Led by Britney Coleman (center) as Bobbie, the current touring production of “Company” will stop at the Ohio Theatre from Tuesday to Sunday. Credit: Jim Fisher
The Ohio Theatre will host the newest production of “Company” for its week-long Ohio tour leg.
The Columbus Association for the Performing Arts, also known as CAPA, will help present the “Company” national tour at Columbus’ Ohio Theatre from Tuesday to Sunday. Lisa Minken, Broadway marketing manager at CAPA, said this iteration of the classic musical — which was scored by Stephen Sondheim and premiered in 1970 — flips some characters’ genders to reflect 21st-century challenges.
Most notably, the musical’s protagonist “Robert” becomes “Bobbie.” Like her male counterpart, Bobbie opposes marriage and fears genuine intimacy, Minken said.
“It’s all about Bobbie turning 35, and she is surrounded by wonderful friends, but they keep wanting to know why she isn’t married, why she doesn’t want to settle down or start a family,” Minken said. “She spends the musical trying to figure out those answers.”
Tyler Hardwick, who plays PJ — one of Bobbie’s lovers, formerly called “Marta” — said this gender-swapped revivals never toured on a national scale before. Therefore, he said cast members are excited to bring the show to a wider audience.
“This is my favorite version,” Hardwick said. “It’s really cool to be on the first national [tour] of this particular show, just because there’s been many ‘Companies’ with men leading the show. And I think that still works, but anytime you reimagine something and a do a revival, you have to ask, ‘Why now?’”
Though a gender-bent cast breathes fresh life into the Broadway classic, which is now 54 years old, Hardwick said love — in its various shapes and forms — is still the show’s core theme.
“At the end of the day, for everybody, it always comes down to love,” Hardwick said. “As basic as that sounds, in any form or iteration of that for anybody, that’s always relatable.”
The show highlights the innate ups and downs of adult life, from grappling with loneliness to seeing one’s friends take off in different directions, Hardwick said. Put simply, he said the show functions as an artistic reality check.
“Each individual has to decide their own destiny and chase it for every ounce it’s worth because you can look for outside validation from your friends and this and that, but at the end of the day, the hardest reality of life is nobody’s you and nobody is going to, for lack of a better word, save you or make the decision for you,” Hardwick said.
This rendition of “Company” also explores LGBTQ+ relationships, seeing as the character of “Amy” — best known for being the runaway bride who sings “Getting Married Today” — has become a gay man named “Jamie.” Hardwick said such changes create a more inclusive narrative for modern theatergoers.
“It’s much more of a liberal perspective,” Hardwick said. “You have a gay couple being married, my character pretty much introduces a lot of LGBTQIA+ groups and it’s just a much more accepting group of people telling this story now.”
Since Bobbie is now a woman, Hardwick said some of the original script’s subtextual context has been thoughtfully reframed.
“There’s the additional circumstance of the biological clock if that person wanted to possibly have children,” Hardwick said. “It just upped the ante for all the women around, and again, this show is about societal pressures. Not every woman wants to have kids, and not every woman needs to have kids or be in a relationship. But that doesn’t take away society’s judgment around that.”
Minken said the touring production’s blend of classic and contemporary theater elements, in tandem with Sondheim’s famously intricate score, makes it worth seeing live.
“It’s one of the cores of musical theater,” Minken said. “The new updated musicals that we have, the movie musicals are amazing and beautiful works of theater in their own right, but this is the core and heart of new musical theater.”
More information about “Company,” including showtimes and how to purchase tickets, is available via PNC Broadway in Columbus’ website.
