The making of a smash: Unshakable belief helped propel record-breaking ‘Stereophonic’
Award-winning director Daniel Aukin has so much faith in playwright David Adjmi, he committed to “Stereophonic” before Adjmi had written a word of the script.
And over the course of the nine years it took for Adjmi’s 1970s-set play-with-music to get its off-Broadway premiere in 2023, Aukin’s faith never wavered.
“For years I had been hoping I’d get to work with him someday. I recognized him as a major talent,” said the director, who earned a 2024 Tony Award for directing “Stereophonic,” which received 13 Tony nominations (the most in history) and earned five awards.
“The morning we received the Tony nominations may have been the most overwhelming moment in the entire journey,” he said. “To make history in that way … none of us saw that coming.”
The play is about an up-and-coming rock band recording its all-important sophomore effort while its members’ relationships are unraveling. Songwriter Will Butler, formerly of Arcade Fire, wrote the score for the show, which plays the CIBC Theatre through Feb. 8.
“This idea of setting something in a recording studio seemed really theatrical and exciting,” said Aukin of the concept that was unlike anything he’d seen on stage.
“It didn’t feel like a crazy leap into the dark to say ‘let’s roll the dice on this,’” he said.
That’s not to say Aukin and his fellow creatives — set designer David Zinn, costume designer Enver Chakartash, lighting designer Jiyoun Chang, sound designer Ryan Rumery, music director Justin Craig and others — didn’t have concerns.
It occurred to them — when they gathered every nine months or so to work on the show — that they might not succeed, recalled Aukin, a University of Chicago graduate. In fact, for the first five or six years, there was no music, just stage directions indicating when the actors played a song.
“But that was balanced against the possibility that if we could make it work, it offered an opportunity to do something very unusual,” he said, “and that was very exciting.”
Moreover, “Stereophonic” has technical challenges most plays don’t, among them is the sound engineering that takes place in real time as actor/musicians play live on stage.
The former artistic director for SoHo Rep, a New York City theater specializing in new works, Aukin has long participated in developing new plays. Though not all of them enjoyed the critical and commercial success “Stereophonic” enjoyed.
“There’s some luck involved when something really takes off,” said the London-born director. “To have the show align with the zeitgeist or something in the culture … that happens to hit at the right moment — you can’t plan on that,” he said. “That happened with this show.”
Certain things have to align for a show to become a hit, and many are beyond the artists’ control.
“All you can control is making something you believe in,” he said.
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“Stereophonic”
Showtimes: 7 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 1 p.m. Sunday through Feb. 8. Also, 6:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 1, and 1 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 4
Where: CIBC Theatre, 18 W. Monroe St., Chicago, broadwayinchicago.com
Tickets: $40-$135