45

producers will give me a

35:47

certain amount of money to spend on those things.

35:50

But you're still spending a lot out of pocket. Spending a

35:52

lot of money. The profit

35:54

sharing, I don't know exactly what

35:56

it is. Was it negotiated

35:58

collectively with all of you? Yes,

36:00

we negotiated collectively for everything.

36:03

Was that a union driven negotiation or

36:05

no? No, we got together as

36:07

a cast. We put

36:09

our points down, what was negotiable,

36:11

what was non-negotiable. Then

36:13

we went to our agents and managers with that.

36:16

And then they got together collectively. And then they

36:18

went to the producers. At what point

36:20

was this? Was this before the transfer to Broadway?

36:23

Yeah, this was when we were negotiating the Broadway

36:25

contract. What were you getting paid at

36:27

playwrights per week? 1200, I think. So

36:31

to some kid who's listening to

36:33

you and saying, oh yeah, I'd like to have a hit

36:36

like that and an interesting character like

36:38

that and a life like that, how

36:41

would you advise them about the actual

36:43

career prospects of paying rent

36:45

and living and maybe having a family and

36:47

so on? You know, that's something

36:49

I've been thinking about a lot because my girlfriend

36:51

and I were having those discussions. She's

36:54

getting to an age, I'm getting to an age

36:56

where it's like, okay, we live together. Are we

36:58

gonna have a kid? Are we gonna get married?

37:00

Like what's the deal? I want

37:02

those things for sure. But you know, I

37:05

gotta get a series. Even

37:08

if you're in a hit on Broadway, it's hard. Unfortunately,

37:11

if you just wanna be a theater

37:13

artist, you have to live a certain

37:15

lifestyle. I don't wanna

37:17

live that lifestyle. I wanna live a

37:20

different lifestyle. I wanna have a house. I wanna be

37:22

able to put my kids through college. I wanna be

37:24

able to do all of that by

37:26

my dog, really fancy dog food, because

37:28

she's really stingy about eating kibble. After

37:31

this show, I wanna get like

37:34

on a HBO series where

37:36

I'm on 10 episodes or 13 episodes and

37:39

I'm making tens

37:42

of thousands of dollars per episode. So

37:44

I can afford the life that I've

37:47

decided and I'm not ashamed of wanting.

37:50

Do you think most people who come to

37:52

New York and buy one or two Broadway

37:54

tickets, do you think they

37:56

assume that the average performer is

37:59

making a lot more money? than the average performer actually

38:01

is? Probably. I also

38:03

think it depends on who you are, right?

38:05

I've heard crazy stories of Hugh Jackman making,

38:07

I don't know, a million dollars a week

38:09

or something, or getting a certain cut of

38:11

the box office. I'm not ragging

38:14

on Hugh Jackman. He's great. But also, again,

38:16

lifestyle. He has a lifestyle. And

38:18

he can't just take a year out of

38:20

his life and do Broadway and not get paid a million dollars

38:22

a week. Hugh

38:25

Jackman did recently star in a Broadway

38:28

revival of The Music Man. For

38:30

more than a year, he did eight shows a

38:32

week. His salary was never made

38:35

public, but a million dollars a week would

38:37

seem high. Industry people we've spoken with

38:39

put the likely figure at around $300,000.

38:43

Although that was likely augmented by a

38:45

share of the box office. But

38:48

for most people working on Broadway,

38:50

the economics are tough. I

38:53

went back to stereophonic producer John

38:55

Johnson. If

38:57

you read the newspapers and even the

38:59

trades about the economics of producing live

39:01

theater these days, the last, let's call

39:04

it five years especially, it's

39:06

easy to come to the conclusion that live theater

39:08

is basically dying. It's too expensive

39:10

to produce. The audiences are not the

39:12

same or are not returning. There are

39:15

too many countervailing forces. Unions have too

39:17

much leverage. The theater owners have too

39:19

much leverage. There are many,

39:21

many, many other media options that audiences

39:23

are taking advantage of. You

39:25

sound, John, like the first person I've

39:27

spoken with who doesn't exude

39:30

that kind of death rattle. Yeah, it's

39:32

a little dramatic. When I started in

39:34

the business, my first boss was a

39:36

legendary producer by the name of Liz

39:38

McCann. She had worked in

39:40

the theater for almost 60 years. She used

39:42

to talk about the late 70s, the time

39:45

period of which the same thing was

39:47

being said. New York was told

39:49

to drop dead. The Bronx was burning. Crime

39:51

was up. The theaters were being torn down.

39:54

That was a way worse time than what

39:56

we're talking about now. And yet at the

39:58

same time, what came out of that, afterwards

40:00

was in the 80s, a massive

40:03

boom. It was the British invasion, it

40:05

was Lloyd Webber, it was Cameron McIntosh

40:07

coming in with these massive shows. That's

40:10

what came out of that period of the late 70s. The

40:12

other example I'd like to give is the financial crash. What

40:15

we went through in late 2008, 2009, 2010, I

40:19

think way worse than what we're dealing

40:21

with now from a standpoint of, you

40:23

know, fundraising drying up, shows having to

40:25

close prematurely. 14 shows closed

40:27

at the top of 2009, right after the crash. It

40:31

was almost worse than the pandemic because

40:33

everyone stayed home and saved money, or

40:35

at least now, what they want

40:37

to see is different. But if

40:39

they do really want to see something, whether it

40:41

be Daniel Radcliffe and Mary

40:43

Lee Rolong, or Sarah Paulson or Jeremy Strong,

40:46

they will pay for it. Is

40:48

it challenging? Yes. Are we

40:50

dealing with costs going up? Yes. Are

40:53

we dealing with not being able to figure

40:56

out how to get the audiences to the

40:58

shows and how to

41:00

entice them in a world where you

41:02

can't just take ads on television anymore

41:05

because no one's watching traditional television. How

41:08

is stereophonic being marketed and sold

41:10

differently now than it might've been

41:12

20 years ago? Oh,

41:14

it's almost entirely all digital now. It's

41:16

all mobile. It's all through meta. It's

41:18

all through Instagram, Facebook. We

41:21

do still take the traditional behavioral banner ads

41:23

that follow you around the internet. We

41:25

still do some prints, but not a ton. We

41:28

have dabbled into television, but we're taking

41:30

specific ads. We're not taking

41:32

giant flights with multiple spots on

41:34

Good Morning America or The Today Show, which was

41:37

always your bread and butter. Because

41:39

again, the audience that you were going

41:41

for, that demographic that was coming six

41:43

to eight times a year from the suburbs, were the

41:45

same folks who would get the kids off to school

41:48

and then turn on The Today Show and watch

41:50

the commercials roll by and go, oh, that show. I've heard of

41:52

that. I need to go see that. Now it's all in your

41:54

hand. How do the costs of

41:57

a digital-first marketing and advertising campaign come to

41:59

play? compared to the old school and what's

42:01

the ROI compared to the old school? The

42:04

ROI is much easier to figure

42:06

out because you can actually track

42:09

people. Our zip code

42:11

reporting is way more sophisticated now than

42:13

it was before, whereas you

42:15

had to blanket the market with something and then

42:18

you didn't see a direct correlation.

42:20

Now it's less things, but

42:22

you can still see how your

42:25

wraps jump due to specific things of press,

42:27

like a CBS Sunday morning piece, or if

42:29

your stars are on Morning Joe. There

42:32

are fewer things that give you that pop, but at

42:34

least you know if I'm on Morning Joe, then

42:37

we're gonna have a good day at the box office. ["The

42:39

Box Office"] There

42:43

are other ways in which the

42:45

theater industry intersects with the larger

42:47

entertainment ecosystem. Here again is the

42:49

producer, Sonya Friedman. If you

42:52

look across Broadway and the West End over the last

42:54

50 years, a

42:56

lot of the new shows have come

42:58

from studios, Universal,

43:00

Fox, MGM, and

43:03

Netflix are going to be no different

43:05

in that respect. Friedman has

43:07

already worked with Netflix twice. The

43:09

first was turning a Netflix property,

43:12

Stranger Things, into a live

43:14

theatrical show in London. With

43:16

Stranger Things, actually we went to them. It

43:19

was a very, very specific challenge

43:21

about, can you put sci-fi on

43:24

stage? It's a actually

43:26

surprisingly emotional story about a little

43:28

kid who's metaphorically and

43:30

literally got a monster growing inside of

43:32

him, and how does he beat this

43:34

monster? It's a very, very

43:37

simple yet universal tale we're telling, but we

43:39

also wanted to see whether we could go

43:41

for it technically, go for it

43:44

in the most extraordinary way. Netflix

43:47

loved the idea and they became our

43:49

partner on it. And theater for them

43:52

is relatively cheap, I mean, considering their

43:54

scale. I would have thought so,

43:56

but it's all relative to me when

43:58

Stranger Things comes to Broadway. they will be

44:00

our partners and I have to make

44:03

sure that the financial model still makes

44:05

sense. So

44:08

that's one way for Netflix to be

44:10

involved in live theater, but there

44:12

is another way. Consider Sonya

44:15

Friedman's recent production of the play

44:17

Patriots on Broadway. It

44:19

was written for the stage by Peter

44:21

Morgan, best known for creating the Netflix

44:24

series The Crown, and Netflix

44:26

is a big investor in the Broadway

44:28

show. With Patriots, that

44:30

was absolutely driven by Pete Morgan, and

44:33

Netflix wanted to support the Patriots journey. I

44:35

think they're going to make it into a

44:38

film or something, but I can say no

44:40

more beyond that. Would you

44:42

like to be involved in turning stereophonic

44:44

into a film or series? Of course.

44:47

I think it would be a fantastic

44:49

series. I've heard a little talk

44:51

about you producing more TV film. Would

44:54

you like to be a full blown producer in that realm?

44:57

I would do it, but I don't

44:59

want it to be what I do

45:01

because I love theater every single night.

45:04

Who knows what's going to happen? Seeing

45:06

the audience, just feeling and hearing. When

45:09

I make TV, I've done a few. It's pretty

45:11

exciting, but then it's done. It's

45:14

always slightly anticlimactic when it comes out

45:16

on telly and you go, oh, that's

45:19

it. You sit there at home on

45:22

your own, you know, with a box of popcorn

45:24

and then you look at Twitter and go, okay,

45:27

so that's happened. Where's the adrenaline?

45:30

Where's that extraordinary cortisol

45:33

hit that you get with

45:35

theater, which is you literally

45:37

walk in and my

45:39

heart beats faster and it's terrifying and

45:41

it's wonderful. I mean, particularly with shows

45:43

which have a lot of technical challenges,

45:45

is it going to go wrong tonight?

45:48

Are we going to get through it?

45:50

When I have nine, 10 shows running

45:52

at any one time, I will

45:54

not be able to go to sleep. I will

45:56

not be able to go to sleep in London until the curtains at

45:58

least gone up in New York,

46:00

just so I know that's happened. And then

46:03

I'll usually wake up in the middle of

46:05

the night just to check that they've gone

46:07

okay. And that's how I've lived my life

46:09

for 20 years. And then we had the

46:11

pandemic. And I think that everything

46:14

came into stark relief, as we all

46:16

know, for the world. And you had

46:18

just opened Leopoldstadt, the Tom Stoppard play

46:21

in the West End. Just opened Leopoldstadt

46:23

exactly about three or four

46:25

days beforehand. I had another 17 shows

46:28

across the world. It was

46:31

obviously sort of shocking. And frankly, as

46:33

I talk about it now, I still

46:35

can't quite believe it happened to us

46:37

all. And I got

46:40

quite heavily involved in the lobbying and...

46:42

Yeah, I read that you lobbied the

46:44

UK government for COVID relief funding for

46:46

the theater sector. Very much

46:48

so, yes. It was a moment where

46:51

I had to actually figure out what

46:53

theater meant to the world. Why

46:57

theater? Why

46:59

culture? Why arts? When

47:02

we were going through

47:04

this absolute crisis, the

47:06

very model for us, which was bringing

47:08

a group of people together in

47:11

a closed space, indoors,

47:14

sharing an experience, that

47:16

whole idea was under threat. But

47:21

in those dark hours, it

47:23

became quite clear to me that

47:26

theater will never, ever, ever,

47:28

ever die. It's

47:31

absolutely essential for our

47:33

mental health and

47:36

our ability to

47:39

communicate with one another, our ability

47:41

to have empathy. We

47:43

do something beautiful and

47:46

unique, which is we allow people

47:48

to come together, share an experience,

47:51

go on a journey, think about the world

47:53

in a slightly different way. And in the

47:55

majority of cases, feel a little bit

47:57

better about the world. And... then

48:00

I put on my political lobbying hat,

48:03

we also feed the economy. We

48:06

also feed the ecosystem around the

48:08

towns and the cities, and we

48:10

feed the bars and the restaurants,

48:13

and we create employment. We

48:15

are more than just a luxury. We're

48:18

at the center of every policy,

48:20

and I'm talking to the Labour Party at the moment

48:22

in the UK about all of this, because

48:24

they get it. They get it. And

48:26

they'll soon be in power. No, I expect so.

48:29

And in America and in the UK, the

48:31

fact that theatre and artists have

48:34

to still fight for their relevance,

48:36

the fact that we still have

48:38

to fight for the

48:40

right for children to see

48:42

shows, to read plays, to

48:44

study art, to study

48:46

music in schools, is so

48:48

short-sighted because, you know,

48:50

almost every great person who walks the planet

48:53

has had some experience as

48:55

they grow up of being in a school

48:57

show, being in a school play, or

48:59

going to watch one, and it can change their lives.

49:05

On that note, the changing of

49:07

a life, I went back to

49:09

David Adjmee. He had

49:11

been writing plays for a couple decades

49:14

in relative obscurity until Stereophonic, which itself

49:16

took 11 years to write. The

49:19

whole thing was written very freely and

49:21

very experimentally, and I

49:23

didn't know what the structure would be early on. I

49:25

just had these scenes, and I didn't know how they'd

49:27

go together or what they would be. I

49:30

don't know. I just follow my intuitions

49:32

when I'm working. So much of it is non-rational.

49:35

It is just me kind of like tracking these characters and

49:37

saying, well, let's see how far I can push this. It

49:40

seems to me that the way you're describing

49:42

writing is... And

49:44

maybe this is just because the way I

49:46

think about writing, having been a writer my whole

49:48

life is that, you know, this is how you

49:50

write. You look for ideas. You find a

49:52

whole lot. Most of them are terrible. You

49:54

throw them away, and then you

49:57

sit with them and you let the unconscious

49:59

come in. And then you keep doing research

50:02

and thinking and talking to people. But then what

50:04

you try to create is an original thing. Whereas

50:07

much of the theater that I've been

50:09

seeing over the past year, especially in

50:11

pursuit of this series that we're working

50:13

on, feels, what's

50:15

a non pejorative way, constructed.

50:19

I understand there's a big market for that, probably

50:21

a much bigger market for that than there is

50:23

for your kind of writing. But can you just

50:25

offer a sort of defense of your kind of

50:27

writing for the stage? I mean, we're used to

50:29

that kind of writing in literature,

50:32

but I feel like most

50:34

people who think of theater don't think of a

50:36

show that's as not just

50:38

thoughtful, but like intense. It's an intense piece

50:40

of work. It's also fun and funny and

50:43

weird. But why is there not more

50:45

of this? I don't know.

50:47

I mean, I love Goethe and

50:49

German romanticism. I can hear all

50:51

the commercial producers ears dropping down

50:53

now. Never mind. And

50:56

Strindberg and stuff like that. O'Neill.

50:58

I mean, the great plays, the

51:00

great capital G great plays are

51:03

very, very freaking intense plays.

51:06

They go to the bottom and I think

51:08

most playwrights don't have the courage to do

51:11

it or they don't have it in their genetic

51:13

material. They don't have it in

51:15

them. And I always did. And

51:17

I always felt like a weirdo because in the

51:19

end that stuff is really scary and it does

51:22

scare away theaters. People don't always

51:24

want to feel too much. They want to go

51:26

home and have their dinner after a show. They

51:28

don't want to be ripped open. And

51:31

I do think the function of

51:33

art is to discomfort the comforted.

51:35

And so that's what

51:37

I'm going to do. Thanks

51:52

to David Adjvie, along with all the

51:54

performers and producers of Stereophonic who spoke

51:56

with us. As I mentioned, we

51:58

are working on a broader series. about the economics

52:00

of live theater that'll probably come out

52:02

sometime in the fall or winter. In

52:05

the meantime, I would love to

52:07

hear your feedback on these stereophonic

52:09

episodes and what you'd like to

52:11

learn about in that later series.

52:14

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52:16

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52:26

up next time on the show. I

52:28

mean, this is not just a

52:30

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this is something horrible, right? Imagine

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you are a big brand that

52:37

hired a celebrity endorser and that

52:39

celebrity does something terrible. What

52:42

happens next? Not

52:44

what you might think. That's

52:46

next time on the show. Until then,

52:48

take care of yourself. And if you

52:50

can, someone else too. Freakonomics

52:53

Radio is produced by Stitcher and

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53:00

also at freakonomics.com where we publish

53:02

transcripts and show notes. This episode

53:05

was produced by Alina Coleman. Our

53:07

staff also includes Augusta Chapman, Dalvin

53:09

Abou-Aji, Eleanor Osborne, Elsa Hernandez, Gabriel

53:12

Roth, Greg Rippon, Jasmine Clinger, Jeremy

53:14

Johnson, Julie Kanfer, Lyric Boudich, Morgan

53:17

Levy, Neil Carruth, Rebecca Lee Douglas,

53:19

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53:21

Lipinski. Our theme song is Mr.

53:24

Fortune by the Hitchhikers. Our composer

53:26

is Luis Guerra. Additional

53:28

music in this episode by Will

53:30

Butler, Justin Craig, and the cast

53:32

of Stereophonic. As always, thank

53:34

you for listening. If

53:40

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