AI transcript
0:00:00 (dramatic music)
0:00:02 Last week on the show,
0:00:06 we told you about an unusual new play on Broadway
0:00:09 called Stereophonic.
0:00:11 It is a long, intimate, funny, and totally gripping show
0:00:16 about a co-ed rock band in the 1970s
0:00:19 as they record an album that will turn out to be a huge hit.
0:00:23 Stereophonic itself has turned out to be a huge hit.
0:00:26 If you watched the Tony Awards the other night,
0:00:28 you saw superstars like Alicia Keys and Jay-Z,
0:00:31 Daniel Radcliffe, even Hilary Clinton,
0:00:34 who co-produced a Broadway musical this season.
0:00:36 But it was Stereophonic,
0:00:38 the play with a bunch of nobodies,
0:00:40 as one cast member said during the Tony Awards,
0:00:43 that stole the show, winning five awards.
0:00:46 Here is the playwright, David Ajmi,
0:00:49 accepting his award for best play.
0:00:52 – This was a very hard journey to get this play up here.
0:00:56 Michael McKeel and Fran Offenhauser,
0:00:59 who gave me a place to live for seven years
0:01:01 so that I could write this play.
0:01:03 It’s really hard to make a career in the arts.
0:01:06 We need to fund the arts in America.
0:01:08 It is the hallmark of a civilized society.
0:01:10 – When I interviewed Ajmi a couple of weeks ago,
0:01:15 I asked him what it’s like to be at the vortex
0:01:18 of a huge hit.
0:01:19 He has been writing plays for a couple of decades,
0:01:22 but this is his first show on Broadway.
0:01:25 Here’s what he told us.
0:01:26 – I feel like I’ve been in a car accident.
0:01:27 We all feel that way.
0:01:28 We’re just totally dislocated.
0:01:30 It doesn’t feel good.
0:01:31 It feels weirdly bad.
0:01:33 – I have a little bit of a hard time believing that.
0:01:35 – No, I know.
0:01:36 Everyone does.
0:01:37 Because you can’t take in what’s good or bad.
0:01:40 You’re just taking in stimuli.
0:01:41 You’re taking in the overstimulation,
0:01:43 which you can’t take in because it exceeds your capacity.
0:01:46 I know it’s positive intellectually,
0:01:48 but the way I’m processing it isn’t like joyous.
0:01:52 There’s moments of joy,
0:01:53 and then we just get dislocated again,
0:01:55 because we don’t know what’s happening.
0:01:56 It’s too weird.
0:01:58 When your status changes,
0:01:59 everyone starts to act really weird.
0:02:02 I don’t like it.
0:02:04 – Maybe David Ajmi is just an unusual person,
0:02:07 or maybe the people who create theater
0:02:11 are an unusual people tuned to a different frequency.
0:02:16 Why else would someone try to make a living
0:02:18 in an industry that is so financially precarious,
0:02:21 even in the best of times?
0:02:23 And these have not been the best of times.
0:02:26 – I’d say our costs have gone up about 30%
0:02:29 since the pandemic.
0:02:30 – So today on Freakinomics Radio,
0:02:32 will the success of Stereophonic
0:02:35 help change this grim future?
0:02:37 – It’s not that we’re waiting for the audiences to come back.
0:02:40 It’s that the core audience entirely has shifted.
0:02:44 – Also, when you have a hot show,
0:02:47 how do you think about raising ticket prices?
0:02:50 – You kind of play a game of chicken with yourself
0:02:52 and with your audience.
0:02:54 – And we will give you some backstage gossip too.
0:02:57 – I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this.
0:03:00 – Yes, you’re allowed.
0:03:01 We’ll hear all that starting now.
0:03:03 (upbeat music)
0:03:10 – This is Freakinomics Radio,
0:03:19 the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything
0:03:22 with your host, Stephen Dubner.
0:03:24 (upbeat music)
0:03:27 – As I mentioned in our previous episode,
0:03:35 this two-part look at Stereophonic,
0:03:38 spun out of another series that we’re making
0:03:40 about the economics of live theater.
0:03:43 The fundamental problem here is that theater
0:03:45 is a handmade thing,
0:03:47 and it doesn’t get much more efficient
0:03:49 even as you add technology the way most industries do.
0:03:52 Stereophonic is a relatively small show
0:03:55 with just seven on-stage performers,
0:03:57 but they sit atop a pyramid of dozens of people
0:04:01 who help put on the show every night.
0:04:03 Stage managers, wardrobe and props managers,
0:04:06 lighting and sound technicians,
0:04:08 the ushers in the theater,
0:04:11 you even have to pay understudies,
0:04:13 actors on standby in case anyone from the cast gets sick.
0:04:17 It would be one thing if you could scale up a show
0:04:20 that becomes a hit,
0:04:21 if you could sell five or 10,000 tickets a night
0:04:25 rather than the 770 that can fit into the Golden Theater
0:04:30 where Stereophonic is playing.
0:04:32 The show is seen by roughly 6,000 people every week.
0:04:36 David Ajmi, who wrote Stereophonic,
0:04:39 he is not one of those 6,000.
0:04:42 – Oh, I don’t want you.
0:04:43 I don’t see my shows
0:04:44 because I can’t stand watching my own show
0:04:46 in front of an audience.
0:04:48 Sometimes I’ll have my assistant go as me,
0:04:50 so I teach my assistant everything that I’m looking for
0:04:53 and all my sticking points.
0:04:55 And then I say, okay, did that happen?
0:04:57 Did that happen?
0:04:58 Did that happen?
0:04:59 But I don’t like to watch it because I find it
0:05:01 too intimate and excruciating.
0:05:03 – Is it excruciating because it’s a thing that you made
0:05:05 or it’s excruciating because it’s a thing that you made
0:05:08 that is you essentially?
0:05:09 – Both, but more the latter.
0:05:11 And it’s excruciating because it’s live
0:05:13 and I can’t control it.
0:05:14 But it’s me also.
0:05:16 It is the most vulnerable thing in the world.
0:05:17 I can’t even tell you.
0:05:18 – So if David Ajmi isn’t in the audience, who is?
0:05:26 On Broadway right now, there are 35 shows running.
0:05:30 Last week, they collectively sold 300,000 tickets.
0:05:34 Who are those people?
0:05:35 Let’s ask someone who knows.
0:05:37 – My name is John Johnson.
0:05:39 I run a production company called Wagner Johnson Productions
0:05:42 that is a producing company as well
0:05:43 as a general management company.
0:05:45 – Johnson is one of the lead producers on Stereophonic.
0:05:49 I asked him, who is coming to the theater post pandemic?
0:05:52 – There used to be, and we used to call them
0:05:54 carriage trade audiences that came from the Upper West Side
0:05:59 and Upper East Side that were women of a certain age
0:06:01 who would come down and see the new play
0:06:04 from the National Theater or oh, Glenda Jackson’s in a play.
0:06:08 I’m going to see that.
0:06:09 – But now?
0:06:10 – A new core audience has emerged in this season.
0:06:14 It was emerging as we’ve gone through
0:06:15 each season sequentially post pandemic.
0:06:17 This season is the season of oh,
0:06:20 it’s not that we’re waiting for the audiences to come back.
0:06:23 It’s that the core audience entirely has shifted
0:06:26 because we do have many more successes
0:06:29 in season three post pandemic than we did the last two.
0:06:33 – Name some of those successes
0:06:34 in addition to Stereophonic.
0:06:36 You have Gutenberg, the musical,
0:06:38 which recouped in the fall.
0:06:39 You have the production of “O’ Mary”
0:06:41 that was a huge hit off Broadway that then transferred.
0:06:44 We were producers, lead producers on “Danny and the Deplusee”
0:06:46 off Broadway that starred Aubrey Plaza.
0:06:49 That was a similar sort of success story.
0:06:51 And then further on Broadway, we’re seeing, you know,
0:06:54 Jeremy Strong, “An Enemy of the People,”
0:06:56 Sarah Paulson, “Inappropriate.”
0:06:57 Some would say, oh, well, Jeremy Strong was on succession.
0:07:00 Of course, it’s going to be a massive sellout.
0:07:02 Sarah Paulson is a star as well,
0:07:05 but this isn’t Daniel Craig,
0:07:06 who I’ve been fortunate enough to work with.
0:07:08 It’s not folks that are global superstars.
0:07:11 If the core audience pre-pandemic
0:07:13 was women ages late 50s into their 70s,
0:07:17 that we’re seeing shows six, eight times a year,
0:07:19 that audience has shifted down dramatically
0:07:22 to folks in their late 30s to their early 50s
0:07:24 who have binged every season of “American Horror Story”
0:07:27 that Sarah Paulson’s in.
0:07:28 And now when she’s in a play, they’re going,
0:07:30 oh, she’s on stage now, I’m going.
0:07:32 The folks who binged succession four times over
0:07:35 are sitting there going, Jeremy Strong’s in a play,
0:07:37 I’m going to that.
0:07:38 I don’t care how much it costs.
0:07:39 It’s event theater.
0:07:40 Event theater has always been there,
0:07:41 but I think the nature of who is part of that event theater
0:07:45 now has shifted a little bit.
0:07:46 – The other thing I noticed about the stereophonic audience,
0:07:49 it was the first play I’ve ever been to on Broadway,
0:07:51 play or musical, where the restroom line for the men’s
0:07:55 was longer than the women’s at intermission.
0:07:57 – Did you see “Lemon Trilogy” two years ago?
0:07:59 ‘Cause it was the same way at “Lemon Trilogy.”
0:08:01 – I did not.
0:08:02 – I agree, stereophonic fits into that same generational shifts
0:08:05 as well in terms of the new core audience,
0:08:06 because one would think, oh, it’s a story about a band
0:08:09 in the late ’70s, it’s dead aimed towards a boomer audience.
0:08:13 Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that we don’t have folks
0:08:15 who are in that generation who’d come and see it,
0:08:18 but the groundswell of support, the age range of it,
0:08:21 you would think, oh, how is Gen Z going to tip into a play
0:08:24 like this when most of these folks were born
0:08:26 even 20 years after the play?
0:08:28 But I think the nature of rock and roll,
0:08:31 the nature of creating music,
0:08:33 the nature of this bubble of a studio,
0:08:36 and the drama that that creates is timeless.
0:08:39 – I think the reason why, especially a lot of young people
0:08:45 are coming to the theater in 2024,
0:08:48 is that we forget, because I think we have collective PTSD,
0:08:52 but we were locked in our houses for three and a half years.
0:08:55 I think people want to be around each other.
0:08:58 – That is Tom Pesinka, the actor who plays Peter,
0:09:01 the leader of the band in Stereophonic.
0:09:03 The band is never named,
0:09:05 but they do bear a firm resemblance to Fleetwood Mac.
0:09:08 Peter and his girlfriend, Diana,
0:09:10 are at the center of a lot of the show’s drama.
0:09:13 The entire cast has remained intact
0:09:16 since the show began last year Off-Broadway
0:09:18 at the non-profit theater Playwrights Horizons.
0:09:21 – Off-Broadway, it felt very fake until you make it.
0:09:25 You have to construct intimacy.
0:09:28 You have to construct chemistry.
0:09:31 I always say that on Broadway,
0:09:33 if you had seen it off-Broadway,
0:09:35 I think you’re gonna see a much tighter knit group.
0:09:38 Sarah and I, we didn’t know each other at all.
0:09:41 – I’m Sarah Pigeon,
0:09:44 and I’m currently in Stereophonic playing Diana.
0:09:47 We’ve done 50 performances,
0:09:50 and we got previews close to 70.
0:09:52 We did 70-something performances at Playwrights,
0:09:55 and 20-something previews.
0:09:57 No one’s taken the show off yet.
0:09:59 – Are you kidding?
0:10:00 – Not at all.
0:10:01 At Playwrights, we canceled the first preview
0:10:05 because I got sick,
0:10:07 and then we canceled the fourth to last show
0:10:10 because someone lost their voice.
0:10:12 So we’ve only missed two.
0:10:15 There’s sort of been this agreement
0:10:16 that unless you’re deathly ill, you’ll be on the stage.
0:10:19 – So you have a bunch of pissed-off understudies.
0:10:21 (laughing)
0:10:24 – I don’t know, you’d have to interview them.
0:10:26 (gentle music)
0:10:27 – I mean, I think it just requires
0:10:29 a different type of stamina.
0:10:31 – Live theater has been declared dead
0:10:33 or dying for years.
0:10:35 We have TV and film,
0:10:36 and now we have an endless stream of entertainments
0:10:40 and distractions,
0:10:41 most of which require much less effort
0:10:44 and coordination and investment than live theater.
0:10:47 So what would be lost if live theater did disappear?
0:10:52 – I think a certain level of discipline,
0:10:56 a certain level of technique,
0:10:57 a certain level of lineage would be lost.
0:11:02 Working as an actor in the theater,
0:11:05 it requires different muscles
0:11:06 than working in television and film.
0:11:09 You have to do eight shows a week.
0:11:10 It’s the first time I’m really doing that,
0:11:12 and my body’s breaking down.
0:11:15 That’s just not what happens
0:11:18 when you work in front of a camera.
0:11:20 You get to go nap in your trailer for four hours
0:11:22 until they call you to set,
0:11:23 and you’re there for less than an hour,
0:11:25 and you shoot four or five takes,
0:11:27 and then you’re done.
0:11:28 – In this job and how taxing it can be,
0:11:31 eight shows a week,
0:11:32 and then our show comes in a little over three hours,
0:11:35 and there’s singing involved,
0:11:38 and screaming, and laughing, and smoking,
0:11:41 and I don’t have much of a life.
0:11:43 I have no existence really
0:11:45 outside of the Golden Theater on 45th Street.
0:11:48 – Your off day is Monday?
0:11:50 – Monday.
0:11:51 – You have a Sunday matinee
0:11:52 than no Sunday night show, is that right?
0:11:54 – No Sunday night show.
0:11:55 – So what do you do between the time
0:11:56 you’re done Sunday afternoon
0:11:58 and then Tuesday evening show?
0:12:00 – I beat feet out of midtown.
0:12:04 Sometimes my mom comes into town,
0:12:06 and we get a nice dinner somewhere,
0:12:09 and I sort of blow off some steam.
0:12:11 There’s just no time to do that
0:12:12 when you get home at 11 o’clock,
0:12:13 like who wants to have dinner close to midnight,
0:12:16 and then Monday is spent sleeping.
0:12:19 I haven’t done laundry in a really long time.
0:12:21 – Do you eat healthy?
0:12:23 – I love food.
0:12:25 I like healthy food,
0:12:27 but recently, because of the schedule,
0:12:30 I just find it quite difficult to find something
0:12:32 that I want to eat before a three hour show,
0:12:35 and sometimes two, three hour shows.
0:12:37 So I’ve been getting these craft,
0:12:39 mac and cheese, microwaveable, individual bowls,
0:12:43 and they usually, I’m not looking at the microwave,
0:12:45 so they spill all over the microwave,
0:12:47 then I have to clean the microwave,
0:12:49 but it is like carbs and a couple hundred calories
0:12:53 to get you through the show
0:12:54 and not have this huge, full stomach.
0:12:56 I’ve ordered a lot of different types of soups
0:13:01 during this run,
0:13:03 because sometimes my voice is a little rough.
0:13:06 ♪ Sunday morning ♪
0:13:11 ♪ And the life’s fine ♪
0:13:15 – Sarah Pigeon and Tom Pesinka
0:13:17 were both nominated for Tony Awards,
0:13:20 but neither of them won.
0:13:22 Stereophonic did win Best New Play, Best Direction,
0:13:25 Best Scenic Design, and Sound Design,
0:13:28 and Will Brill, who plays the band’s bassist, Reg,
0:13:32 won Best Featured Actor in a Play.
0:13:35 It was Brill who, during his acceptance speech,
0:13:38 called the Stereophonic crew a bunch of nobodies.
0:13:41 – I think awards are really important for the artists.
0:13:46 I find them quite stressful,
0:13:47 and I find them quite difficult,
0:13:49 because there are always thousands of people
0:13:53 who’ve worked so hard and they are not recognized.
0:13:56 – That is Sonia Friedman.
0:13:58 She is another lead producer of Stereophonic,
0:14:01 and she is one of the most successful
0:14:03 theatrical producers in the world.
0:14:05 – I watch these artists work really, really hard
0:14:09 and try to find the beauty in what they’re doing,
0:14:14 but they aren’t always kind to themselves in the process.
0:14:19 We’re in a very, very, very difficult world,
0:14:21 and what Stereophonic, if nothing else, reminds me
0:14:26 is that whilst we’re making art,
0:14:28 we must also do everything we can
0:14:31 to be kind to one another.
0:14:33 – Is Stereophonic, to some degree, a metaphor
0:14:35 for what you and your colleagues do all day, every day?
0:14:38 I mean, one great thing about the theater
0:14:41 or any of the performing arts,
0:14:44 but that is also a challenge,
0:14:45 is you need to do it live and do it well
0:14:48 every time because last night’s performance
0:14:52 might’ve been great,
0:14:53 but that’s not what tonight’s audience is seeing.
0:14:56 – I think what it is is just very honest
0:14:58 about how we make work,
0:15:01 and that what an audience will see
0:15:04 isn’t always the mechanics of how messy it can be
0:15:08 and how relationships can be really, really fractious,
0:15:13 offstage, and then they come onstage
0:15:15 and nobody would ever know.
0:15:16 I could tell you so many secrets
0:15:18 about chaotic relationships that happen in the wings
0:15:21 and then they come onstage.
0:15:23 – Well, let’s have a couple.
0:15:24 – And now I’m not gonna give you any,
0:15:25 but that’s the illusion of theater
0:15:27 and that’s the magic of theater.
0:15:29 There’s this invisible magic line
0:15:31 between the wings and on the stage,
0:15:33 and they are two completely separate worlds.
0:15:36 You step over that line
0:15:38 and that’s where the magic happens right in front of you,
0:15:42 and then you step behind that line
0:15:44 and it’s not always as magic.
0:15:46 – After the break, we step behind that line.
0:15:52 I’m Stephen Dubner and this is Freakin’ Omics Radio.
0:15:55 Sonia Friedman has been producing theater
0:16:08 in London, New York, and elsewhere
0:16:10 for more than 30 years.
0:16:12 Her shows have won dozens upon dozens of major awards.
0:16:16 The other night, her shows won nine Tony Awards,
0:16:20 five for Stereophonic and four for the revival
0:16:23 of Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along.
0:16:26 She’s had several other shows on Broadway this season,
0:16:29 including a new drama called Patriots
0:16:31 about the rise of Vladimir Putin.
0:16:34 She has also produced the long-running Harry Potter
0:16:36 and the Cursed Child
0:16:38 and the very long-running Book of Mormon.
0:16:41 Normally I’m producing upwards of 12, 15 shows
0:16:44 across the world.
0:16:46 – And what is Friedman’s advice for a would-be producer?
0:16:49 – You should be as a producer,
0:16:51 as interested in the business side of it.
0:16:54 One of the reasons why I’ve had longevity in the industry
0:16:56 is that I’m as fascinated and interested
0:17:00 with the numbers.
0:17:02 I will do all my own budgets.
0:17:03 Before I set out to do a show,
0:17:05 I’ll be the one that sits behind a computer
0:17:07 and literally batches it out.
0:17:09 I need to understand where the show needs to sit
0:17:12 in terms of what’s scale theater
0:17:14 and what the whole model of it needs to be
0:17:18 in order to make it viable.
0:17:20 – Does it happen now and again
0:17:21 that there’s a show that you’re dying to produce
0:17:23 but you just can’t make it work financially
0:17:25 in the theaters that are available to you?
0:17:27 – Yes.
0:17:28 – How often?
0:17:28 – It’s becoming more often now
0:17:30 because everything is getting more expensive.
0:17:34 – In London, as in New York.
0:17:35 London is still a better economic model than New York
0:17:40 but we’re creeping up.
0:17:42 I mean, we’ve gone up 21% our costs since COVID.
0:17:45 – But New York’s probably 40 or something.
0:17:48 – New York is about,
0:17:51 it’s hard to put an actual figure on it
0:17:52 but I’d say our costs have gone up about 30%
0:17:55 since the pandemic.
0:17:56 – And why is London’s economic model
0:17:59 for theater better than New York’s?
0:18:01 – When I first started producing in New York,
0:18:03 taking into account the exchange rate,
0:18:05 New York was about three times more expensive than London
0:18:08 and it’s now about five times.
0:18:10 The play that would cost me 1.5 million in London
0:18:14 will now have to be capitalized
0:18:16 between seven and eight million in New York.
0:18:19 And because of the week pound,
0:18:22 that’s really, really expensive for us.
0:18:25 And the difference, why?
0:18:27 – I mean, it sounds implausible for two things
0:18:30 that are so similar in such seemingly similar places
0:18:34 to be so…
0:18:36 – It does, it does
0:18:36 because it’s exactly the same show.
0:18:39 It’s the same set, same group of actors on the stage.
0:18:42 – So what’s driving it?
0:18:43 – Absolutely everything is more expensive over here.
0:18:47 – What’s the biggest difference?
0:18:48 Is it the real estate, the renting of the theater?
0:18:51 – The unions, number one, look, I’m not anti-union,
0:18:54 that’s just a fact.
0:18:55 – How many unions would be typically involved
0:18:57 in a Broadway show?
0:18:58 – I’m gonna say a number
0:18:59 and then I might have to come back and correct it.
0:19:03 – I think it’s about 17 unions.
0:19:06 – There are actually 13 unions.
0:19:08 For instance, IOTC Local 751,
0:19:11 which represents box office treasurers
0:19:14 and theatrical wardrobe union Local 764,
0:19:18 which represents wardrobe workers
0:19:20 and the guardians who supervise child actors.
0:19:23 – So that’s the unions, yes, the real estate,
0:19:26 it is more expensive here, it just is.
0:19:29 The advertising is very, very expensive.
0:19:32 The shops that build the sets
0:19:34 have become much more expensive since COVID
0:19:37 because of the supply chain issue.
0:19:39 Highers of lighting, sound, all of the video equipment,
0:19:43 the deals for the star actors,
0:19:45 they know their power, they know their worth.
0:19:47 Everything is more expensive
0:19:50 and it’s much, much harder therefore
0:19:53 to take creative risk here in New York,
0:19:56 and which is why Stereophonic is beautiful and wonderful,
0:19:59 but it’s an outlier.
0:20:01 It’s not the norm.
0:20:02 – Do you think it bodes well for the future?
0:20:06 – Look, I think every season you have to have
0:20:09 something like Stereophonic,
0:20:10 where you can prove that you can do shows on Broadway
0:20:15 and they can have a financial model
0:20:19 that can withstand the costs of New York.
0:20:24 – So how do you withstand the costs of New York?
0:20:29 – By selling as many tickets as you can
0:20:31 at as high a price as the market will allow.
0:20:35 The average price of a Broadway ticket is around $125,
0:20:39 but premium seats can sell for multiples of that.
0:20:42 And it’s up to people like John Johnson
0:20:44 to set those prices.
0:20:46 – There’s definitely a little bit of feel to it
0:20:48 as opposed to the ticketing companies
0:20:50 for concerts or sporting events in terms of the algorithm,
0:20:53 but that’s because they’re dealing with 25,000 seats
0:20:56 in an arena or 50,000 seats in a baseball stadium
0:20:59 or 80,000 seats in a football stadium.
0:21:01 Here, we have 800 seats a night
0:21:03 or in terms of Stereophonic specifically,
0:21:05 770 seats a night.
0:21:07 – And I guess it’s always tricky
0:21:08 when you’re selling an asset that’s so perishable.
0:21:11 – For sure.
0:21:12 We will have premium pricing now that ranges anywhere
0:21:14 from $249 on a Wednesday matinee
0:21:17 all the way to $349 on a Friday or Saturday night.
0:21:21 – So Stereophonic grossed nearly $800,000 last week,
0:21:24 which is a really good number,
0:21:26 but it’s still not nearly among the leaders in grossing.
0:21:31 – Correct.
0:21:32 – I’m sure some of that is size of house.
0:21:34 Maybe some of it is ticket price.
0:21:35 I don’t know.
0:21:36 How do you look at this as an asset
0:21:38 that you’re trying to properly price
0:21:40 and extract the right amount of return on?
0:21:43 – We priced the show to move early on
0:21:46 because we knew that while it was a white hot ticket
0:21:48 at Playwrights Horizons,
0:21:50 the only way that we can get it back
0:21:51 is that if the houses are full,
0:21:53 that the word of mouth can continue to spread
0:21:55 and how do we jumpstart that?
0:21:56 And we jumpstart that by saying,
0:21:58 we’re just gonna price the show to move.
0:22:00 We had preview pricing that was $40, $80, $120 to start
0:22:04 for the month of April,
0:22:06 but you have to catch up to it
0:22:07 because now we can get $229 for them.
0:22:12 You kind of play a game of chicken with yourself
0:22:14 and with your audience for something like Stereophonic
0:22:17 because it’s an unknown title.
0:22:20 Obviously it’s getting more well-known,
0:22:21 but two, it does not have a major mega star in it.
0:22:24 It has a group of incredible rising stars,
0:22:27 but they’re not household names.
0:22:29 The way that we get there is by getting people in the door
0:22:33 and really building to that moment.
0:22:35 Additionally, we have about 30 to 50 Tony voters
0:22:38 in the show each night and those are comp tickets.
0:22:41 We have tons of press who also are seeing the show for free
0:22:44 for that New York Times feature that’s coming
0:22:46 or that TV Booker for Live with Kelly and Mark
0:22:50 or Jimmy Fallon.
0:22:51 – Or that pesky podcast.
0:22:53 – Or that pesky podcast exactly.
0:22:54 – How often do you reevaluate your ticket pricing
0:22:58 and strategies at a daily thing, a weekly thing?
0:23:00 – I would say a couple of times a week.
0:23:02 You see how the show sells, you see where it goes.
0:23:05 We’re not going so out of control
0:23:08 of sitting there on a Sunday morning,
0:23:10 pulling levers and twisting knobs there.
0:23:11 It’s usually like a Monday, Wednesday, Friday type thing.
0:23:14 – So Stereophonic was originally booked into the Golden Theater
0:23:18 for a relatively short run,
0:23:19 but you’ve already extended that a couple of times.
0:23:21 Now at least until early 2025,
0:23:25 could you envision this show playing on Broadway
0:23:28 for years and years?
0:23:30 – I mean, in my wildest dreams, sure.
0:23:32 The surprises are what keeps every person
0:23:35 that you probably talk to on this podcast coming back
0:23:37 because as much as yes, it’s hard and yes, it’s expensive.
0:23:41 When something like that hits, it makes everyone just go, yes.
0:23:46 This is why we do what we do.
0:23:48 We just keep saying over and over again,
0:23:50 when will it slow down?
0:23:51 When will the sales slow down?
0:23:52 When will it sort of stop?
0:23:54 And it just has not yet.
0:23:55 We are going to scale.
0:23:56 We’re going to have a London production.
0:23:57 We’re going to have a first-class national tour, et cetera.
0:24:00 – There’s going to be a film, I understand.
0:24:02 – There’s lots of interest in the film.
0:24:04 – And would an initial investment
0:24:06 in the theatrical production get me a piece of that or no?
0:24:09 – Doesn’t get you the right to invest in it.
0:24:11 They have the right, but not the obligation to invest in London.
0:24:13 They have the right, but not the obligation
0:24:14 to invest in the national tour,
0:24:15 but there’s a firewall there for any movie.
0:24:18 The standard number you see
0:24:20 is that only around 20% of Broadway shows recoup
0:24:23 even their original investment.
0:24:25 Based on people I’ve been speaking with
0:24:27 and based on some personal exposure,
0:24:29 I wouldn’t be surprised if 20% is actually overstating it.
0:24:33 But whatever the case,
0:24:34 most Broadway shows lose a lot of money for their investors.
0:24:37 Does it even make sense to call it investing?
0:24:40 Should I think of it instead as essentially
0:24:43 a way of supporting the arts with a small chance
0:24:46 that I’ll actually get some money back?
0:24:48 – Commercial philanthropy is what some people like to call it.
0:24:51 – When I first heard that phrase or that idea,
0:24:53 I thought, yeah, it’s unfortunately true,
0:24:55 but then I think what’s unfortunate about it, right?
0:24:57 I mean, people spend all kinds of money
0:24:59 on all kinds of things.
0:25:00 – Exactly.
0:25:00 – It’s kind of like buying a lottery ticket, I guess,
0:25:02 is the way I think of it now.
0:25:03 – The odds are probably a little bit better
0:25:05 than a lottery ticket.
0:25:06 It’s on par with most restaurants.
0:25:08 Let’s use a gambling analogy like a Blackjack table
0:25:11 or, but I’ll use your lottery one as well.
0:25:13 Hip begets more hits as it scales up.
0:25:15 And so as you’re coming back to buy that lottery ticket,
0:25:19 your odds of winning again are pretty impossible.
0:25:21 If you have a good run at a Blackjack table
0:25:22 and then you go back the next day,
0:25:23 be like, I’m really good at Blackjack,
0:25:24 but it’s like, no, you just went on a run.
0:25:26 Whereas in the instance of any of these mega-hit musicals
0:25:30 that then scale, you’re walking back to a table
0:25:32 that you know you’re gonna be getting 21 over and over again,
0:25:35 because as it scales, it’s gonna continue to do that.
0:25:39 There are tons of cliche sayings in the theater.
0:25:40 You know, you can make a killing or you can get killed.
0:25:43 Anybody who was around in the 80s, like people would talk about,
0:25:46 oh, my cat’s investment returned 5,000%.
0:25:49 That makes the stock market or any hedge fund manager
0:25:52 kind of, you know, blow their mind.
0:25:53 So on the rare occasion that a show does return 5,000%,
0:25:59 how is that money divvied up?
0:26:01 For instance, do the non-household names in Stereophonic
0:26:05 get any back end?
0:26:07 We’ll find out after this break.
0:26:08 I’m Stephen Dubner and this is Freakonomics Radio.
0:26:12 [MUSIC PLAYING]
0:26:15 The new hit Broadway play Stereophonic
0:26:23 is about a band getting famous as they’re in the studio
0:26:27 making their second record and how their relationships ebb
0:26:30 and flow and sometimes crater as they are beset by the fame.
0:26:36 That is very much the case for Diana and Peter,
0:26:39 as played by Sarah Pigeon and Tom Pesinka.
0:26:42 So many plays are described as like slice of life,
0:26:45 but I think our play really is a slice of life.
0:26:47 You’re coming into it in the middle of something
0:26:50 and you’re leaving it in the middle of something.
0:26:52 It’s more of a comma as opposed to a period.
0:26:56 We know that these people will live on.
0:26:58 We know that their careers will change or end or something.
0:27:05 Where do you think Diana is five years after the play ends?
0:27:10 I think she writes a solo album.
0:27:12 I think it’s good, but I think she always feels like it would
0:27:14 have been better if she did it with Peter.
0:27:16 What’s Peter doing five years after?
0:27:18 I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this.
0:27:20 I think at one point it was said that Grover goes on
0:27:25 to become one of the world’s greatest producers
0:27:28 and Peter sleeps on his couch for a bit.
0:27:32 At least the actor playing Peter won’t be sleeping
0:27:35 on couches anytime soon.
0:27:36 Tom Pesinka has been performing his whole life.
0:27:40 He did musicals all through high school
0:27:42 and eventually went to Yale drama school.
0:27:44 He’s kept busy ever since.
0:27:46 Some stage work, some TV and film,
0:27:48 but career success has taken a while.
0:27:52 Stereophonic is a big boost for him.
0:27:56 I’m doing interviews for the first time.
0:27:57 I’m doing photo shoots for the first time.
0:27:59 I’m doing all this stuff.
0:28:00 It’s so novel to me, everything.
0:28:02 Is it everything I’ve ever wanted on paper?
0:28:05 Yeah, for sure.
0:28:06 But experiencing it is a very different story.
0:28:10 We had a big press day when the Tony nominations came out.
0:28:13 Just going from interview to interview to interview.
0:28:16 I was so exhausted by the end of it
0:28:18 and I went back to the hotel room
0:28:19 where my girlfriend and my dog were staying.
0:28:22 I just drew a circle with my finger in the air
0:28:26 and I said, this is real life.
0:28:28 That is something else.
0:28:29 And I will participate in that for my business and it’s fun.
0:28:33 But I’m so glad that this stuff
0:28:35 is starting to happen for me at 36 and not 21
0:28:39 ’cause I think it’s so easy to lose your head
0:28:42 and blur the lines between what is real life
0:28:46 and what is, I don’t know, something else.
0:28:50 When real rock stars come to see the show,
0:28:53 I know Ronnie Wood is coming soon
0:28:55 or just came between Rolling Stones shows.
0:28:58 Have you met with them afterwards?
0:29:00 No, and this is like a PSA
0:29:02 to all the famous people that come to the show.
0:29:04 Please say hello.
0:29:05 (laughing)
0:29:06 No one comes back.
0:29:08 I have a guest book
0:29:09 and there’s one signature in it, Ellen Burston.
0:29:11 She’s the only person in my guest book
0:29:14 and I’d love to fill it up.
0:29:15 As the producer John Johnson told us,
0:29:18 neither Tom Pesinka nor any of the other cast members
0:29:21 of Stereophonic are household names.
0:29:24 Only one of them, Will Brill, had ever been in a Broadway show.
0:29:29 But they are now responsible for helping create a hit
0:29:32 that may earn its producers and investors a very good return.
0:29:36 Traditionally, only big stars
0:29:38 have had profit sharing deals on Broadway,
0:29:40 but lately, thanks to the broader economic discussions
0:29:43 around income inequality,
0:29:45 there has been a movement toward broadening this practice.
0:29:48 So I asked John Johnson if or how the cast members
0:29:52 of Stereophonic may share in the show’s financial upside.
0:29:57 Yeah, we structure a lot of our deals
0:29:58 regardless of whether the person is a household name
0:30:01 or not with an upside potential
0:30:03 because I think in general,
0:30:05 when everyone is along for the ride
0:30:08 and everyone is cut in,
0:30:10 it makes the experience for all sort of spiritually better.
0:30:14 When you say upside potentially mean if the show does well,
0:30:16 the performers start to get a piece of the action.
0:30:19 Correct.
0:30:20 The specific nature of the show being an ensemble piece
0:30:23 and being this band, literally, who have grown together,
0:30:27 it just felt right.
0:30:29 I’ve done tons of shows that have had singular A-list stars
0:30:33 that you pay a handsome amount of money
0:30:36 and it’s a 14 or 16 week run
0:30:37 ’cause that’s what stars like to do
0:30:39 because then they’re off to their next TV show
0:30:40 or their next movie.
0:30:41 So I get paid 5,000 a week.
0:30:45 That’s Tom Pesinka.
0:30:47 But I see 2,000 something of that because of taxes
0:30:51 and because of 20% goes to my representation.
0:30:55 I’m also paying other people as well.
0:30:58 I think people don’t realize on Broadway
0:31:00 when you’re especially running a Tony campaign,
0:31:02 you’re hiring a publicist.
0:31:03 You are not the show.
0:31:05 The show has a publicist,
0:31:06 but I also elected to hire my personal publicist,
0:31:10 a stylist, someone who grooms me.
0:31:13 If it’s a Tony event and I’m a Tony nominee,
0:31:15 the producers will give me a certain amount of money
0:31:19 to spend on those things.
0:31:20 But you’re still spending a lot out of pocket.
0:31:22 Spending a lot of money.
0:31:24 The profit sharing, I don’t know exactly what it is.
0:31:28 Was it negotiated collectively with all of you?
0:31:31 Yes, we negotiated collectively for everything.
0:31:34 Was that a union driven negotiation or no?
0:31:37 No, we got together as a cast.
0:31:40 We put our points down.
0:31:42 What was negotiable, what was non-negotiable?
0:31:44 Then we went to our agents and managers with that,
0:31:47 and then they got together collectively,
0:31:49 and then they went to the producers.
0:31:50 At what point was this?
0:31:51 Was this before the transfer to Broadway?
0:31:54 Yeah, this was when we were negotiating
0:31:55 the Broadway contract.
0:31:57 What were you getting paid at playwrights per week?
0:31:59 1200, I think.
0:32:01 So to some kid who’s listening to you and saying,
0:32:05 “Oh, yeah, I’d like to have a hit like that
0:32:07 and an interesting character like that and a life like that.”
0:32:11 How would you advise them about the actual career prospects
0:32:14 of paying rent and living and maybe having a family and so on?
0:32:19 That’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot
0:32:21 because my girlfriend and I were having those discussions.
0:32:24 She’s getting to an age, I’m getting to an age
0:32:27 where it’s like, okay, we live together.
0:32:29 Are we gonna have a kid?
0:32:30 Are we gonna get married?
0:32:31 Like, what’s the deal?
0:32:33 I want those things, for sure.
0:32:35 But I gotta get a series.
0:32:37 Even if you’re in a hit on Broadway, it’s hard.
0:32:41 Unfortunately, if you just wanna be a theater artist,
0:32:44 you have to live a certain lifestyle.
0:32:47 I don’t wanna live that lifestyle.
0:32:49 I wanna live a different lifestyle.
0:32:52 I wanna have a house.
0:32:53 I wanna be able to put my kids through college.
0:32:55 I wanna be able to do all of that by my dog,
0:32:58 really fancy dog food ’cause she’s really stingy
0:33:00 about eating kibble.
0:33:02 After this show, I wanna get like on a HBO series
0:33:07 where I’m on 10 episodes or 13 episodes
0:33:10 and I’m making tens of thousands of dollars per episode
0:33:15 so I can afford the life that I’ve decided
0:33:18 and I’m not ashamed of wanting.
0:33:21 – Do you think most people who come to New York
0:33:23 and buy one or two Broadway tickets,
0:33:26 do you think they assume that the average performer
0:33:30 is making a lot more money
0:33:31 than the average performer actually is?
0:33:33 – Probably.
0:33:34 I also think it depends on who you are, right?
0:33:36 I’ve heard crazy stories of Hugh Jackman making,
0:33:39 I don’t know, a million dollars a week or something
0:33:41 or getting a certain cut of the box office.
0:33:44 I’m not ragging on Hugh Jackman, he’s great.
0:33:46 But also again, lifestyle, he has a lifestyle
0:33:49 and he can’t just take a year out of his life
0:33:52 and do Broadway and not get paid a million dollars a week.
0:33:54 – Hugh Jackman did recently star
0:33:58 in a Broadway revival of The Music Man.
0:34:01 For more than a year, he did eight shows a week.
0:34:04 His salary was never made public
0:34:06 but a million dollars a week would seem high
0:34:09 industry people we’ve spoken with
0:34:10 put the likely figure at around $300,000,
0:34:14 although that was likely augmented
0:34:16 by a share of the box office.
0:34:18 But for most people working on Broadway,
0:34:21 the economics are tough.
0:34:23 I went back to stereophonic producer John Johnson.
0:34:27 If you read the newspapers and even the trades
0:34:31 about the economics of producing live theater these days,
0:34:34 the last, let’s call it five years especially,
0:34:37 it’s easy to come to the conclusion
0:34:38 that live theater is basically dying.
0:34:40 It’s too expensive to produce.
0:34:42 The audiences are not the same or are not returning.
0:34:45 There are too many countervailing forces.
0:34:46 Unions have too much leverage.
0:34:48 The theater owners have too much leverage.
0:34:51 There are many, many, many other media options
0:34:54 that audiences are taking advantage of.
0:34:56 You sound, John, like the first person I’ve spoken with
0:34:59 who doesn’t exude that kind of death rattle.
0:35:04 – Yeah, it’s a little dramatic.
0:35:05 When I started in the business,
0:35:07 my first boss was a legendary producer
0:35:08 by the name of Liz McCann.
0:35:10 She had worked in the theater for almost 60 years.
0:35:13 She used to talk about the late ’70s,
0:35:15 the time period of which the same thing was being said.
0:35:19 New York was told to drop dead.
0:35:21 The Bronx was burning.
0:35:22 Crime was up.
0:35:23 The theaters were being torn down.
0:35:25 That was a way worse time than what we’re talking about now.
0:35:28 And yet at the same time,
0:35:30 what came out of that afterwards was in the ’80s,
0:35:33 a massive boom.
0:35:34 It was the British invasion.
0:35:36 It was Lloyd Webber.
0:35:37 It was Cameron McIntosh coming in with these massive shows.
0:35:40 That’s what came out of that period of the late ’70s.
0:35:43 The other example I’d like to give is the financial crash.
0:35:46 What we went through in late 2008, 2009, 2010,
0:35:49 I think way worse than what we’re dealing with now
0:35:52 from a standpoint of fundraising drying up,
0:35:55 shows having to close prematurely.
0:35:57 14 shows closed at the top of 2009 right after the crash.
0:36:02 It was almost worse than the pandemic
0:36:03 because everyone stayed home and saved money.
0:36:06 Or at least now, what they want to see is different.
0:36:09 But if they do really want to see something,
0:36:12 whether it be Daniel Radcliffe and Mary Lou Roelong
0:36:15 or Sarah Paulson or Jeremy Strong, they will pay for it.
0:36:19 Is it challenging?
0:36:20 Yes, are we dealing with costs going up?
0:36:23 Yes, are we dealing with not being able to figure out
0:36:27 how to get the audiences to the shows
0:36:30 and how to entice them in a world
0:36:32 where you can’t just take ads on television anymore
0:36:35 because no one’s watching traditional television.
0:36:38 How is Stereophonic being marketed
0:36:41 and sold differently now than it might have been 20 years ago?
0:36:45 Oh, it’s almost entirely all digital now.
0:36:47 It’s all mobile.
0:36:48 It’s all through Meta.
0:36:49 It’s all through Instagram, Facebook.
0:36:51 We do still take the traditional behavioral banner ads
0:36:54 that follow you around the internet.
0:36:56 We still do some prints, but not a ton.
0:36:59 We have dabbled into television,
0:37:00 but we’re taking specific ads.
0:37:02 We’re not taking giant flights with, you know,
0:37:05 multiple spots on Good Morning America to the Today Show,
0:37:07 which was always your bread and butter.
0:37:09 Because again, the audience that you were going for,
0:37:12 that demographic that was coming six, eight times a year
0:37:15 from the suburbs were the same folks who would, you know,
0:37:18 get the kids off to school and then turn on the Today Show
0:37:20 and watch the commercials kind of roll by and go,
0:37:23 “Oh, that’s show. I’ve heard of that.
0:37:24 I need to go see that.”
0:37:25 Now it’s all in your hand.
0:37:26 How do the costs of a digital first marketing
0:37:29 and advertising campaign compare to the old school,
0:37:32 and what’s the ROI compared to the old school?
0:37:35 – The ROI is much easier to figure out
0:37:38 because you can actually track people.
0:37:41 Our zip code reporting has way more sophisticated
0:37:44 now than it was before,
0:37:45 whereas you had to blanket the market with something
0:37:48 and then you didn’t see a direct correlation.
0:37:51 Now it’s less things,
0:37:54 but you can still see how your wraps jump
0:37:57 due to specific things of press,
0:37:58 like a CBS Sunday morning piece,
0:38:00 or if your stars are on Morning Joe,
0:38:03 there are fewer things that give you that pop,
0:38:05 but at least you know if I’m on Morning Joe,
0:38:07 then we’re going to have a good day at the box office.
0:38:10 (upbeat music)
0:38:12 – There are other ways in which the theater industry
0:38:16 intersects with the larger entertainment ecosystem.
0:38:19 Here again is the producer, Sonia Friedman.
0:38:22 – If you look across Broadway
0:38:24 and the West End over the last 50 years,
0:38:27 a lot of the new shows have come from studios,
0:38:31 Universal, Fox, MGM,
0:38:33 and Netflix are going to be no different in that respect.
0:38:37 – Friedman has already worked with Netflix twice.
0:38:40 The first was turning a Netflix property,
0:38:43 Stranger Things, into a live theatrical show in London.
0:38:47 – With Stranger Things, actually we went to them.
0:38:50 It was a very, very specific challenge
0:38:53 about can you put sci-fi on stage?
0:38:56 It’s a actually surprisingly emotional story
0:38:59 about a little kid who’s metaphorically
0:39:02 and literally got a monster growing inside of him,
0:39:04 and how does he beat this monster?
0:39:07 It’s a very, very simple yet universal tale we’re telling,
0:39:10 but we also wanted to see whether we could go for it,
0:39:13 technically, go for it in the most extraordinary way.
0:39:17 Netflix loved the idea and they became our partner on it.
0:39:21 – And theater for them is relatively cheap,
0:39:24 I mean, considering their scale.
0:39:25 – I would have thought so, but it’s all relative to me.
0:39:29 When Stranger Things comes to Broadway,
0:39:31 they will be our partners and I have to make sure
0:39:34 that the financial model still makes sense.
0:39:37 – So that’s one way for Netflix to be involved
0:39:41 in live theater, but there is another way.
0:39:45 Consider Sonia Friedman’s recent production
0:39:47 of the play Patriots on Broadway.
0:39:50 It was written for the stage by Peter Morgan,
0:39:53 best known for creating the Netflix series,
0:39:55 The Crown, and Netflix is a big investor
0:39:59 in the Broadway show.
0:40:00 – With Patriots, that was absolutely driven by Pete Morgan,
0:40:04 and Netflix wanted to support the Patriots journey.
0:40:08 I think they’re gonna make it into a film or something,
0:40:10 but I can say no more beyond that.
0:40:12 – Would you like to be involved in turning
0:40:14 stereophonic into a film or series?
0:40:16 – Of course, I think it would be a fantastic series.
0:40:21 – I’ve heard a little talk about you producing
0:40:23 more TV film.
0:40:25 Would you like to be a full-blown producer in that realm?
0:40:28 – I would do it, but I don’t want it to be what I do,
0:40:31 because I love theater every single night.
0:40:34 Who knows what’s gonna happen.
0:40:36 Seeing the audience, just feeling and hearing.
0:40:39 When I make TV, I’ve done a few.
0:40:41 It’s really exciting, but then it’s done.
0:40:44 It’s always slightly anticlimactic.
0:40:47 When it comes out on telly and you go, oh, that’s it.
0:40:51 You sit there at home on your own with a box of popcorn,
0:40:56 and then you look at Twitter and go, okay, so that’s happened.
0:40:59 Where’s the adrenaline?
0:41:00 Where’s that extraordinary cortisol hit
0:41:05 that you get with theater, which is you literally walk in,
0:41:09 and my heart beats faster, and it’s terrifying,
0:41:14 and it’s wonderful.
0:41:15 I mean, particularly with shows
0:41:16 which have a lot of technical challenges,
0:41:18 is it gonna go wrong tonight?
0:41:20 Are we gonna get through it?
0:41:22 When I have nine, 10 shows running at any one time,
0:41:25 I will not be able to go to sleep in London
0:41:27 until the curtain’s at least gone up in New York,
0:41:31 just so I know that’s happened.
0:41:33 And then I’ll usually wake up in middle of the night
0:41:36 just to check that they’ve gone okay.
0:41:38 And that’s how I’ve lived my life for 20 years.
0:41:41 And then we had the pandemic.
0:41:43 And I think that everything came into stark relief
0:41:47 as we all know for the world.
0:41:48 – And you had just opened Leopoldstadt,
0:41:51 the Tom Stoppard play in the West End.
0:41:53 – Just opened Leopoldstadt
0:41:54 exactly about three or four days beforehand.
0:41:57 I had another 17 shows across the world.
0:42:00 It was obviously sort of shocking.
0:42:04 And frankly, as I talk about it now,
0:42:06 I still can’t quite believe it happened to us all.
0:42:10 And I got quite heavily involved in the lobbying.
0:42:13 – Yeah, I read that you lobbied the UK government
0:42:16 for COVID relief funding for the theater sector.
0:42:19 – Very much so, yes.
0:42:20 It was a moment where I had to actually figure out
0:42:24 what theater meant to the world.
0:42:26 Why theater?
0:42:29 Why culture?
0:42:30 Why arts?
0:42:32 When we were going through this absolute crisis,
0:42:37 the very model for us,
0:42:39 which was bringing a group of people together
0:42:41 in a closed space, indoors,
0:42:45 sharing an experience,
0:42:47 that whole idea was under threat.
0:42:50 But in those dark hours,
0:42:54 it became quite clear to me
0:42:56 that theater will never, ever, ever, ever die.
0:43:01 It’s absolutely essential for our mental health
0:43:06 and our ability to communicate with one another,
0:43:11 our ability to have empathy.
0:43:14 We do something beautiful and unique,
0:43:18 which is we allow people to come together,
0:43:20 share an experience, go on a journey,
0:43:23 think about the world in a slightly different way.
0:43:25 And in the majority of cases,
0:43:27 feel a little bit better about the world.
0:43:30 And then, you know, I put on my political lobbying hat.
0:43:34 We also feed the economy.
0:43:37 We also feed the ecosystem around the towns and the cities.
0:43:41 And we feed the bars and the restaurants
0:43:43 and we create employment.
0:43:46 We are more than just a luxury.
0:43:48 You know, we’re at the center of every policy.
0:43:51 And I’m talking to the Labour Party at the moment
0:43:53 in the UK about all of this,
0:43:55 because they get it, they get it.
0:43:57 – And they’ll soon be in power.
0:43:59 – Oh, I expect so.
0:44:00 And in America and in the UK,
0:44:02 the fact that theater and artists
0:44:05 have to still fight for their relevance,
0:44:07 the fact that we still have to fight for the right
0:44:11 for children, to see shows, to read plays,
0:44:15 to study art, to study music in schools
0:44:19 is so short-sighted because, you know,
0:44:22 almost every great person who walks the planet
0:44:24 has had some experience as they grow up
0:44:27 of being in a school show, being in a school play,
0:44:30 or going to watch one and it can change their lives.
0:44:33 – On that note, the changing of a life.
0:44:39 I went back to David Ajmi.
0:44:42 He had been writing plays for a couple of decades
0:44:44 in relative obscurity until Stereophonic,
0:44:47 which itself took 11 years to write.
0:44:50 – The whole thing was written very freely
0:44:52 and very experimentally.
0:44:53 And I didn’t know what the structure would be early on.
0:44:56 I just had these scenes
0:44:57 and I didn’t know how they’d go together
0:44:59 or what they would be.
0:45:01 I don’t know.
0:45:02 I just follow my intuitions when I’m working.
0:45:04 So much of it is non-rational.
0:45:06 It is just me kind of like tracking these characters
0:45:08 and saying, let’s see how far I can push this.
0:45:11 – It seems to me that the way you’re describing writing
0:45:14 is, and maybe this is just ’cause the way
0:45:16 I think about writing, having been a writer,
0:45:18 my whole life is that, you know, this is how you write.
0:45:21 You look for ideas, you find a whole lot.
0:45:25 Most of them are terrible.
0:45:26 You throw them away and then you sit with them
0:45:28 and you let the unconscious come in
0:45:31 and then you keep doing research
0:45:33 and thinking and talking to people.
0:45:34 But then what you try to create is an original thing.
0:45:37 Whereas much of the theater that I’ve been seeing
0:45:41 over the past year, especially in pursuit of this series
0:45:44 that we’re working on, feels,
0:45:46 what’s a non-pejorative way, constructed.
0:45:50 I understand there’s a big market for that,
0:45:52 probably a much bigger market for that
0:45:53 than there is for your kind of writing.
0:45:55 But can you just offer a sort of defense
0:45:57 of your kind of writing for the stage?
0:46:00 I mean, we’re used to that kind of writing in literature.
0:46:03 But I feel like most people who think of theater
0:46:06 don’t think of a show that’s as,
0:46:09 not just thoughtful, but like intense.
0:46:11 It’s an intense piece of work.
0:46:12 It’s also fun and funny and weird.
0:46:14 But why is there not more of this?
0:46:17 – I don’t know.
0:46:18 I mean, I love Goethe and German Romanticism.
0:46:21 – I can hear all the commercial producers’ ears
0:46:24 dropping down now.
0:46:25 Nevermind.
0:46:26 – And Strinberg and stuff like that.
0:46:29 O’Neill, I mean, the great plays,
0:46:31 the great capital G great plays
0:46:33 are very, very freaking intense plays.
0:46:37 They go to the bottom and I think most playwrights
0:46:39 don’t have the courage to do it
0:46:42 or they don’t have it in their genetic material.
0:46:45 They don’t have it in them.
0:46:47 And I always didn’t.
0:46:48 I always felt like a weirdo.
0:46:50 ‘Cause in the end, that stuff is really scary
0:46:52 and it does scare away theaters.
0:46:54 People don’t always wanna feel too much.
0:46:57 They wanna go home and have their dinner after a show.
0:46:59 They don’t wanna be ripped open.
0:47:02 And I do think the function of art
0:47:04 is to discomfort the comforted.
0:47:07 And so that’s what I’m gonna do.
0:47:10 ♪ Ooh, I’ll just call me when ♪
0:47:15 ♪ It’s time to start again ♪
0:47:20 – Thanks to David Ajmi along with all the performers
0:47:25 and producers of Stereophonic who spoke with us.
0:47:28 As I mentioned, we are working on a broader series
0:47:31 about the economics of live theater
0:47:32 that’ll probably come out sometime in the fall or winter.
0:47:36 In the meantime, I would love to hear your feedback
0:47:38 on these Stereophonic episodes
0:47:41 and what you’d like to learn about in that later series.
0:47:44 Our address is radio@freakonomics.com.
0:47:48 Also, feel free to tell your friends and family
0:47:50 to listen to Freakonomics Radio.
0:47:52 That is a great way to support the podcasts you love.
0:47:55 Coming up next time on the show.
0:47:59 – I mean, this is not just a mistake.
0:48:01 This is a crime and this is something horrible, right?
0:48:04 – Imagine you are a big brand
0:48:06 that hired a celebrity endorser
0:48:09 and that celebrity does something terrible.
0:48:12 What happens next?
0:48:14 Not what you might think.
0:48:17 That’s next time on the show.
0:48:18 Until then, take care of yourself.
0:48:20 And if you can, someone else too.
0:48:23 Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio.
0:48:27 You can find our entire archive
0:48:28 on any podcast app also at Freakonomics.com,
0:48:32 where we publish transcripts and show notes.
0:48:35 This episode was produced by Alina Cullman.
0:48:37 Our staff also includes Augusta Chapman,
0:48:39 Dalvin Abouaghi, Eleanor Osborn, Elsa Hernandez,
0:48:43 Gabriel Roth, Greg Rippen, Jasmine Klinger, Jeremy Johnson,
0:48:46 Julie Canfer, Lyric Bowditch, Morgan Levy,
0:48:49 Neil Coruth, Rebecca Lee Douglas, Sara Lilly,
0:48:51 Teo Jacobs, and Zach Lipinski.
0:48:54 Our theme song is “Mr. Fortune” by the Hitchhikers.
0:48:57 Our composer is Louise Guerra.
0:48:59 Additional music in this episode by Will Butler,
0:49:01 Justin Craig, and the cast of “Stereophonic.”
0:49:04 As always, thank you for listening.
0:49:06 If anybody ever says no to me,
0:49:13 that’s when the green monster comes out.
0:49:16 Wait, the green monster is envies.
0:49:19 Is that what you mean?
0:49:20 No, sorry, the incredible Hulk.
0:49:26 The Freakonomics Radio Network,
0:49:28 the hidden side of everything.
0:49:30 Stitcher.
0:49:35 (gentle music)
0:49:37 you
0:00:02 Last week on the show,
0:00:06 we told you about an unusual new play on Broadway
0:00:09 called Stereophonic.
0:00:11 It is a long, intimate, funny, and totally gripping show
0:00:16 about a co-ed rock band in the 1970s
0:00:19 as they record an album that will turn out to be a huge hit.
0:00:23 Stereophonic itself has turned out to be a huge hit.
0:00:26 If you watched the Tony Awards the other night,
0:00:28 you saw superstars like Alicia Keys and Jay-Z,
0:00:31 Daniel Radcliffe, even Hilary Clinton,
0:00:34 who co-produced a Broadway musical this season.
0:00:36 But it was Stereophonic,
0:00:38 the play with a bunch of nobodies,
0:00:40 as one cast member said during the Tony Awards,
0:00:43 that stole the show, winning five awards.
0:00:46 Here is the playwright, David Ajmi,
0:00:49 accepting his award for best play.
0:00:52 – This was a very hard journey to get this play up here.
0:00:56 Michael McKeel and Fran Offenhauser,
0:00:59 who gave me a place to live for seven years
0:01:01 so that I could write this play.
0:01:03 It’s really hard to make a career in the arts.
0:01:06 We need to fund the arts in America.
0:01:08 It is the hallmark of a civilized society.
0:01:10 – When I interviewed Ajmi a couple of weeks ago,
0:01:15 I asked him what it’s like to be at the vortex
0:01:18 of a huge hit.
0:01:19 He has been writing plays for a couple of decades,
0:01:22 but this is his first show on Broadway.
0:01:25 Here’s what he told us.
0:01:26 – I feel like I’ve been in a car accident.
0:01:27 We all feel that way.
0:01:28 We’re just totally dislocated.
0:01:30 It doesn’t feel good.
0:01:31 It feels weirdly bad.
0:01:33 – I have a little bit of a hard time believing that.
0:01:35 – No, I know.
0:01:36 Everyone does.
0:01:37 Because you can’t take in what’s good or bad.
0:01:40 You’re just taking in stimuli.
0:01:41 You’re taking in the overstimulation,
0:01:43 which you can’t take in because it exceeds your capacity.
0:01:46 I know it’s positive intellectually,
0:01:48 but the way I’m processing it isn’t like joyous.
0:01:52 There’s moments of joy,
0:01:53 and then we just get dislocated again,
0:01:55 because we don’t know what’s happening.
0:01:56 It’s too weird.
0:01:58 When your status changes,
0:01:59 everyone starts to act really weird.
0:02:02 I don’t like it.
0:02:04 – Maybe David Ajmi is just an unusual person,
0:02:07 or maybe the people who create theater
0:02:11 are an unusual people tuned to a different frequency.
0:02:16 Why else would someone try to make a living
0:02:18 in an industry that is so financially precarious,
0:02:21 even in the best of times?
0:02:23 And these have not been the best of times.
0:02:26 – I’d say our costs have gone up about 30%
0:02:29 since the pandemic.
0:02:30 – So today on Freakinomics Radio,
0:02:32 will the success of Stereophonic
0:02:35 help change this grim future?
0:02:37 – It’s not that we’re waiting for the audiences to come back.
0:02:40 It’s that the core audience entirely has shifted.
0:02:44 – Also, when you have a hot show,
0:02:47 how do you think about raising ticket prices?
0:02:50 – You kind of play a game of chicken with yourself
0:02:52 and with your audience.
0:02:54 – And we will give you some backstage gossip too.
0:02:57 – I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this.
0:03:00 – Yes, you’re allowed.
0:03:01 We’ll hear all that starting now.
0:03:03 (upbeat music)
0:03:10 – This is Freakinomics Radio,
0:03:19 the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything
0:03:22 with your host, Stephen Dubner.
0:03:24 (upbeat music)
0:03:27 – As I mentioned in our previous episode,
0:03:35 this two-part look at Stereophonic,
0:03:38 spun out of another series that we’re making
0:03:40 about the economics of live theater.
0:03:43 The fundamental problem here is that theater
0:03:45 is a handmade thing,
0:03:47 and it doesn’t get much more efficient
0:03:49 even as you add technology the way most industries do.
0:03:52 Stereophonic is a relatively small show
0:03:55 with just seven on-stage performers,
0:03:57 but they sit atop a pyramid of dozens of people
0:04:01 who help put on the show every night.
0:04:03 Stage managers, wardrobe and props managers,
0:04:06 lighting and sound technicians,
0:04:08 the ushers in the theater,
0:04:11 you even have to pay understudies,
0:04:13 actors on standby in case anyone from the cast gets sick.
0:04:17 It would be one thing if you could scale up a show
0:04:20 that becomes a hit,
0:04:21 if you could sell five or 10,000 tickets a night
0:04:25 rather than the 770 that can fit into the Golden Theater
0:04:30 where Stereophonic is playing.
0:04:32 The show is seen by roughly 6,000 people every week.
0:04:36 David Ajmi, who wrote Stereophonic,
0:04:39 he is not one of those 6,000.
0:04:42 – Oh, I don’t want you.
0:04:43 I don’t see my shows
0:04:44 because I can’t stand watching my own show
0:04:46 in front of an audience.
0:04:48 Sometimes I’ll have my assistant go as me,
0:04:50 so I teach my assistant everything that I’m looking for
0:04:53 and all my sticking points.
0:04:55 And then I say, okay, did that happen?
0:04:57 Did that happen?
0:04:58 Did that happen?
0:04:59 But I don’t like to watch it because I find it
0:05:01 too intimate and excruciating.
0:05:03 – Is it excruciating because it’s a thing that you made
0:05:05 or it’s excruciating because it’s a thing that you made
0:05:08 that is you essentially?
0:05:09 – Both, but more the latter.
0:05:11 And it’s excruciating because it’s live
0:05:13 and I can’t control it.
0:05:14 But it’s me also.
0:05:16 It is the most vulnerable thing in the world.
0:05:17 I can’t even tell you.
0:05:18 – So if David Ajmi isn’t in the audience, who is?
0:05:26 On Broadway right now, there are 35 shows running.
0:05:30 Last week, they collectively sold 300,000 tickets.
0:05:34 Who are those people?
0:05:35 Let’s ask someone who knows.
0:05:37 – My name is John Johnson.
0:05:39 I run a production company called Wagner Johnson Productions
0:05:42 that is a producing company as well
0:05:43 as a general management company.
0:05:45 – Johnson is one of the lead producers on Stereophonic.
0:05:49 I asked him, who is coming to the theater post pandemic?
0:05:52 – There used to be, and we used to call them
0:05:54 carriage trade audiences that came from the Upper West Side
0:05:59 and Upper East Side that were women of a certain age
0:06:01 who would come down and see the new play
0:06:04 from the National Theater or oh, Glenda Jackson’s in a play.
0:06:08 I’m going to see that.
0:06:09 – But now?
0:06:10 – A new core audience has emerged in this season.
0:06:14 It was emerging as we’ve gone through
0:06:15 each season sequentially post pandemic.
0:06:17 This season is the season of oh,
0:06:20 it’s not that we’re waiting for the audiences to come back.
0:06:23 It’s that the core audience entirely has shifted
0:06:26 because we do have many more successes
0:06:29 in season three post pandemic than we did the last two.
0:06:33 – Name some of those successes
0:06:34 in addition to Stereophonic.
0:06:36 You have Gutenberg, the musical,
0:06:38 which recouped in the fall.
0:06:39 You have the production of “O’ Mary”
0:06:41 that was a huge hit off Broadway that then transferred.
0:06:44 We were producers, lead producers on “Danny and the Deplusee”
0:06:46 off Broadway that starred Aubrey Plaza.
0:06:49 That was a similar sort of success story.
0:06:51 And then further on Broadway, we’re seeing, you know,
0:06:54 Jeremy Strong, “An Enemy of the People,”
0:06:56 Sarah Paulson, “Inappropriate.”
0:06:57 Some would say, oh, well, Jeremy Strong was on succession.
0:07:00 Of course, it’s going to be a massive sellout.
0:07:02 Sarah Paulson is a star as well,
0:07:05 but this isn’t Daniel Craig,
0:07:06 who I’ve been fortunate enough to work with.
0:07:08 It’s not folks that are global superstars.
0:07:11 If the core audience pre-pandemic
0:07:13 was women ages late 50s into their 70s,
0:07:17 that we’re seeing shows six, eight times a year,
0:07:19 that audience has shifted down dramatically
0:07:22 to folks in their late 30s to their early 50s
0:07:24 who have binged every season of “American Horror Story”
0:07:27 that Sarah Paulson’s in.
0:07:28 And now when she’s in a play, they’re going,
0:07:30 oh, she’s on stage now, I’m going.
0:07:32 The folks who binged succession four times over
0:07:35 are sitting there going, Jeremy Strong’s in a play,
0:07:37 I’m going to that.
0:07:38 I don’t care how much it costs.
0:07:39 It’s event theater.
0:07:40 Event theater has always been there,
0:07:41 but I think the nature of who is part of that event theater
0:07:45 now has shifted a little bit.
0:07:46 – The other thing I noticed about the stereophonic audience,
0:07:49 it was the first play I’ve ever been to on Broadway,
0:07:51 play or musical, where the restroom line for the men’s
0:07:55 was longer than the women’s at intermission.
0:07:57 – Did you see “Lemon Trilogy” two years ago?
0:07:59 ‘Cause it was the same way at “Lemon Trilogy.”
0:08:01 – I did not.
0:08:02 – I agree, stereophonic fits into that same generational shifts
0:08:05 as well in terms of the new core audience,
0:08:06 because one would think, oh, it’s a story about a band
0:08:09 in the late ’70s, it’s dead aimed towards a boomer audience.
0:08:13 Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that we don’t have folks
0:08:15 who are in that generation who’d come and see it,
0:08:18 but the groundswell of support, the age range of it,
0:08:21 you would think, oh, how is Gen Z going to tip into a play
0:08:24 like this when most of these folks were born
0:08:26 even 20 years after the play?
0:08:28 But I think the nature of rock and roll,
0:08:31 the nature of creating music,
0:08:33 the nature of this bubble of a studio,
0:08:36 and the drama that that creates is timeless.
0:08:39 – I think the reason why, especially a lot of young people
0:08:45 are coming to the theater in 2024,
0:08:48 is that we forget, because I think we have collective PTSD,
0:08:52 but we were locked in our houses for three and a half years.
0:08:55 I think people want to be around each other.
0:08:58 – That is Tom Pesinka, the actor who plays Peter,
0:09:01 the leader of the band in Stereophonic.
0:09:03 The band is never named,
0:09:05 but they do bear a firm resemblance to Fleetwood Mac.
0:09:08 Peter and his girlfriend, Diana,
0:09:10 are at the center of a lot of the show’s drama.
0:09:13 The entire cast has remained intact
0:09:16 since the show began last year Off-Broadway
0:09:18 at the non-profit theater Playwrights Horizons.
0:09:21 – Off-Broadway, it felt very fake until you make it.
0:09:25 You have to construct intimacy.
0:09:28 You have to construct chemistry.
0:09:31 I always say that on Broadway,
0:09:33 if you had seen it off-Broadway,
0:09:35 I think you’re gonna see a much tighter knit group.
0:09:38 Sarah and I, we didn’t know each other at all.
0:09:41 – I’m Sarah Pigeon,
0:09:44 and I’m currently in Stereophonic playing Diana.
0:09:47 We’ve done 50 performances,
0:09:50 and we got previews close to 70.
0:09:52 We did 70-something performances at Playwrights,
0:09:55 and 20-something previews.
0:09:57 No one’s taken the show off yet.
0:09:59 – Are you kidding?
0:10:00 – Not at all.
0:10:01 At Playwrights, we canceled the first preview
0:10:05 because I got sick,
0:10:07 and then we canceled the fourth to last show
0:10:10 because someone lost their voice.
0:10:12 So we’ve only missed two.
0:10:15 There’s sort of been this agreement
0:10:16 that unless you’re deathly ill, you’ll be on the stage.
0:10:19 – So you have a bunch of pissed-off understudies.
0:10:21 (laughing)
0:10:24 – I don’t know, you’d have to interview them.
0:10:26 (gentle music)
0:10:27 – I mean, I think it just requires
0:10:29 a different type of stamina.
0:10:31 – Live theater has been declared dead
0:10:33 or dying for years.
0:10:35 We have TV and film,
0:10:36 and now we have an endless stream of entertainments
0:10:40 and distractions,
0:10:41 most of which require much less effort
0:10:44 and coordination and investment than live theater.
0:10:47 So what would be lost if live theater did disappear?
0:10:52 – I think a certain level of discipline,
0:10:56 a certain level of technique,
0:10:57 a certain level of lineage would be lost.
0:11:02 Working as an actor in the theater,
0:11:05 it requires different muscles
0:11:06 than working in television and film.
0:11:09 You have to do eight shows a week.
0:11:10 It’s the first time I’m really doing that,
0:11:12 and my body’s breaking down.
0:11:15 That’s just not what happens
0:11:18 when you work in front of a camera.
0:11:20 You get to go nap in your trailer for four hours
0:11:22 until they call you to set,
0:11:23 and you’re there for less than an hour,
0:11:25 and you shoot four or five takes,
0:11:27 and then you’re done.
0:11:28 – In this job and how taxing it can be,
0:11:31 eight shows a week,
0:11:32 and then our show comes in a little over three hours,
0:11:35 and there’s singing involved,
0:11:38 and screaming, and laughing, and smoking,
0:11:41 and I don’t have much of a life.
0:11:43 I have no existence really
0:11:45 outside of the Golden Theater on 45th Street.
0:11:48 – Your off day is Monday?
0:11:50 – Monday.
0:11:51 – You have a Sunday matinee
0:11:52 than no Sunday night show, is that right?
0:11:54 – No Sunday night show.
0:11:55 – So what do you do between the time
0:11:56 you’re done Sunday afternoon
0:11:58 and then Tuesday evening show?
0:12:00 – I beat feet out of midtown.
0:12:04 Sometimes my mom comes into town,
0:12:06 and we get a nice dinner somewhere,
0:12:09 and I sort of blow off some steam.
0:12:11 There’s just no time to do that
0:12:12 when you get home at 11 o’clock,
0:12:13 like who wants to have dinner close to midnight,
0:12:16 and then Monday is spent sleeping.
0:12:19 I haven’t done laundry in a really long time.
0:12:21 – Do you eat healthy?
0:12:23 – I love food.
0:12:25 I like healthy food,
0:12:27 but recently, because of the schedule,
0:12:30 I just find it quite difficult to find something
0:12:32 that I want to eat before a three hour show,
0:12:35 and sometimes two, three hour shows.
0:12:37 So I’ve been getting these craft,
0:12:39 mac and cheese, microwaveable, individual bowls,
0:12:43 and they usually, I’m not looking at the microwave,
0:12:45 so they spill all over the microwave,
0:12:47 then I have to clean the microwave,
0:12:49 but it is like carbs and a couple hundred calories
0:12:53 to get you through the show
0:12:54 and not have this huge, full stomach.
0:12:56 I’ve ordered a lot of different types of soups
0:13:01 during this run,
0:13:03 because sometimes my voice is a little rough.
0:13:06 ♪ Sunday morning ♪
0:13:11 ♪ And the life’s fine ♪
0:13:15 – Sarah Pigeon and Tom Pesinka
0:13:17 were both nominated for Tony Awards,
0:13:20 but neither of them won.
0:13:22 Stereophonic did win Best New Play, Best Direction,
0:13:25 Best Scenic Design, and Sound Design,
0:13:28 and Will Brill, who plays the band’s bassist, Reg,
0:13:32 won Best Featured Actor in a Play.
0:13:35 It was Brill who, during his acceptance speech,
0:13:38 called the Stereophonic crew a bunch of nobodies.
0:13:41 – I think awards are really important for the artists.
0:13:46 I find them quite stressful,
0:13:47 and I find them quite difficult,
0:13:49 because there are always thousands of people
0:13:53 who’ve worked so hard and they are not recognized.
0:13:56 – That is Sonia Friedman.
0:13:58 She is another lead producer of Stereophonic,
0:14:01 and she is one of the most successful
0:14:03 theatrical producers in the world.
0:14:05 – I watch these artists work really, really hard
0:14:09 and try to find the beauty in what they’re doing,
0:14:14 but they aren’t always kind to themselves in the process.
0:14:19 We’re in a very, very, very difficult world,
0:14:21 and what Stereophonic, if nothing else, reminds me
0:14:26 is that whilst we’re making art,
0:14:28 we must also do everything we can
0:14:31 to be kind to one another.
0:14:33 – Is Stereophonic, to some degree, a metaphor
0:14:35 for what you and your colleagues do all day, every day?
0:14:38 I mean, one great thing about the theater
0:14:41 or any of the performing arts,
0:14:44 but that is also a challenge,
0:14:45 is you need to do it live and do it well
0:14:48 every time because last night’s performance
0:14:52 might’ve been great,
0:14:53 but that’s not what tonight’s audience is seeing.
0:14:56 – I think what it is is just very honest
0:14:58 about how we make work,
0:15:01 and that what an audience will see
0:15:04 isn’t always the mechanics of how messy it can be
0:15:08 and how relationships can be really, really fractious,
0:15:13 offstage, and then they come onstage
0:15:15 and nobody would ever know.
0:15:16 I could tell you so many secrets
0:15:18 about chaotic relationships that happen in the wings
0:15:21 and then they come onstage.
0:15:23 – Well, let’s have a couple.
0:15:24 – And now I’m not gonna give you any,
0:15:25 but that’s the illusion of theater
0:15:27 and that’s the magic of theater.
0:15:29 There’s this invisible magic line
0:15:31 between the wings and on the stage,
0:15:33 and they are two completely separate worlds.
0:15:36 You step over that line
0:15:38 and that’s where the magic happens right in front of you,
0:15:42 and then you step behind that line
0:15:44 and it’s not always as magic.
0:15:46 – After the break, we step behind that line.
0:15:52 I’m Stephen Dubner and this is Freakin’ Omics Radio.
0:15:55 Sonia Friedman has been producing theater
0:16:08 in London, New York, and elsewhere
0:16:10 for more than 30 years.
0:16:12 Her shows have won dozens upon dozens of major awards.
0:16:16 The other night, her shows won nine Tony Awards,
0:16:20 five for Stereophonic and four for the revival
0:16:23 of Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along.
0:16:26 She’s had several other shows on Broadway this season,
0:16:29 including a new drama called Patriots
0:16:31 about the rise of Vladimir Putin.
0:16:34 She has also produced the long-running Harry Potter
0:16:36 and the Cursed Child
0:16:38 and the very long-running Book of Mormon.
0:16:41 Normally I’m producing upwards of 12, 15 shows
0:16:44 across the world.
0:16:46 – And what is Friedman’s advice for a would-be producer?
0:16:49 – You should be as a producer,
0:16:51 as interested in the business side of it.
0:16:54 One of the reasons why I’ve had longevity in the industry
0:16:56 is that I’m as fascinated and interested
0:17:00 with the numbers.
0:17:02 I will do all my own budgets.
0:17:03 Before I set out to do a show,
0:17:05 I’ll be the one that sits behind a computer
0:17:07 and literally batches it out.
0:17:09 I need to understand where the show needs to sit
0:17:12 in terms of what’s scale theater
0:17:14 and what the whole model of it needs to be
0:17:18 in order to make it viable.
0:17:20 – Does it happen now and again
0:17:21 that there’s a show that you’re dying to produce
0:17:23 but you just can’t make it work financially
0:17:25 in the theaters that are available to you?
0:17:27 – Yes.
0:17:28 – How often?
0:17:28 – It’s becoming more often now
0:17:30 because everything is getting more expensive.
0:17:34 – In London, as in New York.
0:17:35 London is still a better economic model than New York
0:17:40 but we’re creeping up.
0:17:42 I mean, we’ve gone up 21% our costs since COVID.
0:17:45 – But New York’s probably 40 or something.
0:17:48 – New York is about,
0:17:51 it’s hard to put an actual figure on it
0:17:52 but I’d say our costs have gone up about 30%
0:17:55 since the pandemic.
0:17:56 – And why is London’s economic model
0:17:59 for theater better than New York’s?
0:18:01 – When I first started producing in New York,
0:18:03 taking into account the exchange rate,
0:18:05 New York was about three times more expensive than London
0:18:08 and it’s now about five times.
0:18:10 The play that would cost me 1.5 million in London
0:18:14 will now have to be capitalized
0:18:16 between seven and eight million in New York.
0:18:19 And because of the week pound,
0:18:22 that’s really, really expensive for us.
0:18:25 And the difference, why?
0:18:27 – I mean, it sounds implausible for two things
0:18:30 that are so similar in such seemingly similar places
0:18:34 to be so…
0:18:36 – It does, it does
0:18:36 because it’s exactly the same show.
0:18:39 It’s the same set, same group of actors on the stage.
0:18:42 – So what’s driving it?
0:18:43 – Absolutely everything is more expensive over here.
0:18:47 – What’s the biggest difference?
0:18:48 Is it the real estate, the renting of the theater?
0:18:51 – The unions, number one, look, I’m not anti-union,
0:18:54 that’s just a fact.
0:18:55 – How many unions would be typically involved
0:18:57 in a Broadway show?
0:18:58 – I’m gonna say a number
0:18:59 and then I might have to come back and correct it.
0:19:03 – I think it’s about 17 unions.
0:19:06 – There are actually 13 unions.
0:19:08 For instance, IOTC Local 751,
0:19:11 which represents box office treasurers
0:19:14 and theatrical wardrobe union Local 764,
0:19:18 which represents wardrobe workers
0:19:20 and the guardians who supervise child actors.
0:19:23 – So that’s the unions, yes, the real estate,
0:19:26 it is more expensive here, it just is.
0:19:29 The advertising is very, very expensive.
0:19:32 The shops that build the sets
0:19:34 have become much more expensive since COVID
0:19:37 because of the supply chain issue.
0:19:39 Highers of lighting, sound, all of the video equipment,
0:19:43 the deals for the star actors,
0:19:45 they know their power, they know their worth.
0:19:47 Everything is more expensive
0:19:50 and it’s much, much harder therefore
0:19:53 to take creative risk here in New York,
0:19:56 and which is why Stereophonic is beautiful and wonderful,
0:19:59 but it’s an outlier.
0:20:01 It’s not the norm.
0:20:02 – Do you think it bodes well for the future?
0:20:06 – Look, I think every season you have to have
0:20:09 something like Stereophonic,
0:20:10 where you can prove that you can do shows on Broadway
0:20:15 and they can have a financial model
0:20:19 that can withstand the costs of New York.
0:20:24 – So how do you withstand the costs of New York?
0:20:29 – By selling as many tickets as you can
0:20:31 at as high a price as the market will allow.
0:20:35 The average price of a Broadway ticket is around $125,
0:20:39 but premium seats can sell for multiples of that.
0:20:42 And it’s up to people like John Johnson
0:20:44 to set those prices.
0:20:46 – There’s definitely a little bit of feel to it
0:20:48 as opposed to the ticketing companies
0:20:50 for concerts or sporting events in terms of the algorithm,
0:20:53 but that’s because they’re dealing with 25,000 seats
0:20:56 in an arena or 50,000 seats in a baseball stadium
0:20:59 or 80,000 seats in a football stadium.
0:21:01 Here, we have 800 seats a night
0:21:03 or in terms of Stereophonic specifically,
0:21:05 770 seats a night.
0:21:07 – And I guess it’s always tricky
0:21:08 when you’re selling an asset that’s so perishable.
0:21:11 – For sure.
0:21:12 We will have premium pricing now that ranges anywhere
0:21:14 from $249 on a Wednesday matinee
0:21:17 all the way to $349 on a Friday or Saturday night.
0:21:21 – So Stereophonic grossed nearly $800,000 last week,
0:21:24 which is a really good number,
0:21:26 but it’s still not nearly among the leaders in grossing.
0:21:31 – Correct.
0:21:32 – I’m sure some of that is size of house.
0:21:34 Maybe some of it is ticket price.
0:21:35 I don’t know.
0:21:36 How do you look at this as an asset
0:21:38 that you’re trying to properly price
0:21:40 and extract the right amount of return on?
0:21:43 – We priced the show to move early on
0:21:46 because we knew that while it was a white hot ticket
0:21:48 at Playwrights Horizons,
0:21:50 the only way that we can get it back
0:21:51 is that if the houses are full,
0:21:53 that the word of mouth can continue to spread
0:21:55 and how do we jumpstart that?
0:21:56 And we jumpstart that by saying,
0:21:58 we’re just gonna price the show to move.
0:22:00 We had preview pricing that was $40, $80, $120 to start
0:22:04 for the month of April,
0:22:06 but you have to catch up to it
0:22:07 because now we can get $229 for them.
0:22:12 You kind of play a game of chicken with yourself
0:22:14 and with your audience for something like Stereophonic
0:22:17 because it’s an unknown title.
0:22:20 Obviously it’s getting more well-known,
0:22:21 but two, it does not have a major mega star in it.
0:22:24 It has a group of incredible rising stars,
0:22:27 but they’re not household names.
0:22:29 The way that we get there is by getting people in the door
0:22:33 and really building to that moment.
0:22:35 Additionally, we have about 30 to 50 Tony voters
0:22:38 in the show each night and those are comp tickets.
0:22:41 We have tons of press who also are seeing the show for free
0:22:44 for that New York Times feature that’s coming
0:22:46 or that TV Booker for Live with Kelly and Mark
0:22:50 or Jimmy Fallon.
0:22:51 – Or that pesky podcast.
0:22:53 – Or that pesky podcast exactly.
0:22:54 – How often do you reevaluate your ticket pricing
0:22:58 and strategies at a daily thing, a weekly thing?
0:23:00 – I would say a couple of times a week.
0:23:02 You see how the show sells, you see where it goes.
0:23:05 We’re not going so out of control
0:23:08 of sitting there on a Sunday morning,
0:23:10 pulling levers and twisting knobs there.
0:23:11 It’s usually like a Monday, Wednesday, Friday type thing.
0:23:14 – So Stereophonic was originally booked into the Golden Theater
0:23:18 for a relatively short run,
0:23:19 but you’ve already extended that a couple of times.
0:23:21 Now at least until early 2025,
0:23:25 could you envision this show playing on Broadway
0:23:28 for years and years?
0:23:30 – I mean, in my wildest dreams, sure.
0:23:32 The surprises are what keeps every person
0:23:35 that you probably talk to on this podcast coming back
0:23:37 because as much as yes, it’s hard and yes, it’s expensive.
0:23:41 When something like that hits, it makes everyone just go, yes.
0:23:46 This is why we do what we do.
0:23:48 We just keep saying over and over again,
0:23:50 when will it slow down?
0:23:51 When will the sales slow down?
0:23:52 When will it sort of stop?
0:23:54 And it just has not yet.
0:23:55 We are going to scale.
0:23:56 We’re going to have a London production.
0:23:57 We’re going to have a first-class national tour, et cetera.
0:24:00 – There’s going to be a film, I understand.
0:24:02 – There’s lots of interest in the film.
0:24:04 – And would an initial investment
0:24:06 in the theatrical production get me a piece of that or no?
0:24:09 – Doesn’t get you the right to invest in it.
0:24:11 They have the right, but not the obligation to invest in London.
0:24:13 They have the right, but not the obligation
0:24:14 to invest in the national tour,
0:24:15 but there’s a firewall there for any movie.
0:24:18 The standard number you see
0:24:20 is that only around 20% of Broadway shows recoup
0:24:23 even their original investment.
0:24:25 Based on people I’ve been speaking with
0:24:27 and based on some personal exposure,
0:24:29 I wouldn’t be surprised if 20% is actually overstating it.
0:24:33 But whatever the case,
0:24:34 most Broadway shows lose a lot of money for their investors.
0:24:37 Does it even make sense to call it investing?
0:24:40 Should I think of it instead as essentially
0:24:43 a way of supporting the arts with a small chance
0:24:46 that I’ll actually get some money back?
0:24:48 – Commercial philanthropy is what some people like to call it.
0:24:51 – When I first heard that phrase or that idea,
0:24:53 I thought, yeah, it’s unfortunately true,
0:24:55 but then I think what’s unfortunate about it, right?
0:24:57 I mean, people spend all kinds of money
0:24:59 on all kinds of things.
0:25:00 – Exactly.
0:25:00 – It’s kind of like buying a lottery ticket, I guess,
0:25:02 is the way I think of it now.
0:25:03 – The odds are probably a little bit better
0:25:05 than a lottery ticket.
0:25:06 It’s on par with most restaurants.
0:25:08 Let’s use a gambling analogy like a Blackjack table
0:25:11 or, but I’ll use your lottery one as well.
0:25:13 Hip begets more hits as it scales up.
0:25:15 And so as you’re coming back to buy that lottery ticket,
0:25:19 your odds of winning again are pretty impossible.
0:25:21 If you have a good run at a Blackjack table
0:25:22 and then you go back the next day,
0:25:23 be like, I’m really good at Blackjack,
0:25:24 but it’s like, no, you just went on a run.
0:25:26 Whereas in the instance of any of these mega-hit musicals
0:25:30 that then scale, you’re walking back to a table
0:25:32 that you know you’re gonna be getting 21 over and over again,
0:25:35 because as it scales, it’s gonna continue to do that.
0:25:39 There are tons of cliche sayings in the theater.
0:25:40 You know, you can make a killing or you can get killed.
0:25:43 Anybody who was around in the 80s, like people would talk about,
0:25:46 oh, my cat’s investment returned 5,000%.
0:25:49 That makes the stock market or any hedge fund manager
0:25:52 kind of, you know, blow their mind.
0:25:53 So on the rare occasion that a show does return 5,000%,
0:25:59 how is that money divvied up?
0:26:01 For instance, do the non-household names in Stereophonic
0:26:05 get any back end?
0:26:07 We’ll find out after this break.
0:26:08 I’m Stephen Dubner and this is Freakonomics Radio.
0:26:12 [MUSIC PLAYING]
0:26:15 The new hit Broadway play Stereophonic
0:26:23 is about a band getting famous as they’re in the studio
0:26:27 making their second record and how their relationships ebb
0:26:30 and flow and sometimes crater as they are beset by the fame.
0:26:36 That is very much the case for Diana and Peter,
0:26:39 as played by Sarah Pigeon and Tom Pesinka.
0:26:42 So many plays are described as like slice of life,
0:26:45 but I think our play really is a slice of life.
0:26:47 You’re coming into it in the middle of something
0:26:50 and you’re leaving it in the middle of something.
0:26:52 It’s more of a comma as opposed to a period.
0:26:56 We know that these people will live on.
0:26:58 We know that their careers will change or end or something.
0:27:05 Where do you think Diana is five years after the play ends?
0:27:10 I think she writes a solo album.
0:27:12 I think it’s good, but I think she always feels like it would
0:27:14 have been better if she did it with Peter.
0:27:16 What’s Peter doing five years after?
0:27:18 I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this.
0:27:20 I think at one point it was said that Grover goes on
0:27:25 to become one of the world’s greatest producers
0:27:28 and Peter sleeps on his couch for a bit.
0:27:32 At least the actor playing Peter won’t be sleeping
0:27:35 on couches anytime soon.
0:27:36 Tom Pesinka has been performing his whole life.
0:27:40 He did musicals all through high school
0:27:42 and eventually went to Yale drama school.
0:27:44 He’s kept busy ever since.
0:27:46 Some stage work, some TV and film,
0:27:48 but career success has taken a while.
0:27:52 Stereophonic is a big boost for him.
0:27:56 I’m doing interviews for the first time.
0:27:57 I’m doing photo shoots for the first time.
0:27:59 I’m doing all this stuff.
0:28:00 It’s so novel to me, everything.
0:28:02 Is it everything I’ve ever wanted on paper?
0:28:05 Yeah, for sure.
0:28:06 But experiencing it is a very different story.
0:28:10 We had a big press day when the Tony nominations came out.
0:28:13 Just going from interview to interview to interview.
0:28:16 I was so exhausted by the end of it
0:28:18 and I went back to the hotel room
0:28:19 where my girlfriend and my dog were staying.
0:28:22 I just drew a circle with my finger in the air
0:28:26 and I said, this is real life.
0:28:28 That is something else.
0:28:29 And I will participate in that for my business and it’s fun.
0:28:33 But I’m so glad that this stuff
0:28:35 is starting to happen for me at 36 and not 21
0:28:39 ’cause I think it’s so easy to lose your head
0:28:42 and blur the lines between what is real life
0:28:46 and what is, I don’t know, something else.
0:28:50 When real rock stars come to see the show,
0:28:53 I know Ronnie Wood is coming soon
0:28:55 or just came between Rolling Stones shows.
0:28:58 Have you met with them afterwards?
0:29:00 No, and this is like a PSA
0:29:02 to all the famous people that come to the show.
0:29:04 Please say hello.
0:29:05 (laughing)
0:29:06 No one comes back.
0:29:08 I have a guest book
0:29:09 and there’s one signature in it, Ellen Burston.
0:29:11 She’s the only person in my guest book
0:29:14 and I’d love to fill it up.
0:29:15 As the producer John Johnson told us,
0:29:18 neither Tom Pesinka nor any of the other cast members
0:29:21 of Stereophonic are household names.
0:29:24 Only one of them, Will Brill, had ever been in a Broadway show.
0:29:29 But they are now responsible for helping create a hit
0:29:32 that may earn its producers and investors a very good return.
0:29:36 Traditionally, only big stars
0:29:38 have had profit sharing deals on Broadway,
0:29:40 but lately, thanks to the broader economic discussions
0:29:43 around income inequality,
0:29:45 there has been a movement toward broadening this practice.
0:29:48 So I asked John Johnson if or how the cast members
0:29:52 of Stereophonic may share in the show’s financial upside.
0:29:57 Yeah, we structure a lot of our deals
0:29:58 regardless of whether the person is a household name
0:30:01 or not with an upside potential
0:30:03 because I think in general,
0:30:05 when everyone is along for the ride
0:30:08 and everyone is cut in,
0:30:10 it makes the experience for all sort of spiritually better.
0:30:14 When you say upside potentially mean if the show does well,
0:30:16 the performers start to get a piece of the action.
0:30:19 Correct.
0:30:20 The specific nature of the show being an ensemble piece
0:30:23 and being this band, literally, who have grown together,
0:30:27 it just felt right.
0:30:29 I’ve done tons of shows that have had singular A-list stars
0:30:33 that you pay a handsome amount of money
0:30:36 and it’s a 14 or 16 week run
0:30:37 ’cause that’s what stars like to do
0:30:39 because then they’re off to their next TV show
0:30:40 or their next movie.
0:30:41 So I get paid 5,000 a week.
0:30:45 That’s Tom Pesinka.
0:30:47 But I see 2,000 something of that because of taxes
0:30:51 and because of 20% goes to my representation.
0:30:55 I’m also paying other people as well.
0:30:58 I think people don’t realize on Broadway
0:31:00 when you’re especially running a Tony campaign,
0:31:02 you’re hiring a publicist.
0:31:03 You are not the show.
0:31:05 The show has a publicist,
0:31:06 but I also elected to hire my personal publicist,
0:31:10 a stylist, someone who grooms me.
0:31:13 If it’s a Tony event and I’m a Tony nominee,
0:31:15 the producers will give me a certain amount of money
0:31:19 to spend on those things.
0:31:20 But you’re still spending a lot out of pocket.
0:31:22 Spending a lot of money.
0:31:24 The profit sharing, I don’t know exactly what it is.
0:31:28 Was it negotiated collectively with all of you?
0:31:31 Yes, we negotiated collectively for everything.
0:31:34 Was that a union driven negotiation or no?
0:31:37 No, we got together as a cast.
0:31:40 We put our points down.
0:31:42 What was negotiable, what was non-negotiable?
0:31:44 Then we went to our agents and managers with that,
0:31:47 and then they got together collectively,
0:31:49 and then they went to the producers.
0:31:50 At what point was this?
0:31:51 Was this before the transfer to Broadway?
0:31:54 Yeah, this was when we were negotiating
0:31:55 the Broadway contract.
0:31:57 What were you getting paid at playwrights per week?
0:31:59 1200, I think.
0:32:01 So to some kid who’s listening to you and saying,
0:32:05 “Oh, yeah, I’d like to have a hit like that
0:32:07 and an interesting character like that and a life like that.”
0:32:11 How would you advise them about the actual career prospects
0:32:14 of paying rent and living and maybe having a family and so on?
0:32:19 That’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot
0:32:21 because my girlfriend and I were having those discussions.
0:32:24 She’s getting to an age, I’m getting to an age
0:32:27 where it’s like, okay, we live together.
0:32:29 Are we gonna have a kid?
0:32:30 Are we gonna get married?
0:32:31 Like, what’s the deal?
0:32:33 I want those things, for sure.
0:32:35 But I gotta get a series.
0:32:37 Even if you’re in a hit on Broadway, it’s hard.
0:32:41 Unfortunately, if you just wanna be a theater artist,
0:32:44 you have to live a certain lifestyle.
0:32:47 I don’t wanna live that lifestyle.
0:32:49 I wanna live a different lifestyle.
0:32:52 I wanna have a house.
0:32:53 I wanna be able to put my kids through college.
0:32:55 I wanna be able to do all of that by my dog,
0:32:58 really fancy dog food ’cause she’s really stingy
0:33:00 about eating kibble.
0:33:02 After this show, I wanna get like on a HBO series
0:33:07 where I’m on 10 episodes or 13 episodes
0:33:10 and I’m making tens of thousands of dollars per episode
0:33:15 so I can afford the life that I’ve decided
0:33:18 and I’m not ashamed of wanting.
0:33:21 – Do you think most people who come to New York
0:33:23 and buy one or two Broadway tickets,
0:33:26 do you think they assume that the average performer
0:33:30 is making a lot more money
0:33:31 than the average performer actually is?
0:33:33 – Probably.
0:33:34 I also think it depends on who you are, right?
0:33:36 I’ve heard crazy stories of Hugh Jackman making,
0:33:39 I don’t know, a million dollars a week or something
0:33:41 or getting a certain cut of the box office.
0:33:44 I’m not ragging on Hugh Jackman, he’s great.
0:33:46 But also again, lifestyle, he has a lifestyle
0:33:49 and he can’t just take a year out of his life
0:33:52 and do Broadway and not get paid a million dollars a week.
0:33:54 – Hugh Jackman did recently star
0:33:58 in a Broadway revival of The Music Man.
0:34:01 For more than a year, he did eight shows a week.
0:34:04 His salary was never made public
0:34:06 but a million dollars a week would seem high
0:34:09 industry people we’ve spoken with
0:34:10 put the likely figure at around $300,000,
0:34:14 although that was likely augmented
0:34:16 by a share of the box office.
0:34:18 But for most people working on Broadway,
0:34:21 the economics are tough.
0:34:23 I went back to stereophonic producer John Johnson.
0:34:27 If you read the newspapers and even the trades
0:34:31 about the economics of producing live theater these days,
0:34:34 the last, let’s call it five years especially,
0:34:37 it’s easy to come to the conclusion
0:34:38 that live theater is basically dying.
0:34:40 It’s too expensive to produce.
0:34:42 The audiences are not the same or are not returning.
0:34:45 There are too many countervailing forces.
0:34:46 Unions have too much leverage.
0:34:48 The theater owners have too much leverage.
0:34:51 There are many, many, many other media options
0:34:54 that audiences are taking advantage of.
0:34:56 You sound, John, like the first person I’ve spoken with
0:34:59 who doesn’t exude that kind of death rattle.
0:35:04 – Yeah, it’s a little dramatic.
0:35:05 When I started in the business,
0:35:07 my first boss was a legendary producer
0:35:08 by the name of Liz McCann.
0:35:10 She had worked in the theater for almost 60 years.
0:35:13 She used to talk about the late ’70s,
0:35:15 the time period of which the same thing was being said.
0:35:19 New York was told to drop dead.
0:35:21 The Bronx was burning.
0:35:22 Crime was up.
0:35:23 The theaters were being torn down.
0:35:25 That was a way worse time than what we’re talking about now.
0:35:28 And yet at the same time,
0:35:30 what came out of that afterwards was in the ’80s,
0:35:33 a massive boom.
0:35:34 It was the British invasion.
0:35:36 It was Lloyd Webber.
0:35:37 It was Cameron McIntosh coming in with these massive shows.
0:35:40 That’s what came out of that period of the late ’70s.
0:35:43 The other example I’d like to give is the financial crash.
0:35:46 What we went through in late 2008, 2009, 2010,
0:35:49 I think way worse than what we’re dealing with now
0:35:52 from a standpoint of fundraising drying up,
0:35:55 shows having to close prematurely.
0:35:57 14 shows closed at the top of 2009 right after the crash.
0:36:02 It was almost worse than the pandemic
0:36:03 because everyone stayed home and saved money.
0:36:06 Or at least now, what they want to see is different.
0:36:09 But if they do really want to see something,
0:36:12 whether it be Daniel Radcliffe and Mary Lou Roelong
0:36:15 or Sarah Paulson or Jeremy Strong, they will pay for it.
0:36:19 Is it challenging?
0:36:20 Yes, are we dealing with costs going up?
0:36:23 Yes, are we dealing with not being able to figure out
0:36:27 how to get the audiences to the shows
0:36:30 and how to entice them in a world
0:36:32 where you can’t just take ads on television anymore
0:36:35 because no one’s watching traditional television.
0:36:38 How is Stereophonic being marketed
0:36:41 and sold differently now than it might have been 20 years ago?
0:36:45 Oh, it’s almost entirely all digital now.
0:36:47 It’s all mobile.
0:36:48 It’s all through Meta.
0:36:49 It’s all through Instagram, Facebook.
0:36:51 We do still take the traditional behavioral banner ads
0:36:54 that follow you around the internet.
0:36:56 We still do some prints, but not a ton.
0:36:59 We have dabbled into television,
0:37:00 but we’re taking specific ads.
0:37:02 We’re not taking giant flights with, you know,
0:37:05 multiple spots on Good Morning America to the Today Show,
0:37:07 which was always your bread and butter.
0:37:09 Because again, the audience that you were going for,
0:37:12 that demographic that was coming six, eight times a year
0:37:15 from the suburbs were the same folks who would, you know,
0:37:18 get the kids off to school and then turn on the Today Show
0:37:20 and watch the commercials kind of roll by and go,
0:37:23 “Oh, that’s show. I’ve heard of that.
0:37:24 I need to go see that.”
0:37:25 Now it’s all in your hand.
0:37:26 How do the costs of a digital first marketing
0:37:29 and advertising campaign compare to the old school,
0:37:32 and what’s the ROI compared to the old school?
0:37:35 – The ROI is much easier to figure out
0:37:38 because you can actually track people.
0:37:41 Our zip code reporting has way more sophisticated
0:37:44 now than it was before,
0:37:45 whereas you had to blanket the market with something
0:37:48 and then you didn’t see a direct correlation.
0:37:51 Now it’s less things,
0:37:54 but you can still see how your wraps jump
0:37:57 due to specific things of press,
0:37:58 like a CBS Sunday morning piece,
0:38:00 or if your stars are on Morning Joe,
0:38:03 there are fewer things that give you that pop,
0:38:05 but at least you know if I’m on Morning Joe,
0:38:07 then we’re going to have a good day at the box office.
0:38:10 (upbeat music)
0:38:12 – There are other ways in which the theater industry
0:38:16 intersects with the larger entertainment ecosystem.
0:38:19 Here again is the producer, Sonia Friedman.
0:38:22 – If you look across Broadway
0:38:24 and the West End over the last 50 years,
0:38:27 a lot of the new shows have come from studios,
0:38:31 Universal, Fox, MGM,
0:38:33 and Netflix are going to be no different in that respect.
0:38:37 – Friedman has already worked with Netflix twice.
0:38:40 The first was turning a Netflix property,
0:38:43 Stranger Things, into a live theatrical show in London.
0:38:47 – With Stranger Things, actually we went to them.
0:38:50 It was a very, very specific challenge
0:38:53 about can you put sci-fi on stage?
0:38:56 It’s a actually surprisingly emotional story
0:38:59 about a little kid who’s metaphorically
0:39:02 and literally got a monster growing inside of him,
0:39:04 and how does he beat this monster?
0:39:07 It’s a very, very simple yet universal tale we’re telling,
0:39:10 but we also wanted to see whether we could go for it,
0:39:13 technically, go for it in the most extraordinary way.
0:39:17 Netflix loved the idea and they became our partner on it.
0:39:21 – And theater for them is relatively cheap,
0:39:24 I mean, considering their scale.
0:39:25 – I would have thought so, but it’s all relative to me.
0:39:29 When Stranger Things comes to Broadway,
0:39:31 they will be our partners and I have to make sure
0:39:34 that the financial model still makes sense.
0:39:37 – So that’s one way for Netflix to be involved
0:39:41 in live theater, but there is another way.
0:39:45 Consider Sonia Friedman’s recent production
0:39:47 of the play Patriots on Broadway.
0:39:50 It was written for the stage by Peter Morgan,
0:39:53 best known for creating the Netflix series,
0:39:55 The Crown, and Netflix is a big investor
0:39:59 in the Broadway show.
0:40:00 – With Patriots, that was absolutely driven by Pete Morgan,
0:40:04 and Netflix wanted to support the Patriots journey.
0:40:08 I think they’re gonna make it into a film or something,
0:40:10 but I can say no more beyond that.
0:40:12 – Would you like to be involved in turning
0:40:14 stereophonic into a film or series?
0:40:16 – Of course, I think it would be a fantastic series.
0:40:21 – I’ve heard a little talk about you producing
0:40:23 more TV film.
0:40:25 Would you like to be a full-blown producer in that realm?
0:40:28 – I would do it, but I don’t want it to be what I do,
0:40:31 because I love theater every single night.
0:40:34 Who knows what’s gonna happen.
0:40:36 Seeing the audience, just feeling and hearing.
0:40:39 When I make TV, I’ve done a few.
0:40:41 It’s really exciting, but then it’s done.
0:40:44 It’s always slightly anticlimactic.
0:40:47 When it comes out on telly and you go, oh, that’s it.
0:40:51 You sit there at home on your own with a box of popcorn,
0:40:56 and then you look at Twitter and go, okay, so that’s happened.
0:40:59 Where’s the adrenaline?
0:41:00 Where’s that extraordinary cortisol hit
0:41:05 that you get with theater, which is you literally walk in,
0:41:09 and my heart beats faster, and it’s terrifying,
0:41:14 and it’s wonderful.
0:41:15 I mean, particularly with shows
0:41:16 which have a lot of technical challenges,
0:41:18 is it gonna go wrong tonight?
0:41:20 Are we gonna get through it?
0:41:22 When I have nine, 10 shows running at any one time,
0:41:25 I will not be able to go to sleep in London
0:41:27 until the curtain’s at least gone up in New York,
0:41:31 just so I know that’s happened.
0:41:33 And then I’ll usually wake up in middle of the night
0:41:36 just to check that they’ve gone okay.
0:41:38 And that’s how I’ve lived my life for 20 years.
0:41:41 And then we had the pandemic.
0:41:43 And I think that everything came into stark relief
0:41:47 as we all know for the world.
0:41:48 – And you had just opened Leopoldstadt,
0:41:51 the Tom Stoppard play in the West End.
0:41:53 – Just opened Leopoldstadt
0:41:54 exactly about three or four days beforehand.
0:41:57 I had another 17 shows across the world.
0:42:00 It was obviously sort of shocking.
0:42:04 And frankly, as I talk about it now,
0:42:06 I still can’t quite believe it happened to us all.
0:42:10 And I got quite heavily involved in the lobbying.
0:42:13 – Yeah, I read that you lobbied the UK government
0:42:16 for COVID relief funding for the theater sector.
0:42:19 – Very much so, yes.
0:42:20 It was a moment where I had to actually figure out
0:42:24 what theater meant to the world.
0:42:26 Why theater?
0:42:29 Why culture?
0:42:30 Why arts?
0:42:32 When we were going through this absolute crisis,
0:42:37 the very model for us,
0:42:39 which was bringing a group of people together
0:42:41 in a closed space, indoors,
0:42:45 sharing an experience,
0:42:47 that whole idea was under threat.
0:42:50 But in those dark hours,
0:42:54 it became quite clear to me
0:42:56 that theater will never, ever, ever, ever die.
0:43:01 It’s absolutely essential for our mental health
0:43:06 and our ability to communicate with one another,
0:43:11 our ability to have empathy.
0:43:14 We do something beautiful and unique,
0:43:18 which is we allow people to come together,
0:43:20 share an experience, go on a journey,
0:43:23 think about the world in a slightly different way.
0:43:25 And in the majority of cases,
0:43:27 feel a little bit better about the world.
0:43:30 And then, you know, I put on my political lobbying hat.
0:43:34 We also feed the economy.
0:43:37 We also feed the ecosystem around the towns and the cities.
0:43:41 And we feed the bars and the restaurants
0:43:43 and we create employment.
0:43:46 We are more than just a luxury.
0:43:48 You know, we’re at the center of every policy.
0:43:51 And I’m talking to the Labour Party at the moment
0:43:53 in the UK about all of this,
0:43:55 because they get it, they get it.
0:43:57 – And they’ll soon be in power.
0:43:59 – Oh, I expect so.
0:44:00 And in America and in the UK,
0:44:02 the fact that theater and artists
0:44:05 have to still fight for their relevance,
0:44:07 the fact that we still have to fight for the right
0:44:11 for children, to see shows, to read plays,
0:44:15 to study art, to study music in schools
0:44:19 is so short-sighted because, you know,
0:44:22 almost every great person who walks the planet
0:44:24 has had some experience as they grow up
0:44:27 of being in a school show, being in a school play,
0:44:30 or going to watch one and it can change their lives.
0:44:33 – On that note, the changing of a life.
0:44:39 I went back to David Ajmi.
0:44:42 He had been writing plays for a couple of decades
0:44:44 in relative obscurity until Stereophonic,
0:44:47 which itself took 11 years to write.
0:44:50 – The whole thing was written very freely
0:44:52 and very experimentally.
0:44:53 And I didn’t know what the structure would be early on.
0:44:56 I just had these scenes
0:44:57 and I didn’t know how they’d go together
0:44:59 or what they would be.
0:45:01 I don’t know.
0:45:02 I just follow my intuitions when I’m working.
0:45:04 So much of it is non-rational.
0:45:06 It is just me kind of like tracking these characters
0:45:08 and saying, let’s see how far I can push this.
0:45:11 – It seems to me that the way you’re describing writing
0:45:14 is, and maybe this is just ’cause the way
0:45:16 I think about writing, having been a writer,
0:45:18 my whole life is that, you know, this is how you write.
0:45:21 You look for ideas, you find a whole lot.
0:45:25 Most of them are terrible.
0:45:26 You throw them away and then you sit with them
0:45:28 and you let the unconscious come in
0:45:31 and then you keep doing research
0:45:33 and thinking and talking to people.
0:45:34 But then what you try to create is an original thing.
0:45:37 Whereas much of the theater that I’ve been seeing
0:45:41 over the past year, especially in pursuit of this series
0:45:44 that we’re working on, feels,
0:45:46 what’s a non-pejorative way, constructed.
0:45:50 I understand there’s a big market for that,
0:45:52 probably a much bigger market for that
0:45:53 than there is for your kind of writing.
0:45:55 But can you just offer a sort of defense
0:45:57 of your kind of writing for the stage?
0:46:00 I mean, we’re used to that kind of writing in literature.
0:46:03 But I feel like most people who think of theater
0:46:06 don’t think of a show that’s as,
0:46:09 not just thoughtful, but like intense.
0:46:11 It’s an intense piece of work.
0:46:12 It’s also fun and funny and weird.
0:46:14 But why is there not more of this?
0:46:17 – I don’t know.
0:46:18 I mean, I love Goethe and German Romanticism.
0:46:21 – I can hear all the commercial producers’ ears
0:46:24 dropping down now.
0:46:25 Nevermind.
0:46:26 – And Strinberg and stuff like that.
0:46:29 O’Neill, I mean, the great plays,
0:46:31 the great capital G great plays
0:46:33 are very, very freaking intense plays.
0:46:37 They go to the bottom and I think most playwrights
0:46:39 don’t have the courage to do it
0:46:42 or they don’t have it in their genetic material.
0:46:45 They don’t have it in them.
0:46:47 And I always didn’t.
0:46:48 I always felt like a weirdo.
0:46:50 ‘Cause in the end, that stuff is really scary
0:46:52 and it does scare away theaters.
0:46:54 People don’t always wanna feel too much.
0:46:57 They wanna go home and have their dinner after a show.
0:46:59 They don’t wanna be ripped open.
0:47:02 And I do think the function of art
0:47:04 is to discomfort the comforted.
0:47:07 And so that’s what I’m gonna do.
0:47:10 ♪ Ooh, I’ll just call me when ♪
0:47:15 ♪ It’s time to start again ♪
0:47:20 – Thanks to David Ajmi along with all the performers
0:47:25 and producers of Stereophonic who spoke with us.
0:47:28 As I mentioned, we are working on a broader series
0:47:31 about the economics of live theater
0:47:32 that’ll probably come out sometime in the fall or winter.
0:47:36 In the meantime, I would love to hear your feedback
0:47:38 on these Stereophonic episodes
0:47:41 and what you’d like to learn about in that later series.
0:47:44 Our address is radio@freakonomics.com.
0:47:48 Also, feel free to tell your friends and family
0:47:50 to listen to Freakonomics Radio.
0:47:52 That is a great way to support the podcasts you love.
0:47:55 Coming up next time on the show.
0:47:59 – I mean, this is not just a mistake.
0:48:01 This is a crime and this is something horrible, right?
0:48:04 – Imagine you are a big brand
0:48:06 that hired a celebrity endorser
0:48:09 and that celebrity does something terrible.
0:48:12 What happens next?
0:48:14 Not what you might think.
0:48:17 That’s next time on the show.
0:48:18 Until then, take care of yourself.
0:48:20 And if you can, someone else too.
0:48:23 Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio.
0:48:27 You can find our entire archive
0:48:28 on any podcast app also at Freakonomics.com,
0:48:32 where we publish transcripts and show notes.
0:48:35 This episode was produced by Alina Cullman.
0:48:37 Our staff also includes Augusta Chapman,
0:48:39 Dalvin Abouaghi, Eleanor Osborn, Elsa Hernandez,
0:48:43 Gabriel Roth, Greg Rippen, Jasmine Klinger, Jeremy Johnson,
0:48:46 Julie Canfer, Lyric Bowditch, Morgan Levy,
0:48:49 Neil Coruth, Rebecca Lee Douglas, Sara Lilly,
0:48:51 Teo Jacobs, and Zach Lipinski.
0:48:54 Our theme song is “Mr. Fortune” by the Hitchhikers.
0:48:57 Our composer is Louise Guerra.
0:48:59 Additional music in this episode by Will Butler,
0:49:01 Justin Craig, and the cast of “Stereophonic.”
0:49:04 As always, thank you for listening.
0:49:06 If anybody ever says no to me,
0:49:13 that’s when the green monster comes out.
0:49:16 Wait, the green monster is envies.
0:49:19 Is that what you mean?
0:49:20 No, sorry, the incredible Hulk.
0:49:26 The Freakonomics Radio Network,
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0:49:30 Stitcher.
0:49:35 (gentle music)
0:49:37 you
Broadway operates on a winner-take-most business model. A runaway hit like Stereophonic — which just won five Tony Awards — will create a few big winners. But even the stars of the show will have to go elsewhere to make real money. (Part two of a two-part series.)
- SOURCES:
- David Adjmi, author and playwright.
- Sonia Friedman, theater producer and founder of Sonia Friedman Productions.
- John Johnson, theater producer and co-founder of Wagner Johnson Productions.
- Tom Pecinka, actor.
- Sarah Pidgeon, actor.
- RESOURCES:
- “Tony Award Winners 2024: The Full List,” by Rachel Sherman (The New York Times, 2024).
- “Everything to Know About the Stranger Things: The First Shadow Play in London,” by Tara Bitran (Tudum, 2024).
- Stereophonic, by David Adjmi, Will Butler, and Daniel Aukin (2023).
- EXTRAS:
- “How to Make the Coolest Show on Broadway,” by Freakonomics Radio (2024).