Company to Play at Broadway's Barrymore Theatre

Recent Tony-winning director John Doyle's production of Company will land at the Barrymore Theatre this fall. The show is expected to begin Broadway performances in November. The company from the recent Cincinnati mounting of the tuner, led by Raúl Esparza as Bobby, will reprise their roles on the Great White Way, according to a production spokesperson.

Company, featuring music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by George Furth, takes an unconventional look at love and commitment in a complex modern world. The show is a sophisticated portrayal of five married couples as seen through the eyes of their mutual friend Bobby Esparza, a bachelor weighing the pros and cons of wedded life. The original Broadway production, which opened at New York's Alvin Theatre in 1970, was honored with the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical as well as six Tony Awards, including Best Musical.

Like Doyle's Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd, this mounting of Company features actors who also serve as the show's orchestra of musicians. In addition to Esparza, the company features Keith Buterbaugh, Matt Castle, Robert Cunningham, Angel Desai, Kelly Jeanne Grant, Kristin Huffman, Amy Justman, Heather Laws, Leenya Rideout, Fred Rose, Bruce Sabath, Elizabeth Stanley and Barbara Walsh.

Company opened at the Cincinnati's Playhouse in the Park on March 20 and closed on April 14. Charles Isherwood of The New York Times wrote of the mounting: "The new collaboration between this hot British director and the celebrated American composer and lyricist proves that the success of Sweeney was not a fluke. Mr. Doyle has admitted that his fresh method of renewing old musicals was initially born of economic considerations. This scintillating production of an earlier Sondheim musical, which stars a terrific Raúl Esparza as the famously diffident, chronically single Bobby, affirms that necessity has indeed mothered a reusable tool for theatrical reinvention, not a quickly exhausted gimmick."

The Barrymore Theatre has been vacant since Ring of Fire closed there on April 30.