A DIY Path to Bringing ‘Job’ to Broadway

It’s refreshing to talk with Max Wolf Friedlich ’17 on the heels of a buzzy opening night for Job, his hit new play on Broadway. You won’t get any type of exaggerated excitement or the false pretense of platitudes, which may seem surprising when you realize you’re talking to a 29-year-old playwright who has already appeared in the pages of Vogue, earned a New York Times critic’s pick, and has been attracting the highly coveted under-40 crowd to the theater. Instead, Friedlich is matter of fact in his reaction to such success. While there’s just the right amount of appreciation, he’s much more candid in describing what one hit play means in the grand scheme of things. Because for Friedlich, he knows he’ll likely need to keep up his do-it-yourself approach to making it in show business.

“Theater has always been something I had to do myself,” Friedlich said without any sense of frustration while reflecting on the rounds of rejections—or lack of responses—he received while writing Job. “I’ve never been very institutionally supported in my theater-making.” Instead, he has turned to crowdfunding, self-producing, and an overall scrappiness to get his creative ideas off the ground.

While in high school, Friedlich was hustling like any entrepreneurial child of the digital age. He ran a Kickstarter campaign to fund one of his early plays, SleepOver, which ran as part of the New York Fringe Festival. “My first foray into professional theater was like, ‘You have to raise $10,000 by yourself. You have to figure out how to cast actors. You have to find a director,’” he said.

That’s not to say Friedlich is without means or opportunity. His parents, artist Melissa Stern ’80 and media executive James Friedlich ’79, have supported his artistic aspirations and helped make connections along the way. “I’m not like some crazy lone wolf, but theater has always been something that, to me, was something I had to figure out myself.”

Figuring out Job was a similar learning experience. While Friedlich arrived at Wesleyan University in 2013 with his affinity for theater in tow, ever the resourceful artist, he took note of a new wave of opportunity blossoming in Hollywood around the same time that could possibly provide a more structured platform for his creativity. “The four years I was in college were the beginning of the golden age of television when streaming really picked up,” he said. “So, I started going out to Los Angeles on spring breaks and taking meetings.”

Those trips to L.A. on spring break would turn into a relocation after graduation, resulting in some TV writing success. And while Hollywood paid better than theater, it didn’t always give Friedlich a sense of artistic fulfillment. “I’d worked on [a TV project] for seven months, and then I’d get a call that they weren’t moving forward with it because the network had just been bought by Disney,” Friedlich said of his frustration in knowing some of his hard work and writing was shelved. “Having that experience pushed me back towards theater… If you fail in theater, you still have [the play], it’s still yours.”

But Friedlich didn’t have to return home to find his next playwriting opportunity. In fact, it was a conversation at a party in Los Angeles that inspired the idea for Job. The play centers on Jane (played by Sydney Lemmon) as she navigates a tense and paranoid session with her work-appointed therapist (played by Peter Friedman) following a breakdown at the office. It’s no wonder she reached her breaking point—Jane’s job is to moderate the darkest corners of the internet to keep social media safe for everyone else.

Friedlich followed up on that thought-provoking party conversation with another fortunate encounter—this time over coffee—with Stefanie Black, a founder of the L.A.-based IAMA Theatre Company. When Black mentioned her desire to start a young playwrights’ group, Friedlich eagerly offered his help. “I said, If I handle all the logistics, can I be part of it?“

Bringing that DIY spirit to the table, Friedlich handled recruiting the other writers, printing scripts, and the like, joining the ranks of the inaugural IAMA Under 30 Playwrights Lab cohort in 2019. He would later go on to direct the program. With his fellow under-thirtysomethings, he hurriedly wrote the first draft of Job and presented a loosely staged Zoom reading—thanks to the sudden COVID-19 shutdown—of the work in progress. And, like many new plays, that’s where it could have ended, had Friedlich not taken things into his own hands.

After Job was rejected for further development by other playwright groups and MFA programs, Friedlich landed it in New York by winning a SoHo Playhouse writing competition that turned into a multi-week downtown production. Yet again, he found himself having to self-produce before others took notice. “No one thought it would be anything,” he said.

No one, perhaps, other than his friend Hannah Getts, dramaturge, and close collaborator; the play’s director, Michael Herwitz; and fellow Wesleyan alum and theater producer Alex Levy ’08, who would ultimately help Friedlich and Getts learn how to promote Job from being a downtown competition winner to an off-Broadway smash and ultimately a Broadway success.

Levy was one of those connections that Friedlich’s parents helped make, resulting in a coffee meeting in Greenwich Village that turned into a lesson in theatrical producing. After landing the SoHo Playhouse opportunity, Friedlich and Getts called Levy to ask for advice on raising money. “At the end of the call, Friedlich and Getts said, ‘This has been so helpful.’ And there was this pause, and I said, ‘Guys, first mistake. You never let someone get off the phone without making an ask.’ I said they should have asked me to donate. And I did donate. I was their first check in the door.”

That first check gave Job the opportunity to become a runaway hit, which translated into a run at a larger theater off-Broadway, for which Levy joined as lead producer. And that relationship would remain as they looked to capitalize on the play’s continued success, thanks to tremendous word of mouth—a viral TikTok moment included—and critical praise. Their next move was transferring Job to the Hayes Theater on Broadway.

Speaking with Friedlich that morning after Job opened, he was already preparing to turn his attention to the next thing. “I don’t wake up and spend 14 waking hours thinking about my name on a marquee. I’m just eager to do something else.” He was even considering heading back to Los Angeles. “The phone is ringing there in a way that it isn’t in the theater.”

Friedlich credits his ability to easily move between film, television, and theater to his time at Wesleyan. While thinking he would double major in film and theater, he ultimately majored in American studies. “It’s a testament to the spirit of intellectual curiosity that I have a career in this field without majoring in those things,” he said while also recognizing the importance of influential teachers. “I will say that Amy Bloom ’75, as my television writing professor, changed my life. I’m eternally grateful to her, as she taught me more about how to be a professional writer than anyone ever could.”

Job is on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theater through October 27.

Top Photo: Peter Friedman and Sydney Lemmon in Job. By Emilio Madrid.