It turns out they ended up casting both Jenny and Susan as Black women. That’s not a criticism, it was just that my wife happened to have this very, very clear connection to what was going on. This whip smart musical, given a game-changing makeover for a modern-day Manhattan, features some of Sondheim’s best loved songs, including “Company,” “You Could Drive a PersonCrazy,” “The Ladies Who Lunch,” “Side by Side,” and the iconic “Being Alive.”. Katrina Lenk is doing so quite literally, ... Company starts previews at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on March 2 and opens on March 22. I wouldn’t say we laughed it off, but we were, like, let’s not get too panicky about this. And I remember Chris Sieber saying yeah, what am I supposed to do without seeing you guys every day? He said, Oh, no, Broadway just got completely shut down. Everyone knows the rest. We all thought, okay, this is something that’ll pass. They said we couldn’t even sign Playbills. Greg Hildreth (Peter) I had the Company vinyl cast recording in middle school and high school, and wore it out. Will I have the energy, especially, to go back on stage? (L-R) Katrina Lenk as Bobbie, Claybourne Elder as Andy, Kyle Dean Massey as Theo, and Bobby Conte Thornton as P.J. You get in that mode where it’s very hard to advocate for what you need, and for what makes sense, because really what’s driving you even more is the need to tell the story. I was obsessed with how the characters talk and behave in the city, how cool it all seemed. At least there was the relief of finally knowing something. I was like, yeah, we have a show tonight. None of us knew to take it as seriously as we ended up taking it. We were hearing of ushers next door testing positive and here we were in this old, tiny theater, totally sold out, people shoulder-to-shoulder, and the show wasn’t really playing the same. And when rehearsals started in January, I was reunited with my good old pal Christopher Sieber, whom I first met when we were both cutting our teeth in our 20s, and then we did Shrek together years later on Broadway. The production will star Tony and Grammy Award winner Katrina Lenk as Bobbie, while two-time Tony Award and two-time Grammy Award winner Patti LuPone will reprise her unforgettable, Olivier Award-winning turn as Joanne. And he says no, don’t come in. In recent years, Katrina Lenk has gained the attention of Broadway audiences — and a Tony Award. In fact, the show was doing very well – the revival and its biggest star Patti LuPone had been a hit in London, Broadway performances with LuPone and an otherwise new American cast were falling into place, advance ticket sales were strong, audiences were delighted, and the spring Tony Award season had its most anticipated pairing in LuPone and The Band’s Visit‘s Katrina Lenk, one a true icon of the theater, the other one of two or three more recently arrived stars with the talent, the pull and the guts to stand beside her. T Etai Benson (Paul) Christopher Fitzgerald, whose dressing room is right across from mine, was picking up on it a little earlier than the rest of us were, from what I recall. Broadway shut its doors and turned out its lights on March 12, 2020, an instant metaphor for Covid-19’s catastrophic impact on business, the arts and New York City itself. So I closed in Hamilton on January 5 and started rehearsals for Company in New York on January 6. For at least a couple of the musical’s preview performances leading up to the city’s historic closing of March 12, 2020, the stage jitters had little to do with the usual pre-opening night nerves. In these times when we’re all forced to be with our significant others 24 hours a day, and we’re bouncing off the walls, that song really speaks to me. I remember standing there at the gym literally not knowing what to do or where to go. The world without theater, without art in general. So I called my husband and I said I’m ordering a pizza and I’m picking up a cake and we’re going to go home and I’m going to eat whatever I want. Weekly wrote: "As Linda, Katrina Lenk is sensational — she has a dozen nuanced smiles that range from innocent and shattered to grateful, in order to express whatever passes as kindness when, say, a male co-star (Josh Greene) promises to make their scene fun." I said absolutely – because I knew that I couldn’t be Bobby. I don’t know that, and I also don’t know if I even want to. It’s Bobbie’s 35th birthday party, and all her friends keep asking, Why isn’t she married? We were a week away from opening when we really started hearing rumors of increased cases of this new virus. I went in not really thinking I was going to get it, but I’ve been a fan of Sondheim and this entire team for a very long time, and I thought, well, how can I not try? We imagined New York City without theater. Buy Tickets today. Tony winners Katrina Lenk and Patti LuPone will headline the production as Bobbie and Joanne, respectively. We had several different meetings with the producers and the Shubert Organization, who are the theater owners, to discuss what they knew, and what they were doing. Christopher Sieber The crowds were going nuts. Well, good thing I got that orange, huh? I mean, I am a descendent of Italian peasants, so I have phenomenal energy. When the theater is calling you, real life is a weird thing you push off to the side. Katrina Lenk and Tony Shalhoub in Atlantic Theater Company’s “The Band’s Visit,” directed by David Cromer. Like all things in life, when it rains it pours, and all good things seem to happen at once. There’s always a big deal about these things, and then nothing really happens. Inspired designs on t-shirts, posters, stickers, home decor, and more by independent artists and designers from around the world. Company, a Stephen Sondheim musical comedy, stars Katrina Lenk and Patti Lupone. Katrina Lenk (Bobbie). In my brain I was trying to figure out maybe there was some way I … I wasn’t really thinking anything of it. In this first installment in a multi-part series, LuPone, Lenk, Thornton, Matt Doyle, Christopher Fitzgerald, Christopher Sieber, Jennifer Simard, Terence Archie, Etai Benson, Nikki Renée Daniels, Claybourne Elder, Greg Hildreth, Kyle Dean Massey and Rashidra Scott describe the walk-up to Company‘s first Broadway preview at the Shubert Organization’s Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on March 2, 2020. The quintessential musical comedy about the search for love and cocktails in the Big Apple is turned on its head in Elliott’s revelatory staging, in which musical theater’s most iconic bachelor becomes a bachelorette. All interviews, conducted separately, have been edited and condensed for length and clarity. I started to think that when non-theater people work their nine-to-fives, what do they do with their earnings? I figured that they were probably looking for a person of color for that role. Jennifer Simard (Sarah) My first audition was in August of 2019, and I was very happily employed at Mean Girls on Broadway. Company Announcement, August 30, 2019: Elliott & Harper Productions and The Shubert Organization announced today that on the heels of its Olivier Award-winning, sensational hit run in London’s West End, the visionary new production of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s landmark American musical, Company, directed by two-time Tony Award winner Marianne Elliott, will open on Broadway this spring. I was asked if I wanted to audition for this Company revival that they’d been doing in London where Bobby is played by a woman. Christopher Sieber I live out in New Jersey so I have to leave at like 9, 9:30 in the morning to get to rehearsals that always begin at 11 a.m. “It’s been very tricky, a really difficult process to survive.”, “The reason why I feel so confident about bringing the show back is because we had a fantastic advance when we closed,” Harper continued, expressing conviction that the entire Broadway cast will return. Katrina Lenk receives the Dorothy Loudon Award for Excellence in the Theatre as part of the June 5 Theatre World Awards. We’d kindled our sisterhood friendship at the final callback for Head Over Heels on Broadway, which none of us got but we at least got this great sisterhood out of it. by AKA NYC. You’re going to book it so what’s the point of going in for something that clearly has your name written on it. Just not yet.”. You are going in for this and one of us is going to book it.” Five-and-a-half weeks later, my girlfriends were the first people I called when I hung up from my agent. that night, and I had to miss it. Just on a personal level, how would we make a living? Now three of the four of us had an appointment to go read for this Company audition. All Rights reserved. Katrina Lenk, who was scheduled to open the new COMPANY revival as Bobbie, checks in for a live chat with team Broadway.com. In recent months, Deadline has conducted a series of interviews with all 14 principal cast members of Company, each performer sharing insights, hopes and fears, and a year’s experiences – personally, professionally, economically, emotionally – as they find their way through an unprecedented crisis in their industry and their city. That I don’t want to come in tonight? But will I have stage fright? I just said, “I have to stay home. Nikki Renée Daniels There’s a party game section of the number “Side by Side,” where Katrina and two other people have to pass an orange to each other using their mouths, and we’re all kind of like cringing, like, should we really be adding this into the show right now? Besides I’m tired from eight shows a week of Ain’t Too Proud. Chris Fitzgerald, who plays my husband, and I have a little kiss in one moment and in rehearsal we wouldn’t do it. A person in the audience might cough and it was just, like, this deafening silence. Without our livelihood? All these older people crowded together at intermission to use the bathroom. That line of thinking inevitably leads to a greater appreciation and understanding of the value of art, of the value of theater. America without theater. But even before our first preview we kind of got an inkling of something coming. (The producer would not confirm the specific dollar figures). Matt Doyle The reality of how severe the illness could be was still something that needed to sink in…and that didn’t really happen until a friend of ours was dying. It still didn’t help. So I’m reading through it, trying to figure out the storyline and a background and I’m not finding anything. Plus I was in the middle of leaving one show in the middle of the holidays, going to another show, and I was not really paying attention. I’m a realist. Kyle Dean Massey (plays Theo, renamed from the original Kathy) I auditioned and got the job and so then I came back to New York from California on January 5th or 6th to start rehearsals. company (2018 west end w/ rosalie craig and patti lupone) chess (w/ raul esparza) bandstand (pro-shot w/ corey cott and laura osnes) ... bootlegs #Broadway #bootleg #company bootleg #company broadway #broadway boots #broadway boot #broadway bootleg #patti lupone #katrina lenk. This guy is so strong, so healthy, so full of life. We were feeling really close, a couple shows away from freezing it, meaning that you’re no longer making changes. Then one day it was like something had turned, and it suddenly became really scary. Patti LuPone Chris Harper, our producer, said it’ll be maybe two weeks, three weeks. My dressing room mate, Greg Hildreth and I were more like let’s wait and see. Claybourne Elder The big first challenge I faced was knowing that my character was supposed to be in really good physical shape and I was going to be in my underwear on Broadway. I think we started to feel – I started to feel – the vacuum, in just seeing how bored people were, and how people would have a hard time expressing themselves when they couldn’t even meet each other. Rashidra Scott (Susan) I was doing Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of The Temptations on Broadway when I got the audition for the role of Susan in the Company revival. It was hard for me to give my notice at Mean Girls, but I was so delighted to get involved with Company. I had to find an apartment to rent, take out a lease and actually furnish it and move in because I was expected to be there for a year. We were in one of these meetings, probably the day before things shut down, and we’d had maybe done a rehearsal, and people were kind of airing their fears, and producers were doing their best to say what they were doing and how they were evaluating things and how we were still going to do the show that night, and it was all very tense and concerning. When the NBA canceled its season, my heart sank, and my survival instincts clicked in. I was the one at work that was starting to be like, hey guys, have you heard about this? You’re better off being more prepared than surprised. Now that I am a person who talks and behaves like that, I still think “Sorry/Grateful” is one of the greatest songs ever written for musical theater. They could not have been more excited. Claybourne Elder I don’t remember that last performance at all because it was just another preview. So I had been seeing my friends from there posting about this thing, and I knew that a lot of China and Hong Kong was shut down, but it was also one of those ignorance is bliss things. In fact I joked – and this has sort of haunted me – but on the way out of the theater I said, “Alright everybody, see you in two weeks because we’re going to get shut down.” It seemed so ridiculous that I didn’t mind joking about it out loud. She asked me to learn “Getting Married Today,” and gave me 24 hours. “My dilemma,” says LuPone, “is, Will I have the energy to go back to work? Normally, you get to invite friends and family and they can come backstage, but the Shuberts said no backstage visitors. Katrina Lenk will play Bobbie, with Patti LuPone reprising her performance as Joanne from the London production. Send us a tip using our annonymous form. I had this weird sort of disbelief. So I just grabbed two things from my dressing room – stupid stuff, like oh, I need that orange I left there yesterday. When I saw that Company was happening in London and that it was coming to Broadway, I asked my agents if I could be seen for the role of Jenny. I got cast. 15 notes. (Ahron R. Foster) Performances are scheduled to begin on March 2, 2020. There was an usher at Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I’m not going in.”. So fast-forward, and I was doing a show called The Prom on Broadway that I helped create with Beth Leavel, Brooks Ashmanskas, Angie Schworer, Bob Martin, Chad Beguelin, the whole gang. Company Summary Tony Award® and Grammy Award® winner Katrina Lenk and two-time Tony Award and two-time Grammy Award winner Patti LuPone join forces in Company, Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s groundbreaking musical comedy. And that really hit us, like, oh, this is real. Opening night was scheduled for March 22, Sondheim’s 90th birthday. Nikki Renée Daniels (Jenny) I was in Hamilton in Chicago for most of 2019, so I was flying back and forth from New York to Chicago. Lenk appeared in Hedwig and the Angry Inch at the Broadway Theatre, Chicago, in May 2001 as Yitzak. Katrina Lenk (Bobbie, originally Robert) When Company was happening in London, I remember being obsessed with it. Broadway’s ‘Company’ One Year After Covid Shutdown: Patti LuPone, Katrina Lenk And A Dozen Co-Stars Chronicle A 12-Month Pause In Being Alive Deadline - Greg Evans • 21h To hear the cast of Broadway’s Company tell it, the industry’s shutdown one year ago today was perhaps more shocking than surprising, arriving swiftly … All orders are custom made and most ship worldwide within 24 hours. Two of us kept telling one of the girls, “You do know you’re going to book this, right? I should be ashamed of myself, but I didn’t know it was a bunch of different vignettes taken from George Furth’s work. The cast will be led by Tony winner Katrina Lenk … I spent the day between Ain’t Too Proud shows one Saturday looking at The Kennedy Center production I found online. Photograph: Courtesy Guerin Blask. And then we began imagining bigger. Will I be able to get back on the bike? Even if we were putting new words and new elements into the show, they were still George Furth’s words, and of course everything that was changed was cleared by Stephen Sondheim. But I did. Two-time Tony Award-winning director Marianne Elliott (War Horse, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Angels in America) helms this revelatory new production, at once boldly sophisticated, deeply insightful, and downright hilarious. Do I say to my director and producer that I’ve got to quit? High quality Company Katrina Lenk gifts and merchandise. Well, they very quickly put me in my place. Company to Return to Broadway With Katrina Lenk and Patti LuPone Marianne Elliott, who helmed the recent London production of this gender-swapped revival, will direct the Broadway production. When I heard that they were going to be doing a production on Broadway with an all-American cast, I was super thrilled. I think it made me want to be better and more succinct at what I do, and maybe even apply some sense of holiness to the task at hand of the theater artist. at the Booth who had it. Maybe a month before everything started happening here, this designer mentioned to Jessica on the phone, like, “Hey, there’s this thing that is happening in China, and it’s kind of freaking me out.” So we just started to watch what was going on more carefully than I felt like a lot of my colleagues were. Most of that ensemble cast is Hong Kong, Chinese locals. It’s Bobbie’s 35th birthday party, and all her friends keep asking, Why isn’t she married? 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