Company

Larry Kert: Who do you have to f**k to get out of Company?  

Stephen Sondheim: The same people you f**ked to get in it. Happy birthday, Larry.

Dean Jones: I went out there in Boston and sang this song ‘Happily Ever After’ and I could feel the audience asking me, ‘Why are you doing this to us?’ I saw their eyes widen as they asked, ‘Why do you hate us?’”

Company gave Elaine Stritch her signature song, frightened off its first leading man, and kicked off Sondheim’s most prolific decade.

Ethan Mordden: No show was as misunderstood as Company. This is odd, because its theme is very clearly stated: the absolute intimacy of marriage is very difficult but very necessary…. Sondheim spend the 1970s producing five consecutive masterpieces… yet was, at that time but not after, the most contested major talent in the musical’s history…. Rodger’s and Hammerstein were accepted masters at that time and after- taken, even, for granted. Sondheim was argued.

*** Update 7/18/2016

A recent production of Company inspired me to revise this comic slightly. The original was in pencil and marker. The revised was drawn with digital pen, keeping the same models but cleaning them up and giving Elaine Stritch more prominence (never a bad thing!).