Thom Yorke wrote “Exit Music (for a Film)” in 1996; now he has written exit music, and more, for a play. The Radiohead frontman is composing an original score for the Roundabout Theater Company’s production of Harold Pinter’s “Old Times,” which will open in October at the American Airlines Theater in New York.
This is Mr. Yorke’s first foray into composing for theater. He joined the project at the behest of the play’s director, Douglas Hodge, whose production of Mr. Pinter’s “The Dumb Waiter” was seen by Mr. Yorke in 2004 in Oxford. According to Mr. Hodge, the music will open and close the show, as well as provide transitions.
The score was written during a six-month email correspondence between Mr. Yorke and Mr. Hodge, a Tony-winning actor (“La Cage aux Folles”) making his Broadway debut as a director.
“I’d say something like, ‘It describes a ribbon of light on the horizon. Can you do that?’ He’d say, ‘Got it.’ He’d send me an email of some music he’d written, and it would be some primeval, unusual thing,” Mr. Hodge said. “The sort of neurosis within his music certainly has elucidated elements of the compulsive repetition of the play.”
Mr. Yorke recorded much of the music on synthesizers from the 1970s to match the play’s era. He does not plan to perform the music live. “The last thing he’d want is that it becomes a Thom Yorke show,” Mr. Hodge said.
“Old Times” will star Clive Owen in his Broadway debut, as well as Eve Best and Kelly Reilly.