Tonight is the first rehearsal for Company.

I’ve been listening to the revival cast recording to try and familiarize myself with the music. I wish I had the original cast recording because it’s much better, but I ordered it from BMG (for five dollars), so I have to wait a couple of weeks to receive it. I can see it’s going to be difficult to learn the lyrics because there are many lists and repetitions. The harmonies shouldn’t be too difficult, though; they seem very obvious.

Overall, I’m excited about the show. It’ll be fun to work with Masaya, as usual. We’ve had amazing stage chemistry since the first time we read together during Good News auditions. I assume this show won’t be much different for us, although it’s kind of weird that Stan (her boyfriend) is in it too, but I’m the one playing her character’s (soon-to-be) husband. Meanwhile, his character is married to one of her best friends. Dizzying, isn’t it?

I read an article on Sondheim.com about the differences between the original production and the revival, and I think it will be interesting to see which script Ron uses. Knowing Ron, he’ll use parts of each script. The biggest question, though, is whether he’ll set it in 1970 like the original, 1995 like the revival, or another year altogether (like the present, for instance). The show expresses attitudes about marriage, drugs, smoking, and sexism, so it has to take place in a specific time. Of course, you can change the attitudes to reflect the time period of your choice, which is what they did for the revival. According to the article, however, the 1970 version was too firmly grounded in 1970 and therefore not appropriate for a current audience, while the 1995 version seemed out-of-place. So it remains to be seen whether Ron’s version will solve either of these problems.

Incidentally, I read another article about a really bad production of Company at a college, and it’s really funny. Hopefully ours will be better.