Q&A with Nick Mills and Wes Grantom of Tony Award-winning Stereophonic
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In June, Stereophonic, the most Tony-nominated play of all time, won five awards at the 77th annual Tony Awards in New York City, including Best Play. University of Evansville alumni Nick Mills and Wes Grantom were part of the team that contributed to the play’s success.
Mills said there are plans for a national tour of Stereophonic in the fall of 2025 and talk in Hollywood about securing filming rights. Mills and Grantom spoke with Inside INdiana Business about the play and how the UE theater department influenced their careers.
What’s Stereophonic about?
Mills: Stereophonic is a play written by David Adjmi that’s set in the summer of 1976, and it takes place over the course of a year throughout 1977. It’s about a band making an album.
The whole play takes place inside a recording studio. It doesn’t leave that space the entire length of the three hours the audience is experiencing the play.
It’s a slice-of-life, naturalistic play about the characters and the trials and tribulations of creating something from nothing. It doesn’t follow the classical form that a play or a movie normally does with an inciting incident and a big climactic moment but rather follows what happens when a group of incredible, talented, creative artists come together to try and create something beautiful.
And what happens when those artists become really famous during that process and how they handle all of that adulation and deal with the consequences of what it costs to make art.
Tell me how you became involved with the play.
Mills: I went to see it off-Broadway. I teach at [New York University], Playwrights Horizons, which is one of the studios that teaches under the umbrella of NYU. All of my students had been telling me to go see this play. Then I had a lot of friends who are in the generation above me also telling me to go see this play. I was like, “Okay, we should go see it.” But I was initially deterred because it was three hours long.
My wife and I went over Thanksgiving weekend last year. By the end of the first act, we knew we had seen something really special. We texted a friend of ours who’s also a producer within the New York theater community, and they invited us to come on board as general partner, lead producers to be a part of bringing the play to Broadway. I’d never done that before.
I reached out to Wes to pick his brain about someone he thought might want to come on board. Then he said, “I would like to do this. I’m interested as well.” Wes is an incredible producer, director so he has experience in this field.
Grantom: I didn’t see it off-Broadway, but only because I couldn’t get a ticket. It sold incredibly well. It was the talk of the end of the season. It was on all the top 10 lists.
I never really imagined I would be involved in producing a Broadway play. I didn’t know how to get involved in that world. I’ve mostly been involved as a director and resident director. So when Nick started asking about it and let me know that he was doing this and looking for people to come on board, I jumped at the opportunity because I knew it was going to be something different, something special.
It had no famous people in it, which is something I loved. It was a completely original play. New work is something I’ve always been passionate about.
Explain your roles as a lead producer and a co-producer.
Mills: I’m a general partner, lead producer. I’m one of five general partners. I was initially responsible for bringing in 20% of the capitalization, and then we’re involved in the day-to-day running of the show. Whether that means the advertising, what the posters are going to look like in Shubert Alley, the negotiations with the cast in terms of whether they’re going to continue with the show, basically just running the show.
Grantom: I’m not involved in the day-to-day. It’s mostly like getting briefed on what the marketing strategy is and how sales are going. A lot of it is getting to go to fun events.
I want to contribute more than just investing in the project. I’ve taken it upon myself to be a real cheerleader and try to bring groups in to do whatever I can to help drive our advanced sales so that it runs longer and more people can come to see it.
What challenges did you experience while working on Stereophonic?
Mills: This has been a unique process in that it’s been fairly effortless. We got lucky in that David Adjmi wrote this brilliant piece of theater that lots of people have just flocked to and loved. It’s been fairly seamless, which is not normally the case with theater.
This is normally not something that does well. A new player with no famous people. It’s been the opposite of that. It’s been a wonderful, seamless run from start to finish, not only among the producing team but within the cast, within the creative team. Everyone’s been so grateful and humble and excited to be working together that there haven’t been that many challenges.
Grantom: The demands of the script are unique. There’s a fully soundproof recording studio on stage. The hyperrealism of the piece has specific demands to recreate the intimacy that Nick experienced when he saw it off-Broadway, that audience experience in a Broadway space.
Beyond Broadway, there will be some challenges to figure out how this could live in bigger houses or how this could have a more extended life on the road or wherever. The demands of the play are unique, but that’s what serves this piece so well. It’s more than just the play. It’s a play with this incredible score. It’s transcending what people thought a new play could do on Broadway or commercially.
You’re both University of Evansville graduates. How did UE prepare you for theater careers?
Grantom: Nick and I graduated in the same class. At UE, our theater department expects you to do all of it. I went in as a performance major, even though I didn’t think I would try to be a performer as a professional. But what UE did was get me ready to be an all-around theater maker. I painted sets. I built sets. I helped out in the costume shop, even though I was really bad at that. I directed a few things while I was there.
A lot of my career in New York as a result of that was starting off very scrappy, making theater in bars and on boats and in basements. And then slowly, the venue expands, and we’re getting to work on Broadway, and then we’re getting to work in proper theaters and spaces that are more equipped to present work and have bigger audiences.
I’m usually involved in more than one aspect. I’m a director primarily, but even as a director, I get involved in other areas. I feel like Evansville helped prepare me to do that.
Mills: I 100% agree. I credit all of my success with my experience at Evansville because I had the fortune of going to NYU for grad school for acting. And as wonderful an experience as that was, all of my friends are from Evansville. I’m not as in touch with many of my classmates from NYU. There was something strange and magical about that class and the classes surrounding us at Evansville in the early 2000s.
A lot of that is due to John David Lutz and Sharla [Cowden], the current director of the program. Their recruiting is next level. It’s not that they look just for talent. They look for humanity, groundedness and humility in people who are going to be collaborative, kind and ambitious—but in a humble way. A lot of this business comes from collaboration, continued work ethic and patience. It’s a marathon. It takes a long time.
The mistake a lot of young artists often make is they think it’s supposed to happen right away. And if it doesn’t, then they give up and they go away. That’s understandable because it’s really hard. But there’s something about Evansville in the holistic way they approach theater-making. Where you’re not just an actor, you’re not just a director, you’re not just a designer. You do all of it, so you understand the process of it all, and you have respect for all of it.
There are two other UE alumni involved with Stereophonic: Miriam Cortes and Benjamin Anderson. What are their roles?
Mills: Ben Anderson is one of the understudies for two of the roles in Stereophonic. Miriam [Cortes] was the assistant costume designer to the costume designer off-Broadway and Broadway. This is something I didn’t even know until Wes came on board. Then we discovered together that we had four UE theater alums involved with the production, which is fairly rare.
Grantom: It’s a cool thing to be able to reconnect. [As an assistant professor at UE], I taught Miriam, and I didn’t know until I went to an alumni party that she was working on the show. I was in a conversation with her, and I told her I just signed on to work on Stereophonic. And she was like, “Oh my God, I’m doing [costume design] on Stereophonic.” It was a cool moment of becoming colleagues with someone who I had recently been teaching.
Stereophonic is the most Tony-nominated play of all time, earning five Tony Awards including Best Play. How does that feel?
Mills: In some ways, obviously, I feel great. I feel excited. In other ways, I feel nothing. Nothing is different. I have three kids, and I’m still changing diapers. Life continues. It’s like a TBD situation. I’m not quite sure. Anytime I get a little bored during the day or frustrated or tired, I tell myself, “You have a Tony Award right now.” So that lifts me up a little bit.
I feel grateful and lucky, and I never saw my path going this way. I’m an actor. My only goal was to live off what I love to do and support a family. This was a strange pivot. My wife is a producer, and so I jumped on board with her with this. We started a production company because of this play, and now we’re looking forward to what other opportunities come from this.
Grantom: This is not what I thought I would be doing at all. I’m really glad to be a part of it. This is not a way I thought I would win any award. I always had a feeling that Stereophonic would do well. I believed in it, and that’s why I got involved because I believed in the work. And then that belief just grew. Once I experienced the music, once I saw the cast do it for the first time, that belief just grew and grew.
It was amazing that the awards kept coming and the nominations kept coming. What means more to me than anything is the way that audiences are responding to it. They’re feeling inspired, and that transcends generational lines. People who are in their sixties and seventies who were big fans of that sound, they’re loving this. But then high school and college students are so excited about this because the seventies were a sexy time. It just feels cool.
What’s next for the two of you?
Mills: Hopefully more collaboration. The thing that I’ve loved the most was having Wes on board and being in the same room as Ben and Miriam. And seeing Sharla on opening night. Sharla texted me on the night of the Tonys, and I was like, “This is for you and all of UE theater.” I mean that. I wouldn’t be here without Evansville.
Stereophonic is a bit like a lottery ticket, and I’m excited to capitalize on what could potentially be next. I don’t know what that is. There’s some pressure to answer that question and figure it out. But for now, I want to enjoy the moment and let it be revealed.
Grantom: I’m going to go teach at Harlaxton, which is an abroad campus for Evansville. In the fall, I’ll be back at Evansville teaching and directing shows. I have a couple of professional directing things after that. Most of it involves teaching and directing.
But I’m certainly open to what producing opportunities present themselves. Especially now, because working on Stereophonic has been such a great learning opportunity for me about how it all gets made at this level. I’m keeping my eyes and ears open for what could be next in the producing world.