When I spoke with Max Wolf Friedrich, he was calling from a place I didn’t expect to find a dynamic young playwright whose shows are currently playing near the largest theaters in the United States. staged. He was at a live-action role-playing camp, also known as “larping.”
But more on that later. His new drama, Workis the closest thing to a Broadway thriller you can find. From the first scene—which I’m trying very hard not to spoil—the stakes are a matter of life and death.
Exceed WorkThe 80-minute running time is brisk but rarely diminishes in intensity. But as the show’s themes emerge, we begin to see the generational divide between two characters: Gen-Z tech worker Jane and her therapist Loyd (played by Sidney Lemmon and Peter Friedman Actors, you’ll recognize them from them) succession). This is a rift created by the Internet, dramatizing the psychological damage caused by excessive use of the Internet. So it makes sense that Jane would be revealed as a content moderator, part of a faceless staff that witnesses the most painful parts of the web in order to sanitize it for the rest of us. As someone who has edited numerous reports on content moderation and the toll it takes on the people who work on it, I was curious to see its side effects play out on stage. But most importantly, Work Got me.
Writing Contest Winner at SoHo Playhouse, Work The one-night run was extended to five weeks. It then jumped to the Connelly Theater in the East Village and now to Broadway’s Hayes Theater. Friedrich believed that many WorkThe critical success, especially from TikTok, is fitting for a show that inspires online angst.
as Work As we wrap up the last few weeks of playing at the Hayes Theater, I spoke with Friedrich about why he chose a play grounded in content censorship, how he manages fake influencer Instagram accounts, and turning all of that into content What it means to be on Broadway.
But first, he told me about summer camp.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Are you currently a camp tutor?
Yeah, I grew up going to this live-action role-playing summer camp called The Pathfinder Experience, and it was the nerdiest thing imaginable.
It’s really incredible. So interesting. I wasn’t there for long, it was like a summer camp. Then in the midst of COVID, thinking about the things that I truly care about and that make me happy, I started again. Now I work here for a week or two in the summer.
It just so happens to coincide with the opening of the Broadway show, which is a very strange, beautiful whiplash.
What I really dislike about my chosen career is the personal attention. I understand the interest in writing, but my experience making this show was so collaborative that I really felt like the team would be interesting to me. It was nice to be in an environment that wasn’t about me. I often get very insurmountable issues here, and the kids will say, “Hey, I miss my mom.” And I say, “Great, we can talk about this.”
Instead, “Hey, should we raise the average ticket price?” I said, “I don’t know.”
“You can’t just open on Broadway and then go into new york times. You have to tell the story of the show authentically.
Are these issues writers typically deal with?
No, even in this case, it’s not true. But my partner is also the lead producer on the show. The backbone of our particular production started as a group of friends. So, I think I understand things better than most people. I’m deeply involved in social media and marketing.
Do you like this, or do you want to wash your hands?
There are some elements to it that I do like. I really think, especially in the digital space, marketing is part of storytelling, for better or worse. People’s first exposure to the show is often on sites like Instagram or TikTok. This is reality. You can’t just open on Broadway and then get in new york times. You have to tell the story of the show authentically.
What made you want to write a drama where one of the main characters is a content host?
I met a content moderator at a party – very briefly – and found it interesting. I was in San Francisco visiting family and friends. She works for one of these big tech giants and it doesn’t really look good. I think, as a very online person, I’m fascinated by how ubiquitous the internet is, but as laypeople, we know so little about how it works – like how it literally works, literally we are how to do this [being on a Zoom call] Now, it depends on the science, it depends on the energy cost of it.
I’m fascinated by the idea that there is a real human cost to this most passive of brain-rotting activities, mindless scrolling on your phone, and that these equivalent laws of mind, physics, and science still apply to the internet. When I first lived in Los Angeles, I accidentally started working for a tech company called Brud, which created a fictional influencer named Lil Miquela. I spent about a year playing this fictional woman and these two complementary characters online. While I didn’t do content moderation, at my peak there, I think she had 1.2 million followers. [Ed note: @lilmiquela is at 2.5 million followers now.]
So, I was talking to people all day long and I was told to kill myself, I was told I was beautiful, I was an inspiration, I was an abomination. That experience of being an open wound online while being anonymous, of being deeply confronted with humanity while being depersonalized, is what led me to this show.
The third answer I’d give is that all the plays I’m interested in writing have to come from an interesting place. This world of content moderation and the ideas I just mentioned are really interesting to me. I don’t know, I’ll never be obsessed with something enough to go beyond enjoying it.
Is content moderation fun for you? Because everything you show me seems a little dark or a little bleak.
These things are fun to do in game form. It was fun to get really incredible actors involved and really dig into it and really explore it. I mean, it’s just the weird nature of what we’re attracted to, which is playing pretend. I went to this live action role play camp and we had about 60 kids and they all had their own characters in this fantasy world that we were playing in the woods.
“I think leveling is Highest Dramatic form.
and some of them think Be traumatized. They want the person playing their mother to force them to shoot the person playing their brother. It’s cathartic and fun for them. Everything we do in this camp is reflected in the game. I’ve been coming here since I was nine years old and I feel lucky in a way to be here talking to you. But to me, theater at its core is theater, and theater is an ideological thing, and I think this human need is often ignored.
But that’s not to say that content moderation itself is interesting, but for me it’s getting a group of people together and really trying to explore what I think is the false dichotomy between online and offline that we’re living in right now. This comes from the idea of content moderation. the word Play No need to mean positive emotions to me. It just means “untrue”. It just means enacting something that actually has no real impact on humanity.
To me, taking something like content moderation and playing around with it and having fun with it doesn’t necessarily take away from the seriousness of it. I think the best way to change an idea is to fall in love with it. If you have fun with it and we can get excited about it, I think that’s the way to reach people and hopefully communicate.
So, I guess, do you think live action role-playing is a form of theatre?
Absolutely. I think leveling is Highest Dramatic form. While some people think that the idea of an audience is implicit in the idea of theater, I think pimping is about giving and receiving gifts. This is the drama of embodiment. You just do it for the people you do it with.
I can’t really tell how most larps work. I can only really talk about our plans. I’ve never spoken nonsense outside of this realm. But a lot of it is about building cool scenes that feel good and are fun. For me, playing is a pinnacle because you can only do it from a place of passion. If you don’t enjoy it and don’t give gifts to those around you, then there is no audience, no praise, and no external validation.
While it’s great to put on a show that thousands of people watch and respond to, I don’t want to juxtapose those two experiences when you can act out a scene with three kids who then Walk up to you and they’re like, “That’s awesome.” It’s great. We all did it together. This is our gift to each other. To me, it’s pure drama. Maybe I would revise that, maybe it’s not peak drama, but it’s drama in the most primal, most basic form of basic human need.
I think drama comes from play, and that’s what play is.
When I went last Thursday, I wouldn’t say the audience was young, but I think they were younger than the average Broadway audience. Is there something about the show itself that you think will resonate with young people?
I wrote most of it between the ages of 25 and 27. [Herwitz]Our director is 28 years old and our chief producer is in his 30s, which is still relatively young for a chief producer. I just think we’re still young and we just want to speak with a level eye. One of the funniest interactions I’ve ever had was with a family friend who didn’t really like it.
They said, “Yeah, this is more like a movie.” I was like, “Yeah, I hear you.” I think I got that back. And then this little kid came up to me and said, “This is great. It’s like a movie.”
I don’t like to say Work Suitable for young people as it is suitable for everyone. But it’s hopefully written in a language that resonates strongly with people who don’t watch theater, which to me is the most exciting demographic. I think it’s like elections, which is to say, you don’t win elections by pandering to your base or mocking your opposition. You win elections by taking non-voters out of elections. I think that’s the most exciting thing about theater, and that to me is real theater success: Can you convert an audience that doesn’t watch theater?
