The Writer Behind the Most-Nominated Play in Broadway History
David Adjmi discusses “Stereophonic.”
David Adjmi felt out of place in the Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn, where he grew up. He felt uncomfortable at the Juilliard School, where he studied playwriting. Some of the earliest productions of his plays taught him that his theatrical style could be frustrating and alienating for his collaborators and his audiences. In a review of a 2013 Off Off Broadway production of Adjmi’s play “Marie Antoinette,” the Times theater critic Ben Brantley called Adjmi “a polarizing playwright who specializes in sounding the depths of shallowness.” Adjmi decided that mainstream success was out of reach for him. He considered giving up writing altogether.
But that’s not what happened. Adjmi told Melissa Kirsch the story of how he came to write “Stereophonic,” his newest play, which was recently nominated for 13 Tony Awards, a record for a play.
On today’s episode
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Melissa Kirsch, the deputy editor of Culture and Lifestyle for The Times and the writer of The Morning newsletter on Saturdays.
![A photo illustration: A woman wearing over ear headphones and a collared shirt looks into the distance; she is tinted red and set against a yellow square. There is a green rectangle to the left, and a red and a brown one to the right.](https://cdn.statically.io/img/static01.nyt.com/images/2024/06/13/podcasts/13tcd-stereophonic/13tcd-stereophonic-articleLarge-v4.png?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)
Melissa Kirsch is the deputy editor of Culture and Lifestyle at The Times and writes The Morning newsletter on Saturdays. More about Melissa Kirsch
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