'Job' to Open on Broadway

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Job" to Open on Broadway

Podcast: All Of It with WNYC
Host: Kusha Navadar (substituting for Alison Stewart)
Air Date: June 4, 2024
Guests: Max Friedlich (playwright), Sidney Lemon (actor), Peter Friedman (actor)
Episode Theme: Exploring the journey, themes, and creative process behind the acclaimed play "Job" as it moves from Off-Broadway to Broadway.

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Episode Overview

This episode focuses on the critically acclaimed play "Job," an intense two-hander that follows Jane, a millennial content moderator, and her therapy session with Lloyd after a viral workplace breakdown. With its move to Broadway, playwright Max Friedlich and actors Sidney Lemon and Peter Friedman sit down to discuss the show's origin, its nuanced take on tech culture and generational rifts, the psychological depth of its characters, and the unique challenges of live performance. The interview offers an engaging and thought-provoking look behind the scenes at both the play and the larger context of how we work and relate to technology.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Origins and Inspiration

[03:21] Max Friedlich shares how "Job" began:

• Started writing in 2019.
• Inspired by meeting someone who worked as a content moderator and being fascinated by the moral and ethical issues surrounding tech.
• "It opened up this whole world of morals and ethics in tech that I've found super fascinating."
  (Max Friedlich, 03:46)

2. The Characters: Jane and Lloyd

Jane's State of Mind

• [03:58] Sidney Lemon: Describes Jane the day before her breakdown as dutiful but faced with an unexpected encounter—setting her up as hopeful, lost, and overwhelmed the next day.
• “Hopeful to start, lost and, well, overwhelmed.”
  (Sidney Lemon, 04:27)
• Jane is hyperverbal, educated, and uses her articulate nature as both a coping mechanism and a defining trait.

Lloyd’s Approach and Preparation

• [05:17] Peter Friedman: Imagines Lloyd having already worked through several therapy sessions, relishing the challenge of the next one.
• Lloyd is depicted as a steady professional, but the presence of the gun disrupts his composure:
  • “Its presence is always there and it’s always felt. And that’s what keeps that tension.”
    (Peter Friedman, 05:51)

The Gun’s Thematic Role

• [06:50] Sidney Lemon: Sees the gun as Jane's security blanket—never meant to be used, highlighting the ambiguity and tension throughout the play.
• Max and the cast discuss keeping the reality of the gun alive for both characters and the audience.
• “It was not her intention to pull it out or to use it. That was the last thing she was imagining... a security blanket or as a teddy bear to feel protected.”
  (Sidney Lemon, 06:50)

3. Setting and Symbolism: January 2020

• [07:36] Max Friedlich: Chose January 2020 as a moment of ‘the end of the known world,’ predating the pandemic but full of innocence and unknowing.
• He wanted the play to serve as an almost parable, emphasizing generational divides and looming uncertainties.
• “Felt like a time of such innocence and fear and just no idea of what was possible in the modern world.”
  (Max Friedlich, 08:17)

4. Jane’s Motivation for Returning to Work

• [09:22] Sidney Lemon: Jane finds unique meaning and purpose as a content moderator—a job few can handle. Her sense of identity and efficacy are tied to the work.
• “She found that she had some sort of niche talent for doing something that other people just couldn’t do, and that she was actually making a difference in the world.”
  (Sidney Lemon, 09:31)

5. Exploring Ambiguity and Character Depth

• [10:24] Peter Friedman: Appreciates Max’s willingness to write an ambiguous, multi-dimensional therapist—Lloyd’s goodness is ever in question.
• Sidney describes Jane as “the personification of anything that could happen in our modern world... she really feels like the sum of the Internet and the world and modern life."
  (Sidney Lemon, 11:46)

6. On Names and Subtext

• There’s intentional ambiguity in the naming (Lloyd with one "L"); Max drew a loose parallel with "Job" and "the Lord," but doesn’t extend that analogy directly.
  (12:26–13:28)

7. Performance Dynamics and Audience Connection

Handling Stage Props (The Gun)

• Sidney discusses the gravity and professional challenges of using a gun on stage, drawing on past acting experience.
• They reveal an “Easter egg”—a Mountain Dew bottle that’s actually filled with water on stage for breaks.
  (18:11–18:24)

The Impact of Audience Response

• Both actors are keenly aware of audience energy, especially at tension points:
  • “We really feel the audience and hear them, and that’s honestly such a thrill.”
    (Sidney Lemon, 16:05)

The Challenge of Two-Hander Performance

• It’s both exhilarating and exhausting to share the stage with only one other actor for 90 minutes straight.
  (Peter: "There’s no break to interrupt you...and that’s the challenge." 17:02)
• Sidney: "You can sort of...enter the stream and then just go, and you don’t stop until it’s over." (17:32)

8. The Play’s Ambiguity

• [18:44] Max Friedlich: Achieving ambiguity by embodying both characters fully—"If you can put forth two really strong opposing viewpoints... you will create that gray area."
  (18:44)

9. Exploring Tech, Identity, and Generational Conflict

• Max is fascinated with tech’s self-benevolence—how modern workers tie purpose and identity to jobs that often serve faceless behemoths:
  “The insistence that your work be benevolent...feels very millennial and very, maybe Gen Z as well.”
  (Max Friedlich, 20:13)

• Jane’s and Lloyd’s differing outlooks reflect genuine generational skepticism. Jane has blind spots about the power and legacy of boomers; Lloyd about the centrality of tech to younger people.
  (21:26–22:13)

10. Stakes, Identity, and Needing to be Right

• Both characters’ need to be "right" is existential: for Jane, it justifies her suffering; for Lloyd, his worldview is a matter of life or death.
  (Max Friedlich, 23:02)

11. Real-Life Parallels: Bad Days and Emotional Authenticity

• Sidney and Max honestly recount taxing rehearsal periods, last-minute script changes, and personal connections to their characters' meltdowns and panic.
• Max: “A lot of the emotional core of the play comes from experiencing panic attacks and having...overwhelm and panic... There’s a lot more autobiographical stuff around mental health, I think, in the play than people realize.”
  (Max Friedlich, 26:54)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote / Moment | |-----------|----------------|--------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:46 | Max Friedlich | "It opened up this whole world of morals and ethics in tech that I've found super fascinating." | | 04:27 | Sidney Lemon | "Hopeful to start, lost and, well, overwhelmed." | | 05:51 | Peter Friedman | "Its presence is always there and it’s always felt. And that’s what keeps that tension." | | 06:50 | Sidney Lemon | "It was not her intention to pull it out or to use it...a security blanket or as a teddy bear to feel protected." | | 08:17 | Max Friedlich | "Felt like a time of such innocence and fear and just no idea of what was possible in the modern world." | | 09:31 | Sidney Lemon | "She found that she had some sort of niche talent for doing something that other people just couldn’t do, and that she was actually making a difference in the world." | | 11:46 | Sidney Lemon | "Jane...really feels like the sum of the Internet and the world and modern life." | | 16:05 | Sidney Lemon | "We really feel the audience and hear them, and that's honestly such a thrill." | | 20:13 | Max Friedlich | "The insistence that your work be benevolent...feels very millennial and very, maybe Gen Z as well." | | 23:02 | Max Friedlich | "For both of them, them being right or them being wrong, I think is a matter of life or death internally." | | 26:54 | Max Friedlich | "A lot of the emotional core of the play comes from experiencing panic attacks and having...overwhelm and panic... There's a lot more autobiographical stuff around mental health, I think, in the play than people realize." |

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Key Timestamps

• [03:21] – Max Friedlich on the inspiration and early notes for "Job"
• [04:27] – Sidney Lemon on Jane’s mental state
• [05:51]/[06:50] – The ever-present tension of the gun for characters and audience
• [07:36] – Why the play is set in January 2020
• [09:22] – Why Jane clings to her difficult job
• [10:24] – Peter Friedman on playing ambiguity and depth as Lloyd
• [16:05] – How the intimate theatre setup enhances actor-audience interplay
• [18:44] – Max Friedlich’s approach to writing moral ambiguity
• [20:13] – Tech, meaning, and generational purpose
• [23:02] – Existential stakes for both characters and what it means to be "right"
• [26:54] – Max’s personal experience with anxiety and its connection to the play

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Final Thoughts

This episode offers a rich, behind-the-scenes look at how "Job" wrestles with issues of mental health, technology, moral ambiguity, and generational friction—all embodied by two powerhouse performances onstage. The guests’ openness about their creative processes and vulnerabilities give fresh insight into why the play resonates, especially at a moment when cultural anxieties about work, tech, and self-worth are more intense than ever.

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"Job" opens at the Hayes Theater on July 15, 2024.

Transcript

[Max Friedlich]

I' ma put you on, nephew. All right, unk.

[Allison Stewart]

Welcome to McDonald's. Can I take your order, miss?

[Max Friedlich]

I've been hitting up McDonald's for years. Now it's back. We need snack wraps. What's a snack wrap? It's the return of something great. Snack wrap is back.

[Sidney Lemon]

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[Max Friedlich]

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[Allison Stewart]

This is all of it. I'm Kusha Navadar. Alison Stewart will be back this summer. Thanks for hanging out with us on this Tuesday. I'm so grateful that you're here. Coming up on today's show, we'll hear new music from Brooklyn singer songwriter Jaila. We'll talk summer movies with New York Times Kyle Buchanan, and we'll talk about the history of the famous Asbury park music venue, the Stone Pony. That's the plan. So let's get this started with an Off Broadway play that's moving to the big stage. The hit Off Broadway play Job is returning to a New York stage, but this time it's coming to Broadway. The play is written by Max Friedlich, and the production has already gone through two successful Off Broadway runs since it first opened last fall. The story follows Jane, a millennial content moderator at a tech behemoth who has a shrieking freakout on the job. Unfortunately for Jane, her breakdown was recorded and then it went viral. So now she has to go to a crisis therapist in order to be cleared to return to work. The play during one therapy session between Jane, played by Sidney Lemon, and her therapist, Lloyd, who's played by Peter Friedman. Lloyd isn't exactly a Luddite, but he's skeptical about the Internet and what Jane does for a living. Something about her puts him on edge. You'll recognize both actors from their work on the show. Succession. The tension of the play comes quickly, as what's supposed to be a routine therapy session goes wrong because Jane has brought a gun in her bag. What happens with that gun in the end? Well, you'll just have to find out for yourself. Job is opening at the Hayes Theater on July 15. And Max Friedlich, Peter Friedman and Sidney Lemon joined Alison in studio during the play's original run last fall. Allison started by asking Max when he started writing this play and what it was originally about.

[Max Friedlich]

I started writing the play in 2019. The basic plot, I would say, has always been been there. Jane works as a content moderator and I met someone who had that job so socially, just at a party, super casually and was sort of writing notes on my phone, which I try to avoid doing, But I just found it fascinating and it opened up this. This whole world of morals and ethics in tech that I've found super fascinating.

[Allison Stewart]

Sydney, the day before Jane has her breakdown. What was her day like?

[Sidney Lemon]

The day before Jane's breakdown, she went to work, which she loves to do, and sat at her desktop and worked for probably eight hours straight and then had an unexpected meeting with somebody from her past without saying too much else. That was what her day was like.

[Allison Stewart]

What adjectives would you use to describe her the day she shows up at the therapist's office.

[Sidney Lemon]

Hopeful to start, lost and, well, overwhelmed.

[Allison Stewart]

Does she know she's lost?

[Sidney Lemon]

Yeah, she knows.

[Allison Stewart]

She knows.

[Sidney Lemon]

Yeah.

[Allison Stewart]

And sort of the being articulate and super hyperverbal is coping or covering.

[Sidney Lemon]

I think that's just who she is as a person. I think she had a strong liberal arts education and I think that she's an over educated soul who knows what she believes, but maybe has too many ideas in her head.

[Allison Stewart]

Peter, same question for you about Lloyd. How do you imagine his day before he shows up to work? That day.

[Peter Friedman]

Before he shows up, we assume it's around 11:30am so that would be four sessions. Four sessions. A typical, you know, 50 minute sessions. He's waiting for the next one. He knows it'll be a challenge, but that's what he likes.

[Allison Stewart]

What is his demeanor when the gun. I'm not giving too much away. This has been a lot of the reviews when the gun is not in sight. At some point the gun disappears. And I guess the audience, we sort of forget. But he can't possibly forget.

[Peter Friedman]

I don't think anybody really forgets. Yeah, and I think that was the hard part for me during rehearsal. I forgot because we hadn't put it all together yet. But its presence is always there and it's always felt. And that's what keeps that tension that I was wondering about early on in rehearsal, you know, in the middle of the play.

[Max Friedlich]

It's. It's probably. It can be problematic and challenging or historically, I think we figured it out to sort of keep that tension and fear alive. But I think it can also be like a cheat code because I think there were times where we're like, oh, like maybe there isn't as much happening. And our director, Michael Hurwitz, would be like, well, can we remind the audience and the characters that there is a gun in the room? So it's like it was always something that we could sort of defer to as well as be like, okay, how do we keep this alive? So it was sort of a double edged sword from my perspective.

[Allison Stewart]

How about for you, Sydney?

[Sidney Lemon]

Hmm. Well, Jane carries the. We talked about this a lot in rehearsal. Jane carries the gun in a way as a security blanket or as a teddy bear to feel protected in the world. It was not her intention to pull it out or to use it. That was the last thing she was imagining would happen on this day. So. So I think that there's a lot of trying to work backwards from starting off a very important session with a gut reaction that you wish you could take back, and then trying to prove your sanity when you've done something that makes you look a bit like you've gone off the rails.

[Allison Stewart]

The play takes place January 2020, the time.

[Max Friedlich]

Correct.

[Allison Stewart]

Why January 2020?

[Max Friedlich]

I wanted to write. I think there are elements of the play that sort of hopefully feel like a parable or that like they're talking about something beyond what is happening between the two characters. That's the hope that feels very high minded to say. As the writer, I hope that people take really intellectually interesting things away from it. But I wanted to write about this moment of sort of the end of the known world. Obviously we all came out the other side. But so much of the play is concerned with a generational divide and sort of two perspectives sort of smashing together. And also there's this question of will they get out of the room? Will they sort of connect? And I liked the sort of dramatic irony of these two people having no idea what's coming. That sort of. Even if they leave, even if they survive, there is this sort of huge thing looming. And it just felt. January 2020. When I think about that phrase every time I hear it, it just felt like a time of such innocence and fear and just no idea of like what was possible in the modern world. So it was just a. I'm fascinated by like mini period pieces in that way. So, yeah, January 2020. I just wanted to write about that month.

[Allison Stewart]

My guests are playwright Max Friedlich as well as actors Peter Fridman and Sidney Lemon, we are talking about job. Sidney, why does Jane want this job back so badly? It's a tough job. She's got to look at horrific images, and I guess she considers herself a little bit of a hero. Lowercase age hero. But why does she want her job back so badly?

[Sidney Lemon]

Well, I think she found meaning all through life. I feel like Jane is a little bit of a lost soul or wanderer. She's had the privilege to find herself ushered into certain groups or classes. But with this job, she found that she had some sort of niche talent for doing something that other people just couldn't do, and that she was actually making a difference in the world palpably by removing these sort of horrible videos from the Internet. And that she could handle it. She could handle the work, and not a lot of other people could. And so, you know, Jane says in the play that, like, this has given her life some meaning that she didn't have before. So there's a strong connection to the work.

[Allison Stewart]

Peter, when you're thinking about this character of Lloyd, what was something that you saw in Lloyd that you really hadn't seen or gotten to play in your career? You've had a long, strong career.

[Peter Friedman]

It's not that you play it, but I like the fact that Max deals with the ambiguity of who this guy is. Whether I play it or not, it's there. You know, I certainly have chosen one direction as opposed to both directions that it could be. And it's fine. It doesn't matter. It plays as well no matter what you choose. I suppose so. I guess I wanted to hit on his apparent goodness that. That we see in the play in. To hit up against what. What Jane brings to the play.

[Allison Stewart]

Did you do any research into crisis therapists into. Aside from. That's a knowing laugh.

[Max Friedlich]

The laugh of someone who did extensive research.

[Peter Friedman]

No, I didn't. I didn't do anything into crisis therapy, and I probably should have. No. I just drew on my lifetime of going to therapists, you know, and what.

[Allison Stewart]

Is something that we see on stage from that experience?

[Peter Friedman]

If you feel comfortable sharing, not, hopefully not judgmental in anything, anywhere. I go until a certain point where he gets a little bit fed up.

[Allison Stewart]

It does, right? Yeah. Yeah, it gets fed up. Well, there's a gun in the room, as we say, as we know. Sydney, for you, same question. What is something in Jane you saw that you hadn't had the opportunity to play or you hadn't seen in a character that intrigued you?

[Sidney Lemon]

Well, Max wrote a really incredible role. Somebody who is dealing with so much. And it feels almost like Jane is the personification of anything that could happen in our modern world, that it's, like, happening to one person. It's almost like she's more than just one person. She really feels like the sum of the Internet and the world and modern life. And it just felt like such a feast and such a challenge that I was just really grateful to Max for having written it.

[Allison Stewart]

Is Lloyd spelled with one L?

[Max Friedlich]

It is.

[Allison Stewart]

Why is Lloyd spelled with one L? Lloyd the therapist.

[Peter Friedman]

Thank you for asking. Thank you.

[Max Friedlich]

I'm so glad to go on the record with this. This is the big question of the play that we've been getting. I didn't really want either of them to have names. Just stylistically, I was like, I don't really care about this. We ended up kind of insert. You never hear his name in the play. We ended up inserting Jane's name at the end. But I just wanted there to be character names and to make it clear to an actor or director that it's not like it doesn't take place in, like, heaven or something, you know, that it's not, like, otherworldly that, like, there are two people named Jane and Lloyd. And for a while, I think we were playing with. There's obviously sort of a pun in the name that sometimes comes up with, like, job and Job. And I was like, oh, it's sort of like Job and, like, the Lord.

[Peter Friedman]

Oh, thanks.

[Max Friedlich]

But, like, that doesn't. But I've never brought that up to you guys because it doesn't equate to anything. And there's no connective tissue there.

[Peter Friedman]

Watch what happens tonight.

[Max Friedlich]

I was just messing around.

[Sidney Lemon]

I think you just unlocked all the answers for me. Thank you.

[Max Friedlich]

Cool. Glad.

[Allison Stewart]

What is something that Peter brought to you, Lloyd, with one L that you didn't anticipate?

[Peter Friedman]

The other L. The other L. The.

[Max Friedlich]

Other L. That's such an interesting question. I mean, I think for both. Both Peter and Sidney in the best possible way. When I heard them read for the first time, I was like, this is nothing like what I pictured these characters like in a way that was so exciting and electric and made me just want to give the parts to them in a literal and figurative sense of just like. You guys understand this more than I do, in a way. I think Peter in particular, his charisma on stage and his. His. His likability. There is sort of an ultimate question of sort of the who is might be good and who might be bad. And I. I think you watch Peter and you can't help but love him on stage. And I think that that is of incredibly special quality in an actor and just makes the play all the more electric because people really root for him.

[Allison Stewart]

Sidney, you have to handle a gun. Have you ever done that before? What's that like for you?

[Sidney Lemon]

Well, not in my personal life, no. But I've worked on particular shows or films where I have before.

[Peter Friedman]

So.

[Sidney Lemon]

Yeah, two TV shows in particular that I've had to handle.

[Allison Stewart]

What's it like for you?

[Sidney Lemon]

Yeah, it's, it's, it's the, the. If the story requires that, then it's a challenge that you rise to the occasion of. And it's never something that you take one takes lightly. It's.

[Max Friedlich]

Yeah.

[Allison Stewart]

Can you hear the audience?

[Max Friedlich]

No.

[Allison Stewart]

What do you mean? In the very beginning of the play, can you hear. Can you hear us? Because the night I went, there was a gasp.

[Sidney Lemon]

Yes, we can.

[Peter Friedman]

You can hear the gasp at the first second.

[Allison Stewart]

Yes.

[Peter Friedman]

Come on.

[Max Friedlich]

For real?

[Sidney Lemon]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You can. Yeah.

[Allison Stewart]

Or so it's like. Or it's not gasp, perhaps like the most dramatic, but it's a little bit of a sucking of air.

[Sidney Lemon]

Yes. What I hear, Peter. Okay, so. So when there's this moment, I don't want to give stuff away.

[Peter Friedman]

Yeah, don't.

[Sidney Lemon]

Okay.

[Allison Stewart]

No, there's too much.

[Sidney Lemon]

I'm not gonna give stuff away.

[Allison Stewart]

But what I will give away in a lot of the reviews, though, what.

[Sidney Lemon]

I'll say is that you have a.

[Max Friedlich]

Gun, the first musical number.

[Sidney Lemon]

It's a tiny, ish house and we really feel the audience and hear them, and that's honestly such a thrill. It's so exciting to sort of do that. You know, obviously my focus is completely on Peter, but we have a little bit of a dance going with the people who are coming to see us.

[Allison Stewart]

We're discussing the play job. I'm speaking with actors Peter Friedman and actor Sidney Lemon, as well as playwright Max Friedlich. So this is a two hander, the two of you on stage for an hour and a half. Peter, what is something that's a great thing about that? And then what is really challenging about that?

[Peter Friedman]

Hmm? You know, what you've come to do and you're going to be doing it. There's no break to interrupt you, so you can go do it. And what was the other part?

[Allison Stewart]

The challenging part? That's the challenge. The answer's, yeah, they might be one and the same.

[Peter Friedman]

I was thinking it's probably the same thing. Yeah, you got. It's. You have. I come early and I Take the local downtown from uptown to sort of get into the bath slowly. I do sit outside and have a coffee beforehand to, you know, make sure I'm prepared. And then I walk up the steps and. And there are a lot of steps. Backstory and sink into it.

[Allison Stewart]

Yeah.

[Peter Friedman]

What we have to do.

[Allison Stewart]

How about for you, Sydney? Same question?

[Sidney Lemon]

Well, yeah, my answer is pretty similar to Peter's in that the gift is that you can sort of, to use this metaphor, enter the stream and then just go, and you don't stop until it's over. And the gift of getting to work with an actor like Peter is that he is. I mean, I'm learning from him every single time we step on stage. He's so achingly present, and I just get to do the thing with him, and it's great. And the challenges are like that. I would get thirsty.

[Allison Stewart]

Sure. I can imagine.

[Sidney Lemon]

Yeah, Water. But we did hack that. We put a Mountain Dew bottle on stage. That's water.

[Max Friedlich]

Yeah. For all the real job fans out there, no telling.

[Sidney Lemon]

It's an Easter egg.

[Max Friedlich]

Yeah, it's an Easter egg. The Mountain Dew is actually water.

[Allison Stewart]

The Mountain Dew is water, folks.

[Max Friedlich]

For all the job heads, there's a.

[Allison Stewart]

Lot of ambiguity in the play. We've been talking around it because we don't want to give too much away. When you were writing a play that has ambiguity, what is something you have to keep in mind as you're weaving it through the story?

[Max Friedlich]

I think my background in theater is in LARPing, like live action role playing. That's like how I got into theater through a summer camp called the Wayfinder Experience. And so I find myself sort of like, embodying the characters when I'm thinking. And I think you achieve, hopefully, which we have, you achieve that ambiguity by really believing everyone. And I think that if you can put forth two really strong opposing viewpoints that are actually like, really set in their ways and pretty concrete, you will create that gray area, hopefully. So that's how I sort of think about it. I don't think I ever. I think it's a through line through what I want to do creatively, but I never really set out to be like, it's murky. Just like if you can really get behind everyone and be like, I know where he's coming from. I know where she's coming from. I think hopefully we achieve that gray area.

[Peter Friedman]

That was a good answer.

[Sidney Lemon]

That was good answer.

[Allison Stewart]

Very interesting.

[Max Friedlich]

Thanks, guys.

[Allison Stewart]

What did you want to explore about tech and the Internet and what it's doing to us?

[Max Friedlich]

I'm fascinated by tech's insistence that it is doing good always. I think that that is something that I can appreciate in a. In a weird, circuitous way about finance or banking. I don't think those people sit around being like, we're changing the world for the better. I worked for a very strange tech company that built digital influencers. So, like, fictional people on Instagram, the famous, most famous of which was called Lil Mikayla. And we were building fake celebrities, and we talked all the time about how we were changing the world and how we were doing so much for society. And the insistence that your work be benevolent, I think is something that is, I always hesitate to say, unique to our generation because I wasn't around in the past, but feels very millennial and very, maybe Gen Z as well. Of like, the thing that I do every day has to impact the world. And I am my job, and my job is me. And it's not about a 9 to 5 thing. Like, this is how I exist in the world. So I'm fascinated with how tech makes us locate ourselves in a broader picture. While also, Jane works for this behemoth. She doesn't touch her. She has no control over her company, and yet she feels like the company really represents her and she represents the company, and it sort of is foundational to her identity.

[Allison Stewart]

And that's part of the. Another source of tension between these two people. There's a big generational rift. Sydney, what. Does Jane have a blind spot around boomers?

[Sidney Lemon]

Mm. Well, Jane probably thinks that she knows a little bit too much of everything and she could maybe use to have a dose more humility. But I think that she's very swept up in this idea that she is important and doing good. Right. Like Max just talked about. And I think that there's a vitriol that she sort of harbors about this idea of boomers being like, why can't they just be happy with having all of the power and the money? Why do they have to have to. Yeah, it's just like, why do they have to judge us for wanting to be on the phone when they're making all the money from it? So maybe that would be the blind spot.

[Allison Stewart]

What's Lloyd's blind spot? What does he not understand about a young millennial, Gen Z type person sitting.

[Peter Friedman]

Across from what Peter doesn't understand? You know, all of it.

[Allison Stewart]

So this is something you share with your character?

[Peter Friedman]

Sure. Yeah. I don't get it. I. My ignorance is real up there.

[Allison Stewart]

Have you thought about it? Has it changed the way you thought about tech. When you get to hear Jane's argument for why tech is good and why.

[Peter Friedman]

We need tech, she makes a lot of great sense. Love it, but I don't need it at this point in my life.

[Allison Stewart]

Why does it matter to these two characters that they need to be right about their two sides? Because they dig in.

[Max Friedlich]

That's a great question. I think that. I think that gets it sort of the what it means to be right in general, which I think is to. It affirms your position in the world. And I think for Jane, she's justifying a lot of suffering and a lot of trauma and convinced herself that she needs to continue in this job. And if she's wrong, it's sort of all falls off a cliff in general. And I think that similar. Again, want to avoid spoilers, but Lloyd's character has a personal tragedy in his life. And if his worldview and his world mission is not right or is not good, who is he? And he doesn't sort of. It's not hyperbolic to say, like, doesn't really have a reason to live. So it's sort of. There are real life, life and death stakes in the play. There's a gun on stage, as has been mentioned, but also for both of them, them being right or them being wrong, I think is a matter of life or death internally for both characters.

[Allison Stewart]

Sydney, have you ever had a day as bad as Jane's?

[Peter Friedman]

Oh, Jesus.

[Sidney Lemon]

Oh, boy. Yeah. No, no, no, I really. No, I. Well, which day? The day of the play.

[Allison Stewart]

The day. I know the day of the freakout. Like, it's just a day at work where you have a freak out.

[Peter Friedman]

When they asked you to change the tenses in the last.

[Sidney Lemon]

Yeah, there was. Yeah.

[Allison Stewart]

Oh, come on now. It doesn't have to be that bad. Not that you would have a freak out, but just a tough, tough day.

[Sidney Lemon]

There was just. So we worked. Max worked super hard throughout rehearsal and was bringing new pages. We had in depth discussions every single day. That was one of the reasons that I wanted to come and do this play was because I knew the level of conversation was going to be extraordinarily high. Because given everything that play can, there was no way that we weren't going to be having really thrilling conversation. And about, like on preview number four or five, I think it was the last one or maybe it was eight.

[Max Friedlich]

Yeah.

[Sidney Lemon]

Max was like, oh, yeah. We were. We were doing previews at night, rehearsing in the day, and Max was like, okay, I have this edit. It's it shouldn't be too hard to implement. We're just changing the tense on every word in these last three pages. And I think I just started crying.

[Max Friedlich]

To any prospective actors who want to work with me out there, I just want to say I now know how actors work, and I now know that that is very hard to do. It was a learning experience for all of us.

[Sidney Lemon]

It wouldn't have been hard. I mean, it's like we had memorized it. It was set in. And that set seems maybe like a simple thing to do, but in fact, when you've paved the way, when you've made the little inroads in your mind, it felt a little too complicated.

[Peter Friedman]

So, Max, if you publish this thing, will you change the tenses to the ones you'd ultimately like?

[Max Friedlich]

That's a great question. I haven't thought about. I haven't thought about the play like that in a while. I haven't thought about, like, the text on the page. Just because I'm so into watching you guys do it every night, I suppose. But I think the way that Sidney does it as it's presently written is amazing.

[Peter Friedman]

Yeah.

[Max Friedlich]

So thank God you said that.

[Peter Friedman]

Yeah.

[Max Friedlich]

This is. I really want to. I really came on here to air these two out either of their performances.

[Sidney Lemon]

He's looking to recast.

[Peter Friedman]

I watch that speech every night. It's never the same, and it's just a panoply of colors and tastes. It's. It's incredible.

[Max Friedlich]

I love it. It's unbelievable to watch Sydney do that every night. It's a joy.

[Allison Stewart]

Max, I feel like you might have a good answer to the question, have you had a day where you just. You could have had a breakdown that could go viral?

[Max Friedlich]

Yeah. It feels very vulnerable to say this on wnyc, but, I mean, I. A lot of the emotional core of the play comes from experiencing panic attacks and having. When we were doing. We sort of came into. It's a long story. We came into this production via a competition at soho Playhouse. And in the course of doing that excerpt, I just had, like, a day where I became, like, catatonic with. With just overwhelm and panic and not literally what Sidney's character is doing of sort of internalizing the Internet, but just all this stuff in life. So a lot of the panic stuff, I think because I'm male and the character is female, sometimes they're like, oh, like, you didn't really. There's a lot more autobiographical stuff around mental health, I think, in the play than people realize. So I've definitely had. I don't know if I've had a day quite that bad, but I've definitely. I felt those feelings. And I hope that there's a catharsis to anyone who has had those feelings in seeing them dramatized so well by Sidney.

[Allison Stewart]

That was Allison speaking with playwright Max Friedlich and actors Sidney Lemon and Peter Friedman around the first Off Broadway opening of their played job. The production is reopening on the New York stage this summer, this time for a Broadway run at the Hayes theater beginning on July 15th.

[Max Friedlich]

I'mma put you on, nephew. All right, unc.

[Allison Stewart]

Welcome to McDonald's. Can I take your order, miss?

[Max Friedlich]

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