Filmed over two years, this new documentary takes an exclusive inside look at Tony-winning director Marianne Elliott’s creative process of bringing a reimagined gender-swapped production of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s musical Company to Broadway during the COVID-19 pandemic. Featuring rehearsal and performance footage, plus new interviews with Elliott, Sondheim, Katrina Lenk, Patti LuPone and members of the original 1970 cast, the broadcast tells the story of the show’s Broadway debut in a city on the verge of bankruptcy to its reimagination 50 years later as both Broadway and New York City emerge from one of the greatest crises in contemporary history.
05-27-2022
1h 13m
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Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Director:
Andrew Douglas
Production:
Lone Star Productions, Sabel Productions, The WNET Group
Key Crew
Executive Producer:
Martin Rosenbaum
Producer:
David Sabel
Executive Producer:
Adam Low
Locations and Languages
Country:
US
Filming:
GB; US
Languages:
en
Main Cast
Stephen Sondheim
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Stephen Joshua Sondheim (March 22, 1930 – November 26, 2021) was an American composer and lyricist. Among the most important figures in 20th-century musical theater, Sondheim was praised for having "reinvented the American musical" with shows that tackled "unexpected themes that range far beyond the [genre's] traditional subjects" with "music and lyrics of unprecedented complexity and sophistication". His shows addressed "darker, more harrowing elements of the human experience" with songs often tinged with "ambivalence" about various aspects of life.
Sondheim started his theatre career by writing the lyrics for West Side Story (1957) and Gypsy (1959) before becoming a composer and lyricist. Sondheim's best-known works include A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), Company (1970), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979), Merrily We Roll Along (1981), Sunday in the Park with George (1984), and Into the Woods (1987).
Sondheim's accolades include eight Tony Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Tony in 2008), an Academy Award, eight Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, a Laurence Olivier Award, and a 2015 Presidential Medal of Freedom. He has a theater named for him both on Broadway and in the West End of London. Sondheim wrote film music, contributing "Goodbye for Now" for Warren Beatty's Reds (1981). He wrote five songs for 1990's Dick Tracy, including "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)", sung in the film by Madonna, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Film adaptations of Sondheim's work include West Side Story (1961), Gypsy (1962), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966), A Little Night Music (1977), Gypsy (1993), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), Into the Woods (2014), West Side Story (2021), and Merrily We Roll Along (TBD).
Patti Ann LuPone (born April 21, 1949) is an American actress and singer, who is best known for her work in stage musicals. She has won two Grammy Awards, two Tony Awards, and two Olivier Awards. She is also a 2006 American Theater Hall of Fame inductee. On television, LuPone played Lady Bird Johnson in the 1987 TV movie, LBJ: The Early Years, starred in the drama series Life Goes On (1989–1993) and received Emmy Award nominations for the TV movie The Song Spinner (1995) and her guest role in the sitcom Frasier (1998). In the 1990s she had a recurring role as defense attorney Ruth Miller on Law & Order. She also had recurring roles in two Ryan Murphy FX series, the thriller American Horror Story: Coven (2013–2014) and the drama Pose (2019), as well as on Murphy's Hollywood on Netflix. She guest starred in Penny Dreadful (2014–2016) before returning in a lead role. She voices the character Yellow Diamond in the animated series Steven Universe (2013–2019) and its epilogue series Steven Universe Future (2019–2020). She also appeared on The CW comedy Crazy Ex-Girlfriend as Rabbi Shari (2017). LuPone appeared in the Oscar-winning films Witness (1985) and Driving Miss Daisy (1989) and also was featured in State and Main (2000), Parker (2013), and The Comedian (2016). LuPone has a mezzo-soprano vocal range, and she is famous for her strong/high "Broadway" belt singing voice. In a 2008 interview, she maintained that she was "an actor who sings", and thankful she "had a voice"
Lin-Manuel Miranda (born January 16, 1980) is an American composer, lyricist, playwright, and actor best known for creating and starring in the Broadway musicals Hamilton and In the Heights. He was a songwriter for Moana (2016) and Encanto (2021). He also starred in Mary Poppins Returns (2018). Miranda's awards include a Pulitzer Prize, two Grammy Awards, an Emmy Award, a MacArthur Fellowship, and three Tony Awards.
Miranda wrote the music and lyrics for the musical In the Heights, which premiered on Broadway in 2008. For this work, he won the 2008 Tony Award for Best Original Score, the show's cast album won the 2009 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album and the show won the Tony Award for Best Musical. Miranda was also nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his performance in the show's lead role. Miranda prepared Spanish translations used in the 2009 Broadway production of West Side Story and was co-composer and lyricist for Bring It On the Musical, which played on Broadway in 2012. His television work includes recurring roles on The Electric Company (2009–2010) and Do No Harm (2013). He hosted Saturday Night Live in 2016. Among other film work, Miranda contributed music and vocals for a scene in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015).
Miranda also wrote the book, music and lyrics for another Broadway musical, Hamilton. The show earned the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, and was nominated for a record-setting 16 Tony Awards, of which it won 11, including Best Musical, Best Original Score and Best Book. For his performance in the lead role of Alexander Hamilton, Miranda was nominated for another Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. The Hamilton cast recording spent ten weeks atop Billboard's Top Rap Albums chart in 2015, while The Hamilton Mixtape, an album of covers of songs from the musical, developed by and featuring Miranda, reached number one on the Billboard 200 upon release in December 2016.
Cynthia Ellen Nixon (born April 9, 1966) is an American actress, activist, and theater director. For her portrayal of Miranda Hobbes in the HBO series Sex and the City (1998–2004), she won the 2004 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. She reprised the role in the films Sex and the City (2008) and Sex and the City 2 (2010), as well as the television show And Just Like That... (2021–present). Her other film credits include Amadeus (1984), James White (2015), and playing Emily Dickinson in A Quiet Passion (2016).
Nixon made her Broadway debut in the 1980 revival of The Philadelphia Story. Her other Broadway credits include The Real Thing (1983), Hurlyburly (1983), Indiscretions (1995), The Women (2001), and Wit (2012). She won the 2006 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for Rabbit Hole, the 2008 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, the 2009 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for An Inconvenient Truth, and the 2017 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for The Little Foxes. Her other television roles include playing political figures Eleanor Roosevelt , Kade Prenall in NBC Hannibal Warm Springs (2005), Michele Davis in Too Big to Fail (2011), and playing Nancy Reagan in the 2016 television film Killing Reagan. In 2020, she appeared in the Netflix drama Ratched.
On March 19, 2018, Nixon announced her campaign for Governor of New York as a challenger to Democratic incumbent Andrew Cuomo. Her platform focused on income inequality, renewable energy, establishing universal health care, stopping mass incarceration in the United States, and protecting undocumented children from deportation. She lost in the Democratic primary to Cuomo on September 13, 2018, with 34% of the vote to his 66%. Nixon was nominated as the gubernatorial candidate for the Working Families Party; the party threw its support to Cuomo after Nixon lost in the Democratic primary.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Cynthia Nixon, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Born in Hamilton, Ohio, Myers made her stage debut in Stephen Sondheim's Company (for which she received a Tony Award nomination) and her television debut with an appearance on Happy Days as Mitzi.
Myers appeared in a number of television guest appearances, most prominently as the announcer on Sha Na Na and in a number of different parts on Alice. However, she remained best known for her musical roles.
Manu Narayan (born August 16, 1973) is an American actor, film producer, singer, songwriter, composer and saxophonist. He served as a Trustee of Carnegie Mellon University, his alma mater, from 2013-2016.
Narayan was hailed as a "promising young star...a compelling actor and outstanding singer who can light up a stage with sheer force of personality," by UPI in 2004 when he made his Broadway debut in the Andrew Lloyd Webber, A.R. Rahman musical Bombay Dreams, originating the role of the "hero" Akaash. Narayan co-starred as Rajneesh alongside Mike Myers in the Paramount Pictures' feature film The Love Guru (2008).
Barbara Barrie (born Barbara Ann Berman, May 23, 1931) is an American actress of film, stage and television. She is also an accomplished author.
Her film breakthrough came in 1964 with her performance as Julie in the landmark film One Potato, Two Potato, for which she won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival. She is best known for her role as Evelyn Stoller in Breaking Away, which brought her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress in 1979 and an Emmy Award nomination in 1981 when she reprised the role in the television series based on the film.
On television she is perhaps best known for her portrayal, between 1975 and 1978, of the wife of the namesake captain in the detective sitcom Barney Miller. Barrie also is known for her extensive work in the theatre, receiving a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical in 1971 for originating the role of Sarah in Stephen Sondheim's Company.