This week Stereophonic the play launches its North American Tour in Seattle from October 7-12. After Seattle, Stereophonic heads to Spokane, Eugene Oregon and then Las Vegas and beyond.
There aren’t many things that can truly evoke a back in time feeling these days. With new tech revolutionizing our daily on the daily it’s growingly difficult to understand how slowly life used to unfold. But for just over 3 hours (including intermission) Stereophonic the play touring through Seattle this week might possibly manage to do this.
As playgoers, all of us become time travelers from our our seats in the dark back to 1976, without distractions or cellphones or side conversations as we watch the exciting but also sometimes mundane and uncomfortable recording process of an album with a band that is just starting to make it big.
What you need to know ahead of time if you’re used to mainstream musicals and plays is that this is not a musical. It is a play with music (and I like the sound and wish there was more) and it’s also a play about music but I don’t think the first actual song happens until we’re 30 minutes in.
There are many indulgent pauses in conversations and a lot of waiting for characters to move from the recording studio booth to the front live area that might be difficult for an audience used to immediacy. But I think these also give a unique real life perspective to this play that we don’t usually see in theatrical performances. And there isn’t a traditional story line, but more like overhearing bits of conversations, watching a producer figure out a bothersome snare drum noise, seeing how bandmates lives and relationships change over time.
So if you know this is going to be a long play that is almost like watching a documentary Stereophonic ends up feeling more like art than story.
In a play like this we start to forget that we are watching actors playing a part and not reality tv and that these people go home as different people than they are on stage. It feels like we are a fly on the wall in a recording studio. It also reminded me a bit of the book Daisy Jones and the six, or listening to records in a listening lounge like Shibuya HiFi, and also the Seventies show.
The set design is also unusual and you might try to walk up to get a closer look during intermission. I don’t think I’ve seen a more intricate set. The play takes place in a studio enclosed in glass in the back area of the stage and in a live room in the front stage area and sometimes it is like watching a play within a play because there are two scenes happening at the same time. I think this was done pretty effectively and I can’t imagine this is easy to pull off.
Stereophonic will be in Seattle through Sunday Oct 12 and it may provide calm respite from the first game of the Mariners vs Toronto game in the American League Championship Series also happening on Sunday. I was invited to attend Stereophonic in Seattle as media for the purpose of this review.
If you love Broadway shows, you can find the rest of Broadway in Seattle’s 2025/2026 season here. Also, we usually try to go to the Carlile Room before shows at the Paramount theatre and they often have theme-y menu items that pair nicely with the performances but also make sure you make a reservation or you might miss out. (We only managed to have time for dessert and drinks the other night because I forgot)
Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys. She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live. She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)
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