‘Stereophonic’ brings recording room chaos and Tony accolades to Eugene

A previous version of this story incorrectly listed a sold-out Sunday evening performance of “Stereophonic” due to inaccurate information on the Hult Center’s website.

When you’re in a play with music composed by Will Butler, who came to fame in the Canadian indie rock outfit Arcade Fire, you’re going to get a playlist. Multiple playlists, actually.

Actor Jack Barrett has been relying on Butler’s playlists to get into the vibe. 

It’s a highly specific vibe: “Stereophonic” is set entirely in a California recording studio as a mid-1970s rock band records an album. It comes to Eugene’s Hult Center this weekend for four performances. 

The play, which was written by David Adjmi and premiered at Playwrights Horizons in 2023 before transferring to Broadway in 2024, became the most Tony-nominated play of all time in 2024 with 13 nods and five wins. 

Barrett plays Grover, the sound engineer for the unnamed, British-American band at the center of the play. Grover is a kind of emotional anchor as the band’s rancor, fueled by drugs, alcohol and romantic betrayal, threatens to get in the way of actually recording the band’s latest album.

Grover also spends a lot of time at the recording studio’s mixing console, a functional device during the play. That means Barrett’s acting requires balancing jamming out with tending to EQ and reverb levels; audiences hear the results as Barrett and the other actor playing an engineer mix sound.

Barrett said that task keeps him engaged onstage, and he found himself asking Butler and music director Justin Craig for insight on how actual sound engineers would tend to the mixing console.

But some questions for Butler went beyond technical information. “There were a couple of times I’d ask him, ‘Am I like dancing too much? Am I not dancing enough?’” Barrett said.

Though the band in “Stereophonic” goes unnamed, their tangly mix of arguing, and multiple imploding romantic relationships, will be familiar to fans of Fleetwood Mac. That band’s 1977 album “Rumours” was recorded as jealousy, cheating and divorce split romantic relationships within the band. They transmuted shouting matches into musical gold with songs like “The Chain” and “Dreams.”

For some, the resemblance of “Stereophonic” to Fleetwood Mac was a touch too close. Last year, former Fleetwood Mac sound engineer and producer Ken Caillat sued the producers of “Stereophonic,” alleging that the play took copyrighted material from his book, with co-author Steven Stiefel, “Making Rumours.”

Adjmi, the playwright, has said his inspirations came from many bands of the 1970s, and specifically from Robert Plant’s vocals on Led Zeppelin’s “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You.” The lawsuit was settled last December, and the terms of the settlement were not disclosed, per The Hollywood Reporter. (Noticeably, in his interview with Lookout Eugene-Springfield, Barrett said his playlist featured “music of the era” and name-dropped Led Zeppelin and the Carpenters, but did not specifically name Fleetwood Mac.)

Tangled inspiration aside, Barrett said he’s grateful to be touring with the show. He first saw the play when it was off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons, and was blown away. The songs the band plays, particularly “Bright,” give him chills.

“It’s really beautiful that we get to take this sort of play around the country,” Barrett said. “I think that everyone can gain a lot or relate to a lot about the human experience in this and the dynamics of people working on something and trying to create a piece of art, especially in the way that they are trying to create it.”

How to see ‘Stereophonic’

“Stereophonic” will be performed at the Hult Center in downtown Eugene:

• Friday, Oct. 17, at 8 p.m.
• Saturday, Oct. 18, at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.
• Sunday, Oct. 19, at 1 p.m.

Tickets are still available for each performance. Prices range from $57.40 in the upper balcony to $142.30 for an Emerald Circle Orchestra seat.