Can we talk about The Talking Heads?!

David Byrne tells me about improvising when “the show must go on…”

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Lemonade 

We are entering the third year of the pandemic.  Very few people buy another round of promises that the end is “just around the corner.”  And many industries and places that touted a “reopening” are finding Omicron has other plans.

Take Broadway in New York, which came back with shows reopening and a warm welcome for tourists and New Yorkers who wanted to see live theater again. There’s no way to “zoom” or “stream” around live theater—this is a culture and business model requiring people to gather in person. Then shows started suspending performances for Omicron, as audiences and cast members fell ill.

Some shows, however, had other ideas. Their leaders had had enough with the binary model of “all or nothing” — do a full show or shut it down for Covid. And three years in, it makes sense to move beyond the pre-vax emergency mode. 

Take Talking Heads founder David Byrne, who had reopened his Broadway show “American Utopia,” and then found so many of the cast got Omicron that some nights they literally couldn’t perform all the songs, as The New Yorker explained in a recent Talk of the Town:

Too many cast and crew members had been sidelined by Covid, with seven testing positive, even though they’d been vaccinated. Rather than close the show, Byrne announced on social media, “You can cash in your ticket, or you can have what’s behind this curtain,” which he billed as “a show you’ll never, ever see again.”

He was offering a retooled “American Utopia,” featuring an assortment of songs reimagined by a scaled-back band of musicians. “We’re just gonna come up with a show, you know? Hey!” he said. “This is our opportunity to make lemonade from covid lemons.” 

And so the show goes on!

Now, I grew up on the Talking Heads, with my parents playing “Take Me to the River” and “This Must Be The Place” on family road trips. And a friend of mine plays bass in Byrne’s Utopia show, Bobby Wooten III, so it felt natural to check in on how they’ve been doing this. 

Myself, David Byrne, and Bobby Wooten III!

New Reality, New Art

Here’s what Byrne says about the new challenges to production

“We were faced with the same kind of challenges as a lot of other shows [and] shut down for a few days. And then we realized: Oh, we can do this kind of unplugged, unchained thing. It’s not going to be the same show, but we can learn some new songs.”

That’s the mindset of a “creative,” but we’ve all had to be more creative during the pandemic. I bet you can think of work or family things that you adjusted, or unplugged, rather than just giving up entirely. Byrne also detailed the extra work involved:

“We kind of all worked over the holidays…we were all emailing and sending music back and forth and going, ‘let’s learn this one, let’s learn [that] one!’ And in like two-and-a-half days, we had a new show together -- and we were back on stage!”

And while no one claimed the adjustment was ideal (or a utopia), some artists leaped at the chance to revise the show. Bobby told me the revamp gave him a chance to actually bring in his favorite Byrne song of all time, “Everyone’s in Love with You,” a ballad that was not in the original, upbeat show.

Chatting with Bobby and David on Fallback Friday.

That’s some of what they told me in this new interview. And it reinforces what we still need now:

To be together, safely; to think anew, because “Year 3 mitigation mode” needn’t be the same as “Year 1 emergency mode”; and to tap into art, culture, ethics and our feelings as we forge the next chapter together. 

P.S. What’s the most creative or positive thing that’s come out of this era for you? Tell me and I’ll reply to some of the comments per usual! -Ari