Opening the 2022 Broadway Season at Croswell Opera House, Stephen Sondheim’s Company is a great way to launch the summer season at Michigan’s oldest theater! Before reading further, get your tickets now at croswell.org — the show only runs through Sunday — and you should see it.
Bobby is the sole single person among his circle of closest friends in NYC. In what was a daring departure in musical theater in 1970, the show doesn’t follow a straightforward storyline – rather it takes it’s time exploring the couples’ relationships as well as their ongoing urging for Bobby to couple up rather than continue to live the (gasp) single life at his 35th birthday. Of course, Bobby has daliances with other single women who enter and leave his life. There is not much more I am going to say about the script, since it’s up to you to discover who you relate to, who you don’t. and what you think as the show winds through it’s course.
But it’s the women in Bobby’s life that make this production soar — and I mean soar. Take, for example, Leah Fox who turns in the evening’s funniest performance as marriage-shy personally neurotic Amy in “Getting Married Today”. It’s the strongest performance I have seen from her already strong career in musical theater. And then there is Julia Hoffert as karate-wielding, “I can’t I’m on a diet” Sarah whose vocals and physical shtick shine throughout the evening (watch her delighfully munching on brownies in the background at times). Maya Gangadharan turns in a masterful performance as Joanne, and her “Ladies Who Lunch” is spot-on perfect. Lauren Goyer is delighful as flight attendant April (whom Bobby occasionally calls May, or June).
You will have your favorites too – and it all looks great on the Croswell stage, with projections making for rapid and stylistic backgrounds as the show moves from apartment to apartment, club to bedroom. Meghan C Hakes returns to Adrian to direct and choreograph. The staging of “Side by Side by Side” and “You Could Drive a Person Crazy” is particulary good. The superb 13-piece orchestra is under the direction of musical director Adam P. Miller.
This is an adult show to be sure though there is nothing in it that would prevent you from bringing your mid-teens on up — though they might not be super invested in these adult relationships and there is a fair share of blunt sex talk, drugs, and language. It also has a fair smattering of 70’s lingo that adults will get but younger audiences might not. This was a show that was fairly shocking and controversial to it’s 1970’s audiences although the impact has all been watered down over the years.
Very highly recommended.
Company continues at Croswell Opera House, Adrian, MI through May 22nd. croswell.org for tickets.
Mostly Musical Theatre 
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