![]() ![]() How did the story arc - this idea of an insular person opening up - come together? But it’s not like, “Oh, here’s my life story.” It’s me, but it’s also not meant to be totally autobiographical, but there’s elements of biography in there. When you’re onstage, do you consider what you’re doing to be a character? There’s a little bit of theatricality with the brain at the beginning of the show. We’re only focused on things that have been successful, so it helps to see incrementally that “Oh, somebody has created an initiative and has done this” - so that’s moved the marker a little bit. No, I work on the Reasons to Be Cheerful thing. The temptation is to fall into cynicism and anger and all that.ĭo you have routines that help you break out of that? Mantras? Sometimes the emails can be cheery, but the newspaper is generally not. I have a little coffee and a grapefruit, and reading a few newspapers. Is it easy for you to start the day with a positive mindset? ![]() You have a song in the show from your American Utopia album, “Every Day Is a Miracle,” which has a sort of “the day is what you make of it” theme. What’s surprising, perhaps, as he speaks calmly and clearly about the show and the way he sees the world, is that he says it is not a state that comes naturally to him. He oversees a web magazine, Reasons to Be Cheerful, and many of the themes in American Utopia are about inclusivity and community. It’s safe to assume that some of his serenity comes from the world outlook he seems to have adopted in recent years. “Here’s a guy who’s basically inside his head at the beginning,” Byrne says of his “character.” “And then by the end of the show, he’s a different person in a very different place.” But mostly, American Utopia is a spectacle, an exercise in minimalism in which each musician carries his or her own instrument and dances around an austere stage. In fact, the only prop in the show is the model of a human brain (used during the song “Here”), which helps set up the show’s loose plot. Byrne talks to the audience between the songs about voting, James Baldwin, and how the brain works. But I think audiences appreciate it when nobody’s trying to fool them.”ĭuring the show, Byrne leads 11 musicians - all barefoot and dressed the same in matching gray suits - through nearly two dozen songs from the Talking Heads and Byrne’s solo years, leaning heavily on last year’s American Utopia album. “I wondered, ‘Can we do a show where it’s just us, the musicians, and none of the other stuff?’ If you do something simple, it’s sometimes really hard. ![]() The illustrations arguably serve the same purpose on the page as the music did on the stage.“With Stop Making Sense, we brought everything onstage so people could see what it takes to put on a show, and with this, I’m taking everything away,” David Byrne says of American Utopia, his quasi-theatrical Broadway residency, which is scheduled to run into next year. The book doesn’t so much tell a story as evoke a mood. “Despite all that has happened, despite all that is still happening, I think there is still possibility - we are still a work in progress….” The few words on the pages of “American Utopia” the book are those sung (or sometimes spoken) on the Broadway stage during “David Byrne’s American Utopia.” The book begins the way Byrne began: (In their short bios at the end of their new book, Byrne and Kalman each mention their children and their grandchildren.) Now, those same drawings are the illustrations in what is largely a picture book, similar to the children’s picture book on which Byrne and Kalman collaborated back in 1987, Stay up Late, which is about friends and family entertaining a new baby on his first night at home. ![]() The curtain, which spanned the full length and height of the stage while the house was filling with the audience, then rose as the performance began. The show featured Byrne and 11 other musicians performing songs from Byrne’s 2018 album of the same name, along with previous songs, including those from his days as singer, guitarist and songwriter for Talking Heads. The curtain of “American Utopia” the musicalĭavid Byrne commissioned illustrator Maira Kalman to create these drawings for the curtain at Broadway’s Hudson Theater, for the four-month run, ending this past February, of “David Byrne’s American Utopia” the musical. ![]()
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