A low murmur ripples through the audience. And there you are, standing alone, center stage. Hundreds sit before you—silent, waiting.
But there’s a problem.
You don’t know your lines. You don’t know your speech. You are fully unprepared, and you don’t really know why you’re here.
Many of us have had that dream. But for Adam Gopnik, it was no dream.
On a Friday evening in 1985, Adam Gopnik got a phone call from a man organizing a “Pluralism and Individualism” conference. The man called to remind Gopnik about the keynote he was scheduled to deliver the following morning at New York’s Doral Hotel.
Gopnik, who was beginning to make a small name for himself as an art lecturer, wasn’t entirely surprised—but still, he had no memory of agreeing to the speech and certainly hadn’t prepared anything. But the following morning at the Doral Hotel, before about 900 “perfectly dressed people,” as he describes them, Gopnik captivated the crowd for 40 minutes and was handed $500.
The experience remains as mysterious as it was in 1985. “I’m now convinced that that was the Brigadoon of speaking opportunities,” he says. “It emerges from out of the Scottish gloaming once every hundred years, and then disappears back in again.”
That moment was also the start of something very special for Gopnik. It ignited a way to connect with people through his endless passion for observation. Soon after, he joined the staff of the New Yorker magazine, where he continues to cover a vast mosaic of subjects—writing humor, criticism, personal essays, and fiction.
Guided by a ferocious lifelong passion for curiosity, he has a solo show, Adam Gopnik’s New York, now playing at Lincoln Center’s Clark Studio Theater. The show blends memoir, philosophy, and history as he shares stories and obsessions (think snowflakes, rats, family, the history of Central Park).
Presented by Steve Martin and James L. Nederlander, Adam Gopnik’s New York paints a portrait of an eclectic life filled with a vast swath of experiences and connections. In fact, Steve Martin—Gopnik’s longtime friend and frequent collaborator—first suggested the show, and was convinced that Gopnik marry high and lowbrow subjects. So Gopnik delves into the philosophy of Karl Popper and chats about the joys of texting with his son.
“The show is about how New York contains multitudes of worlds and how one life spent within New York invariably opens your mind up to curiosities that you never would otherwise have,” says Gopnik. “And you’re perpetually awakened in that way.”
Jeryl Brunner: Can you share more about what inspired you to write Adam Gopnik’s New York?
Adam Gopnik: In the midst of a conversation, Steve Martin said to me, “You really ought to do a one-man show.” And I said, Is that a good idea? And he said, “Yes. You’re not a stand-up. Don’t do that. But do a show that shows the breadth of your mind, leaping from subject to subject the way you do in the New Yorker.”
Brunner: How did you start to create it?
Gopnik: My wife, Martha, and I went to Café Un Deux Trois, where they give you crayons to write on the [paper] tablecloth, and we wrote out 40, 45 ideas—like learning to drive at the age of 55, which didn’t make it into the show. I would tell the stories in our living room to family and friends. Through that process, over the course of a year, a shape began to emerge. Everyone enjoyed the psychoanalyst stories, and that seemed to suggest the spine. Then we could start adding horizontal stories.
Then Steve said, “Let me ask a few friends over, and you can try it out with them.” I went to his apartment, and the few friends included Eric Idle. And I’m supposed to entertain them. But it went okay. Raúl Esparza, the great musical theater performer, was there. And he said, “This can be good, but you have to learn how to sculpt it for the stage.” Raúl and I worked together, and he is listed as a creative consultant.
Brunner: What do you love to do in New York City?
Gopnik: I will never get over Central Park. If I have a sacred place in the city, it’s the Central Park carousel. That place has personal resonance—my daughter riding it when she was young—and symbolic resonance: the ending of The Catcher in the Rye. Another favorite place is the green market at Union Square. I wrote a musical with David Shire called Our Table. It’s based on a real couple who I knew and loved, who ran a little restaurant with food from the green market and struggled to keep their restaurant alive.
Brunner: How did creating and performing the show change you?
Gopnik: It made me love and revere the art of performing even more than I do. Performers are the most courageous people in the world. Preparing to perform is exhausting. The whole day goes into building up for it. It’s like jumping out of an airplane, pulling on your parachute cord, and hoping it works.
Brunner: What do you hope people take away from Adam Gopnik’s New York?
Gopnik: I hope they leave inspired to renew their love of New York, be curious about endless subjects, and be entertained. I hope they come away with the phrase “a wild exactitude” reverberating in their heads and make it into a kind of motto. It’s the thing we seek out in the world: that marriage of precision and passion.