(Cover Photo: Claire DeJean as “Diana,” Emilie Kouatchou as “Holly”  and Denver Milord as “Peter” in a moment from the Tony-Winning Broadway Play "STEREOPHONIC" now playing for a limited engagement at the Emerson Colonial Theatre in Boston, MA. through March 15, 2026. Photo Credit: Julieta Cervantes)

By Kevin T. Baldwin

METRMAG Reviewer

# 774-242-6724

"Music isn't supposed to be perfect. It's not about that. It's about relating to each other; and making something from your soul." 

                                                           - ("Simon") / David Adjmi

The Emerson Colonial Theatre

Presents the Tony-Winning Broadway Play 

"STEREOPHONIC"

LIMITED ENGAGEMENT!

Playwright David Adjmi

Original Songs and Orchestrations by Will Butler

Directed by Daniel Aukin

Music Director and Orchestrations Justin Craig

Jack Barret As “Grover,” Claire Dejean as “Diana,” Steven Lee Johnson as “Charlie,” Emilie Kouatchou as “Holly,” Cornelius McMoyler as “Simon,” Denver Milord as “Peter,” Christopher Mowod as “Reg.” 

Understudies:  Eli Bridges as “U/S Simon,” Andrew Gombas as “U/S Peter, Charlie,” Quinn Allyn Martin as “U/S Diana,” Jake Regensburg as “U/S Grover, Reg,” Lauren Wilmore as “U/S Holly.”

Additional Creative Team: 

Scenic Design - David Zinn; Costume Design - Enver Chakartash; Lighting Design - Jiyoun Chang; Sound Design - Ryan Rumery; Hair and Makeup Design - Robert Pickens, Katie Gell; Casting - Alldaffer & Donadio Casting; Vocal, Text and Dialect Coach - Gigi Buffington; General Manager - Dylan Glen; Company Manager - Brian DeCaluwe; Production Stage Manager - Geoff Maus; Stage Manager - Holly Adam; Production Management - Work Light Productions; Tour Booking, Marketing and Publicity - BOND Theatrical; Production Props Supervisors - Ray Wetmore, JR Goodman.

Performances:

March 10, 2026 through March 15, 2026

(Contact Box Office for Exact Times)

EMERSON COLONIAL THEATRE, 106 Boylston Street, Boston, MA. 02116

TICKETS:

By phone # 888-616-0272 Box Office Hours: Monday-Friday: 9am - 8pm (EST); Saturday-Sunday: 10am - 8pm (EST) 

THE EMERSON COLONIAL THEATRE Box Office is located at 106 Boylston Street, Boston, MA. 02116

THE EMERSON COLONIAL THEATRE website is the official source for tickets:
http://www.emersoncolonialtheatre.com/  

BUY TICKETS

COVID 19 PROTOCOLS

Contact Venue for Most Updated COVID-19 Safety Protocols and Information.

(Warning: The following review contains spoilers)

The Emerson Colonial Theatre hosts the National Tour of the Tony Award-winning "STEREOPHONIC" for a limited engagement in Boston. 

As written by David Adjmi, "STEREOPHONIC" is NOT a musical but rather is a dramatic stage play with music. 

This reminder will prove vital as you watch the play unfold in a recording studio setting and, just when you expect there to be a full musical number, it repeatedly stops...JUST like in an actual recording studio where nothing goes completely as planned...much like life. 

Taking place during the years 1976 and 1977 in a single set of a recording studio (or rather, technically, two recording studios), the story of "STEREOPHONIC" unfolds like a 4-sided album, represented by four distinctive “acts” told over three hours with one intermission between acts two and three. 

In fact, there are discussions over whether they should make a double lp or cut material to whittle it down to a single album, preferably by the company bosses funding the release. 

What makes the above interesting is how there might actually be folks in the audience who ponder the same thing about what stuff could have been cut from "STEREOPHONIC" to reduce the prolonged time spent with this group of accomplished artists but miserable people. 

The premise of "STEREOPHONIC" allows us to follow a fictitious rock band at their breaking point which coincides with their pinnacle release. 

This is a band that has paid its dues but now finds itself on the verge of complete collapse just while they are hitting it big. 

Their continued success hinges upon the release of this new, heavily-financed album. 

We witness how the pressure of sudden superstardom is thrust upon the 5-member band (two women, three men) as they struggle through recording their new album. 

The show, which runs three hours (but feels like four), received great initial critical acclaim, with critics comparing the story to the real-life band Fleetwood Mac and the creation of their 1977 album “Rumours.” 

Will Butler from the indie rock band Arcade Fire composed the music for "STEREOPHONIC" and, listening to the full cast recording, the approach taken shows a passionate homage made to the multi-faceted style of Fleetwood Mac and especially to the virtuoso guitar-playing style of Lindsay Buckingham. 

Making its Broadway debut in 2024, the original production of "STEREOPHONIC" made Tony Awards history when it garnered 13 overall nominations at the 77th Tony Awards thereby receiving the most nominations for a play in the awards’ history. 

As stated, "STEREOPHONIC" was a critics’ darling and won five Tony Awards: including the award for Best Play. 

The play would also garner the top honors from the Drama Desk Awards, the Drama League Awards, the Outer Critics Circle Awards and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards. 

(Photo: Jack Barret as “Grover,” Denver Milord as “Peter,”  Claire DeJean as “Diana” and  Emilie Kouatchou as “Holly” in a moment from the Tony-Winning Broadway Play "STEREOPHONIC" now playing for a limited engagement at the Emerson Colonial Theatre in Boston, MA. through March 15, 2026. Photo Credit: Julieta Cervantes)

Beginning in Sausalito, California in 1976, we are in a studio as two novice sound engineers, Grover (Jack Barret) and Charlie (Steven Lee Johnson) are thrust into the abyss with a British-American rock band arriving to record but in varied stages of substance abuse obliteration. 

This amazingly detailed set is not just for show - it actually serves as a functioning recording studio complete with all the technical bells and whistles.

If “rumours” are to be believed, constant booze and drug abuse was openly celebrated in the more high-end recording studios back in the 70s. 

The “Mac-ish” band in "STEREOPHONIC" is made up of: Founding member and drummer Simon (Cornelius McMoyler), married couple bassist Reg (Christopher Mowod) and keyboardist/vocalist Holly (Emilie Kouatchou), who are nearly at the end of their rope, along with lovers/partners guitarist Peter (Denver Milord) and singer Diana (Claire Dejean). 

As Grover and Charlie, Barrett and Johnson have undeniable chemistry as they quickly become the “flies on the wall” reflecting the audience POV, watching how the mounting tensions among the group prolongs the recording process and brings everyone involved to a collective impasse. 

McMoyler provides a seamless performance as the usually calm, steadying influence Simon - but even Simon finds himself at wits’ end as his relationship with his wife and children still living in England collapses. 

There is a hilarious extended (as in "awkwardly-long") pause as Simon confronts Grover who wants to use a recorded “click track” to help steady the rhythm being used by the musicians in the recording sessions, which offends Simon who, as the drummer, believes himself to BE the “click track.” 

As we, through the eyes and ears of Grover and Charlie, observe the marriage between Reg and Holly disintegrate, largely due to Reg's drug and alcohol addiction.   

Mowod provides a lot of comic relief during his more drug-induced introspective moments, but we see how even his attempts at sobriety comes too late to counter his imploding relationship with Holly, as we also witness through the incredible performance by Kouatchou. 

(Photo: The 2026 North American Touring CAST of the Tony-Winning Broadway Play "STEREOPHONIC" now playing for a limited engagement at the Emerson Colonial Theatre in Boston, MA. through March 15, 2026. Photo Credit: Julieta Cervantes)

The band tries out new material as their “appointed” producer Peter makes callous comments combined with incessant and occasionally unnecessary creative changes. 

Milord gives a laudable portrayal of Peter, who frustrates and infuriates everyone, including girlfriend Diana, who appears to be the biggest target of his most insulting and misogynistic of assaults. 

As the persistent Diana, Dejean is resilient in her performance of the young singer struggling with her self-confidence while trying to perform to the best of her ability as the group continues to record. 

The above is fascinating juxtaposition as Simon reveals to Diana that the studio has tripled their budget for the second album because one of Diana's songs from their debut album hit the Billboard Top Ten, propelling the album to re-enter the Billboard Top Forty, putting new additional pressure on everyone but especially Diana. 

The story of "STEREOPHONIC" goes from bad to worse for everyone involved in the Sausalito studio in ‘76, by the time the story hits its fourth act, it is now ‘77 in the second studio in Los Angeles, California - and things go from worse to catastrophic.

(Photo: Jack Barret as “Grover” with Steven Lee Johnson as “Charlie” in a scene from the Tony-Winning Broadway Play "STEREOPHONIC" now playing for a limited engagement at the Emerson Colonial Theatre in Boston, MA. through March 15, 2026. Photo Credit: Julieta Cervantes)

Among the new songs being worked on is the song "Bright" - a musical high point of a show which reminds us that replacing some of the dialogue with a few more completed musical renderings would have.......what? WOULD it have killed you, showrunners? 

By the way, while not technically a musical, there IS an available cast recording of "STEREOPHONIC" which is truly fascinating to listen to on Spotify or wherever you get your recorded music. 

There is a fascinating voyeuristic, documentary-style quality to "STEREOPHONIC" elevated by the performances by the collective touring ensemble.

As we watch this tune-filled train crash into its foregone destination, the fact that the music is performed live as if we are in an actual recording studio serves to heighten the story’s authenticity. 

The story will also resonate authentically to fans of 70s supergroups like the Mac or the Eagles for us “folks of a certain age” that watched those actual supergroups implode in real time.

(Photo: Claire DeJean as “Diana,” Emilie Kouatchou as “Holly”  and Denver Milord as “Peter” in a moment from the Tony-Winning Broadway Play "STEREOPHONIC" now playing for a limited engagement at the Emerson Colonial Theatre in Boston, MA. through March 15, 2026. Photo Credit: Julieta Cervantes)

Even while exceeding its noted three-hour runtime divided over four acts, one will note just how quickly the time flies.

So, be it either by foot, by car or subway train, you can go your own way to see "STEREOPHONIC" as it continues its limited engagement at the Emerson Colonial Theatre in Boston until March 15, 2026, 2025.

Approximately three hours with one intermission.

Kevin T. Baldwin is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA)

@MetrmagReviews

@Theatre_Critics

ABOUT THE SHOW

"STEREOPHONIC" mines the agony and the ecstasy of creation as it zooms in on a music studio in 1976. 

Here, an up-and-coming rock band recording a new album finds itself suddenly on the cusp of superstardom. 

The ensuing pressures could spark their breakup... or their breakthrough. 

Written by David Adjmi, directed by Daniel Aukin and featuring original music by Arcade Fire’s Will Butler, "STEREOPHONIC" invites the audience to immerse themselves, with fly-on-the-wall intimacy, in the powder keg process of a band on the brink of blowing up.

TICKETS available by phone # 888-616-0272 

BUY TICKETS

ABOUT THE EMERSON COLONIAL THEATRE

In its storied history, THE EMERSON COLONIAL THEATRE has debuted such seminal Broadway shows as Anything Goes, Porgy and Bess, Oklahoma!, Born Yesterday, Follies, A Little Night Music, Grand Hotel and La Cage aux Folles, among others. Reviving a great theatrical tradition, Boston’s newly restored EMERSON COLONIAL THEATRE officially re-opened its doors in July 2018 with the pre-Broadway World Premiere of Moulin Rouge! The Musical. THE EMERSON COLONIAL THEATRE, which opened in 1900 with a production of Ben-Hur, is the oldest continuously operated theater in Boston; as well as being amongst the most magnificent, having retained most of its original period details. A theatre for the community, EMERSON COLONIAL THEATRE will once again contribute to the rich cultural landscape of Boston, with a new and varied program of Broadway shows, live music, comedy and events.

THE EMERSON COLONIAL THEATRE

106 Boylston Street

Boston, MA. 02116

www.emersoncolonialtheatre.com