we knew there was no way we could compete with the movies. So we used the fantasy to go further into the human experience, which is when fantasy works best.” And, like the books, the play triumphs at taking big themes— death, family, love, isolation— and turning them into deeply personal stories.
After her father left, Friedman’ s childhood in North London was pretty rackety. Her mother was often absent, working multiple jobs to earn enough to feed her children.“ I don’ t have any of the normal memories: being put to bed, doing homework. But I do remember the four of us kids putting on plays together and having a laugh. It was an idyllic childhood, really. None of us went off the rails, although we’ re all terrible with authority, and I’ m especially awful with male authority. It doesn’ t take an analyst to figure out why I ended up being my own boss,” she says.
Friedman’ s sister Maria, an actor and theater director five years her senior, says that their homegrown projects gave Sonia a particular insight.“ Other producers are like,‘ Just write something; just say your lines.’ But because we grew up making plays, puppet shows, and operas, Sonia knows creativity doesn’ t come out of a toothpaste tube,” she says,“ and that has given her a genuine love for it.” Aside from Sonia and Maria, their brother Richard is a successful musician, and sister Sarah is an academic. Their half-brother, Ben, is a producer and director( his credits include The Great British Bake Off).
“ One of the great things about having a childhood like ours is that you don’ t know you’ re breaking rules, because you have no idea what they are,” Maria adds.“ The ropes and barriers are invisible, and Sonia has always exemplified that. If someone tells her no, she just keeps going.”
When Friedman was fourteen and had recently been expelled from school for truancy, she went to the West End to see Maria rehearsing as an understudy in Oklahoma!“ I co – brought up Sonia because our mother was so busy. I loved her, this ringleted, sunny, stubborn, funny creature, so she came with me everywhere. I remember her little face as she watched what was happening backstage. It was like she was intoxicated,” recalls Maria. Says Friedman,“ I turned my stool around because the scene changes seemed so much more interesting than whatever was happening onstage.”
As it happens, the scene of that epiphany was the Palace Theatre in London, where Harry Potter is now playing.“ Life is weird, isn’ t it?” Friedman reflects.“ I wanted it so badly then, and now here I am.”
As soon as she was old enough, Friedman enrolled in night school to learn stage management. She went on to drama school and afterward was interviewed by Laurence Olivier in his kitchen over a lunch of chicken and salad for her first stage-management job. She got it. Later she worked at London’ s National Theatre as an assistant stage manager.
“ I’ d be sitting in rehearsals, and Harold Pinter, who was directing his own plays then, would lean over and say,‘ I think there needs to be a pause there. Can you write pause in the script?’ That was when I fell in love with new writing,
“ She’ s probably the busiest person I know,” says Tom Stoppard.“ She crosses the Atlantic like other people cross the street”
because I watched plays being written in front of me,” Friedman says. The then head of the National Theatre, Richard Eyre, told her one day,“ You seem to be very good at getting people to do what you want. You should be a producer.” She took his advice, launching her current company in 2002.
O
ften
, a commercial-theater producer is little more than a bean counter, but those who work with Friedman laugh at the idea of that being the limit of her role. For one, she is known for being on the side of writers, which has won her the loyalty of many of the biggest names in theater today.“ I’ ve known Sonia since 1985, when she was a skinny stage manager” at the Oxford Stage Company, says Rylance.“ She’ s always had an amazing vision about what theater should be. Working with her is like working for a superb artistic director.” Remembering a production of his own play Nice Fish, he adds,“ She would come in with specific ideas about what needed to be cut, how a scene could evolve, how to shift the audience’ s perspective. She could be tough, but she was always right.”
“ I can get as paranoid as the next precious twat, but I feel very looked after by her,” says Butterworth.“ I have a tendency to disappear, especially if I’ m struggling with writing. Halfway through The River I just couldn’ t finish it, but Sonia has a very careful way of flushing me out and not making me feel like I’ m in trouble. She gave me the keys to the country house, which for The Ferryman was hugely valuable.”
Whether she’ s considering taking an already established play to the West End or helping to plan a new work, Friedman, who says she currently has eleven shows in production, has only one criterion:“ It needs to feel relevant. I don’ t mean that cliché about putting a mirror up to society— it needs to go deeper, scratch below the surface to answer questions politicians are not asking for us, and provoke debate. I need that in my life. But a fusty old revival with a TV star? I mean, why?”
Plenty of people in creative industries begin their careers wanting to push boundaries, but as they get older moneymaking instincts almost invariably take over. Friedman, unusually, has never succumbed to that trajectory, and she remains as excited about esoteric fare like Rylance’ s Nice Fish as she is about Harry Potter. As John Tiffany points out,“ When Sonia walks into the room you never feel,‘ Oh God, the producer’ s here.’ That’ s because most commercial producers want to cut corners to make a profit, but Sonia’ s focus is how to make the work as good as possible. Also, she’ s a woman, which shouldn’ t be unusual but is.”
I ask Friedman why she thinks there are so few female producers in the theater.“ The hours,” she says immediately.“ I’ m never home before eleven at night, and if I had a child, I couldn’ t do it.” She says she did not explicitly decide not to become a mother.“ It was subconscious,” she says.“ I have to
123