When producer-dramaturg Hannah Getts called Sydney Lemmon early on a Monday morning, the actor was awoken from a four-and-half-hour slumber. She had just wrapped an indie film the night before, and the shoot ran until 4 o’clock in the morning. But the good news couldn’t wait. Following two extended sold-out engagements, Max Wolf Friedlich’s psychological thriller Job, in which Lemmon stars, got a much-deserved promotion. It was moving to Broadway. “When she told me the news, it blew my mind,” Lemmon tells me from her New York apartment. The actor was going back to where her career began.
Job is a tense two-hander about an overworked and overstimulated young woman named Jane (Lemmon) who is forced to take a leave of absence from her big Bay Area tech job following a very public meltdown at work. In order to return, she must get the approval of her middle-aged therapist Loyd (Peter Friedman), who suspects her job as an online content moderator, where she navigates the dark web, may be causing more harm than good. Over an intense session together, the two explore ideas around family, conflict, social justice, and trauma in a cyber age.
“I read the script and felt if I had the opportunity to play this role, I would be extremely lucky and really have my work cut out for myself,” Lemmon says. She had been wanting to get back to theater for a while, auditioning for different roles, but nothing was aligning for her. “With this one, everything just connected,” she says. “I was shocked and so pleased and so grateful.”
The show began its first run at SoHo Playhouse last September and quickly sold out. A return engagement followed at Connelly Theater this January before landing at its current home, the Hayes Theater, last month.
For Lemmon, all the training and dreaming was for roles like Job‘s Jane. “The character is so complicated. She’s so self-assured, but she’s so fearful,” she says. “She has a lot going on, and it felt like I was never going to be able to figure it all out. Even now, after more than 200 performances, I still feel like I’m trying to crack her. That is all you can hope for when taking on a role.”
Over a thrilling 80-minute stress test, Lemmon and Friedman (Succession) deliver a fantastic tennis match of dialogue that has been described by critics as “breathless” and “a taut tug of war.” It’s like a standoff, and the last 15 minutes leave you on the edge of your seat. When I ask if that kind of heightened back-and-forth intimidated her at all, Lemmon is quick to tell me just the opposite: “It’s extremely fun! It’s just being there and breathing and responding to the moment.” It helps that she has Friedman for a scene partner, who she describes as “magnificent” and says makes everything feel easier.
Playing Jane is a beautiful challenge that renews itself every day for Lemmon. Having been with this character for over a year, Lemmon says Jane has become embedded in her body. Reflecting back on her early days of prepping for the role, Lemmon says she did quite a bit of research to get into Jane’s conflicted mindset. She read a lot of books, including Uncanny Valley; listened to tech podcasts; and thought critically about the internet, how young and limitless it is, and its many capabilities.
The show has given Lemmon a new perspective on the internet. “How could it not?!” she laughs. “I don’t want to think too much about the things that [Jane] says about the internet because they’re really nefarious. Everything is entwined with the internet in ways that are impossible to detangle, and [there’s not] much I can really do about that. I’m a young woman alive in 2024. That’s what it is.”
As for the show’s continued success, Lemmon applauds Friedlich for writing something that really speaks to the moment of life that we’re in. “I think it can be sort of refreshing to have that mirrored back to an audience, even if it’s difficult to look at,” she says.
Earlier this month, the hit show was extended through October 27, another milestone of success for the play.
It seems Lemmon will be staying on Broadway for the foreseeable future, but up next, she will top-line the indie film The Philosophy of Dress. (It’s the project she wrapped the night before Getts’s good news call.) The actor also serves as a producer on the dark satire, which is co-written and directed by Cyrus Duff. Lemmon and Duff have been longtime collaborators since their days at Yale, and the film marks their first feature together. She describes it to me as “a dark look at viral ambition, female friendship, and the world of fashion,” to which my ears perk up. It’s another Lemmon project to look forward to.
Characters that are hard to put down will forever be attractive to Lemmon, and she admits she’s happy to stay in this dark, heady space for as long as the projects will have her. “These are the parts I’ve dreamt of playing for a really long time,” she tells me.
Job is now playing at the Hayes Theater.
Photographer: Richie Ramirez Jr.
Stylist: Jensen Edmondson
