Theater director Caden Cotard is mounting a new play. Fresh off of a successful production of Death of a Salesman, he has traded in the suburban blue-hairs and regional theater of Schenectady for the cultured audiences and bright footlights of Broadway. Armed with a MacArthur grant and determined to create a piece of brutal realism and honesty, something into which he can put his whole self, he gathers an ensemble cast into a warehouse in Manhattan's theater district.
He directs them in a celebration of the mundane, instructing each to live out their constructed lives in a small mock-up of the city outside. As the city inside the warehouse grows, Caden's own life veers wildly off the tracks. The shadow of his ex-wife Adele, a celebrated painter who left him years ago for Germany's art scene, sneers at him from every corner. Somewhere in Berlin, his daughter Olive is growing up under the questionable guidance of Adele's friend, Maria. He's helplessly driving his marriage to actress Claire into the ground.
Sammy Barnathan, the actor Caden has hired to play himself within the play, is a bit too perfect for the part, and is making it difficult for Caden to revive his relationship with the alluringly candid Hazel. Meanwhile, his therapist, Madeline Gravis, is better at plugging her best-seller than she is at counselling him. His second daughter, Ariel, is disabled. And a mysterious condition is systematically shutting down each of his autonomic functions, one by one.
As the years rapidly pass, Caden buries himself deeper into his masterpiece. Populating the cast and crew with doppelgangers, he steadily blurs the line between the world of the play and that of his own deteriorating reality. As he pushes the limits of his relationships, both personally and professionally, a change in creative direction arrives in Millicent Weems, a celebrated theater actress who may offer Caden the break he needs.
Play | Title | Artist |
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Synecdoche, New York
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Synecdoche Song
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Jingle Bells
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Auld Lang Syne
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Gravity
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I'm Just a Little Person
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Song for Caden
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Something You Can't Return To
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Jon Brion:
Writer
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Tacky Entrance Music
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Jon Brion:
Performer
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DMI Thing From When She Was The Kitchen
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Jon Brion:
Performer
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All Plays Out (Fire Sale Version)
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Jon Brion:
Performer
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DMI Thing In Which New Information Is Introduced
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Jon Brion:
Performer
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Forward Motion
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Jon Brion:
Performer
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Sex Based Decision Making
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Jon Brion:
Performer
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Piano One
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Jon Brion:
Performer
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Someone Else's Forward Motion (Posing As Your Own)
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Jon Brion:
Performer
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DMI We Meet Again?
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Jon Brion:
Performer
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Still Can't Return (Still Trying)
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Jon Brion:
Performer
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Piano Two
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Jon Brion:
Performer
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Ok
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Jon Brion:
Performer
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Can't Return (For The Last Time)
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Jon Brion:
Performer
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Piano Three
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Jon Brion:
Performer
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Transposition
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Jon Brion:
Performer
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Little Person
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Jon Brion:
Performer
|
|
Something You Can't Return To
|
Jon Brion:
Performer
|
|
Someone Else's Forward Motion (Posing As Your Own)
|
Jon Brion:
Performer
|
|
Still Can't Return (Still Trying)
|
Jon Brion:
Performer
|
|
Can't Return (For The Last Time)
|
Jon Brion:
Performer
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