David Byrne and Heidi Schreck discuss the links between their filmed Broadway shows.
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WatchAmerican UtopiaandWhat the Constitution Means to Meback-to-back, and you might see a conversation between them start to develop.
Many of us need to feel joy right now.
The thing Im fighting for is the ability to feel that kind of joy that you embody.
I came out thinking, Theres something that has all these ideas in it that Im thinking about.
This is on Broadway!
I was also knocked out by the comfort of your relationship with the audience.
Thats where the bar has been set, and I have to try and do that.
Both of these shows depend so much on the interaction with the audience.
It changed night to night, the debate was actually extemporaneous.
We changed things depending on what was going on in the country on any given day.
I grew up watching old VHS tapes of Sondheim musicals and my moms record ofThe Glass Menagerie.
You never know how its going to translate.
Overall, I felt very good about it.
With music, you never know how its going to come across.
David Byrne: What was your experience there, with how it was shot?
She wanted to include them as a second character in the piece.
But when we were in editing, I spent a whole day just watching the audience watch the play.
David Byrne: The audience was not intimidated by having the lights up?
Ive discovered with live music audiences, if you bring up the lights they get very inhibited.
Youve been performing like this longer than I have, and theres similarities to being a stand-up comedian.
Were both just standing there talking to the audience.
Heidi Schreck: Steve Martin came to my show and he said that: Its just horrible, right?
Two nights its glorious.
Four nights its like, eh.
Two nights you just bomb.
David Byrne: I would tend to blame myself.
I botched that line.
I put the emphasis on the wrong word.
I was fidgeting when I said it.
Luckily, I could go, Oh, Ill go into a song.
Theyll like that part.
Heidi Schreck: Do you have any performer rituals?
David Byrne: I would make myself some ginger lemon honey tea.
Its more the ritual of cutting the ginger and putting the water in the thermos.
Heidi Schreck: I drank that ginger tea, too.
Then right after, always.
I would go into my dressing room and have a cup of tea.
Heidi Schreck: Bourbon!
Do you think of the versions of yourselves onstage as characters?
In my show, Im thinking of my younger self as a different person.
Heidi Schreck: I started to do that too.
My 15-year-old self is always here, and my 49-year-old self is always present.
I wonder that about you, David, because some of the songs youve sung for a long time.
There must be a sense of the same body traversing through time singing this song.
David Byrne: Exactly.
Those are songs I would never write now, or could never write now.
It really is a little bit of time travel.
Heidi, at the end ofConstitution, you debate with these young women of color.
I really asked band members.
As I say in the show, I wrote to Janelle Monae and said, What do you think?
I have not lived this experience.
But its also my country too.
Its my culture as well, and I need to engage with it.
I cant step aside and say, Oh, thats not me.
Thats something I felt in recent years, that I do have to engage.
Heidi Schreck: That song is such a powerful moment in the piece.
It seems like a really important part of your show.
I wonder how people have reacted to it?
David Byrne: Sometimes when we were doing it in our concert tour, we got negative reactions.
A concert audience is maybe more diverse than a Broadway audience.
Wed get people who would just shout out, Bullshit!
Wed see people walk out.
As a performer, thats not a happy feeling.
Heidi Schreck: Im glad you did that too.
When I think about both our shows, I think my play does end on a hopeful note.
Why do we venerate this idea of a neutral Constitution?
I started this play ten years ago.
A young Black Dominican-American teenage girl who happened to be brilliant, so I just took it from there.
The act of talking about these things gives one a sense of hope.
Can you tell me about reactions people have had to your show?
In terms of the personal stories, I only got positive feedback.
Statistically, it makes sense, given how many people are affected by familial violence and by sexual assault.
That part of the play was the scariest thing for me.
David Byrne: I dont have any good stories like that.
It doesnt mean youre a bad person.
I really like the word utopia because it means both things, right?
A good place and also no place.
I felt like I was watching you in limbo.
David Byrne: I like the limbo interpretation.
It could go wrong, and could maybe not.
The title was actually suggested by a friend as I was finishing up my last record.
I was thinking about utopian communities a lot.
None of that ever happened.
Heidi Schreck: But you did haveAnnie-B Parsonsbeautiful dances!
David Byrne: And my friend said, Why dont you call itAmerican Utopia?
At that point it was an album title.
They seem to understand this is about being in a kind of limbo where you were working things out.
Heidi Schreck: My title, on the other hand, so many people just hate it.
People dont get that its a title meant to reference a generic high-school speech contest.
David Byrne: Really?
Thats what I loved about it.
You have a date, yes?
Heidi Schreck: I hope so.
Workers in the arts in this country are really suffering right now.
Those will be the last people to go back to work.
Heidi Schreck: That it matters spiritually and financially.
David Byrne:Its going to be strange to go back in after being on pause for this long.
Im asking myself what I change now.
So much has changed this year.
Heidi Schreck: I cant write anything right now.
But I am interested in performing the show again after this, in part because it does have flexibility.
The debates we updated every night.
Im interested to bring it into a post-pandemic, postelection world and see what happens.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
