SONG OF THE DAY

“Marry Me, A Lit­tle” as per­formed by Raul Esparza (Com­pany, 2006 Broad­way Revival Cast, None­such Records, 2007).

INTERESTING FACTS

and

“As with Sweeney Todd, which fea­tured a bravura per­for­mance from lead actor Michael Cerveris, Doyle has found in ris­ing star Raul Esparza (Cabaret, Taboo, The Nor­mal Heart) an extra­or­di­nary singer and actor who, in the words of the New York Times’ Ben Brant­ley, gives Com­pany “the most com­pelling cen­ter it has prob­a­bly ever had.” …Sond­heim fans will note that this new ver­sion of Com­pany, to be released by None­such and PS Clas­sics, restores the orig­i­nal act one closer, “Marry Me A Lit­tle,” which was dropped from the show before its 1970 Broad­way debut; the song has since taken on a life of its own as an orphaned Sond­heim gem.”

- Com­pany is a musi­cal with a book by George Furth and music and lyrics by Stephen Sond­heim. Orig­i­nally enti­tled Threes, its plot revolves around Bobby (a sin­gle man unable to com­mit fully to a steady rela­tion­ship, let alone mar­riage), the five mar­ried cou­ples who are his best friends, and his three girl­friends. Unlike most book musi­cals, which fol­low a clearly delin­eated plot, Com­pany is a con­cept musi­cal com­posed of short vignettes, pre­sented in no par­tic­u­lar chrono­log­i­cal order, linked by a cel­e­bra­tion for Bobby’s 35th birthday.

- Pro­duc­tion His­tory: After seven pre­views, the Broad­way pro­duc­tion, directed by Harold Prince, opened on April 26, 1970 at the Alvin The­atre, where it ran for 705 per­for­mances. The set design by Boris Aron­son con­sisted of two work­ing ele­va­tors and var­i­ous ver­ti­cal plat­forms, that strove to high­light the musical’s theme of isolation.

- Shortly after open­ing night, Dean Jones (play­ing the role of Bobby) with­drew from the show, allegedly due to ill­ness, but actu­ally due to stress he was suf­fer­ing from ongo­ing divorce pro­ceed­ings. He was replaced by his under­study Larry Kert, who had cre­ated the role of Tony in West Side Story. Kert earned rave reviews for his per­for­mance when the crit­ics were invited to return. In an unusual move, the Tony Awards com­mit­tee deemed Kert eli­gi­ble for a nom­i­na­tion, an honor usu­ally reserved for the actor who orig­i­nates a role. As it had already been recorded prior to his assum­ing the role of Bobby, the Broad­way cast album did not include Kert. How­ever, when the cast trav­elled to Lon­don to reprise their roles, Colum­bia Records took him into the stu­dio to record new tracks to lay down over Jones’ removed ones. This “new” record­ing was released as the Orig­i­nal Lon­don Cast record­ing. In 1998, when Sony Music who had acquired the Colum­bia cat­a­logues, released a newly-digitalized CD ver­sion of the orig­i­nal Broad­way cast record­ing, Kert’s ren­di­tion of “Being Alive,” the show’s final num­ber, was included as a bonus track.

- A doc­u­men­tary of the record­ing of the orig­i­nal cast record­ing was cre­ated by D. A. Pen­nebaker shortly after the show opened on Broad­way. In the film, Stritch strug­gles to record the song “The Ladies Who Lunch.”

- After 43 pre­views, the 1995 Round­about The­atre revival, directed by Scott Ellis and chore­o­graphed by Rob Mar­shall, opened on Octo­ber 5, 1995 at the Cri­te­rion Cen­ter Stage Right, where it ran for 60 per­for­mances. The cast included Boyd Gaines, Kate Bur­ton, Robert West­en­berg, Diana Canova, Debra Monk, LaChanze, Char­lotte d’Amboise, Jane Krakowski, Danny Burstein and Veanne Cox.
– The 1995 Lon­don revival was directed by Sam Mendes. Pre­views began at the Don­mar Ware­house on Decem­ber 1; the show opened on Decem­ber 13 and closed on March 2, 1996. Pre­views began at the Albery The­atre on March 7; it opened on March 13 and closed on June 29. The cast included Adrian Lester as the first black Bobby in a major pro­duc­tion of the show. A video­taped record­ing was broad­cast by BBC Two on March 1, 1997.
– A Kennedy Cen­ter pro­duc­tion, pre­sented as part of a summer-long salute to Sond­heim, opened on May 17, 2002 for a 17-performance run. Directed by Sean Math­ias, the cast included John Bar­row­man, Emily Skin­ner, Alice Rip­ley, and Lynn Redgrave.

- A new revival had try-outs at the Cincin­nati Play­house in the Park’s Robert S. Marx The­atre in the spring of 2006. After 34 pre­views, the Broad­way revival, directed and chore­o­graphed by John Doyle (who helmed the revival of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, the Demon Bar­ber of Fleet Street in 2005), opened on Novem­ber 29, 2006 at the Ethel Bar­ry­more The­atre with a cast that included Raúl Esparza as Bobby and Bar­bara Walsh as Joanne. The pro­duc­tion won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musi­cal. The musi­cal closed on July 1, 2007, but was taped. It pre­miered on PBS on Feb­ru­ary 20, 2008. That record­ing was released on DVD.

- In the 1990s, “Marry Me a Lit­tle” was restored per­ma­nently to close Act I and added to the 1995 and 2006 revivals, it is also included in the offi­cial composer’s edi­tion of the vocal selec­tions, pub­lished in 1996.

- The dance num­ber “Tick-Tock” (arranged by David Shire) was abridged for the first Broad­way revival, and after­wards deleted entirely from the score. It had become a lia­bil­ity in pro­duc­tions with­out dancers of the cal­iber of Don­naM­cK­ech­nie. How­ever, it has since been restored in some pro­duc­tions (such as the 2004 Reprise! pro­duc­tion in Los Angeles).

- The song “Mul­ti­tude of Amys” was the orig­i­nal finale but was cut owing to major struc­tural changes in the script. “Marry Me a Lit­tle” was started as a replace­ment but also cut. “Hap­pily Ever After” was used as the finale for the first few per­for­mances, before being replaced by “Being Alive”.

- For the only time, the Tony Awards for Music and Lyrics were split into two cat­e­gories. Sond­heim won both awards.

Orig­i­nal Broad­way production

• Tony Award for Best Musi­cal (win­ner)
• Tony Award for Best Book of a Musi­cal (win­ner)
• Tony Award for Best Orig­i­nal Score (win­ner)
• Tony Award for Best Lyrics (win­ner)
• Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musi­cal (Kert, nominee)
• Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musi­cal (Stritch and Brown­ing, nominees)
• Tony Award for Best Fea­tured Actor in a Musi­cal (Kim­brough, nominee)
• Tony Award for Best Fea­tured Actress in a Musi­cal (Bar­rie and Myers, nominees)
• Tony Award for Best Scenic Design by Boris Aron­son (win­ner)
• Tony Award for Best Light­ing Design (nominee)
• Tony Award for Best Chore­og­ra­phy (nominee)
• Tony Award for Best Direc­tion of a Musi­cal (win­ner)
• The­atre World Award (Brown­ing, win­ner)
• Drama Desk Award for Out­stand­ing Book of a Musi­cal (win­ner)
• Drama Desk Award for Out­stand­ing Lyrics (win­ner)
• Drama Desk Award for Out­stand­ing Music (win­ner)
• Drama Desk Award for Out­stand­ing Set Design (win­ner)
• Drama Desk Award for Out­stand­ing Direc­tor (win­ner)

2006 Broad­way revival

• Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musi­cal (win­ner)
• Tony Award for Best Per­for­mance by a Lead­ing Actor in a Musi­cal (Raul Esparza, nominee)
• Tony Award for Best Direc­tion of a Musi­cal (John Doyle, nominee)
• Drama Desk Award for Out­stand­ing Revival of a Musi­cal (win­ner)
• Drama Desk Award for Out­stand­ing Actor in a Musi­cal (Raul Esparza, win­ner)
• Drama Desk Award for Out­stand­ing Fea­tured Actress in a Musi­cal (Bar­bara Walsh, nominee)
• Drama Desk Award for Out­stand­ing Direc­tor of a Musi­cal (John Doyle, nominee)
• Drama Desk Award for Out­stand­ing Orches­tra­tions (Mary-Mitchell Camp­bell, tie

VIDEO OF THE DAY

The playlist func­tion on youtube.com is down right now, but here are the three videos that will even­tu­ally become today’s link: