"In Comes Company"
By Marie Yereniuk
Excerpted from The Columbia Spectator
April 4, 2002
Originally a Broadway show from 1970, Company is about five couples in a Manhattan apartment complex and
their anxieties about their friend Bobby (Trevor Sagan) who, in his mid-thirties, has still not married. The couples
fight, argue, drink, smoke, and love -- leading Bobby to realize that being alone is not really being alive, leading to
his "Being Alive" solo.
Company is directed by Leon James Bynum, a Columbia University alumnus, who has performed in other
Columbia productions, including A Chorus Line and How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying! This
has been a special experience, though, thanks to the individual talents of the cast members.
"I learn something each rehearsal, with so many people from different areas of the Columbia performing arts
community," he explained. Dancers, singers, and actors add their own talents to the show as a whole, Bynum said,
and "it's been fulfilling seeing them do what they do best."
Mary Steffel, who plays April, admitted, "This show always has me rolling in laughter, but it never fails to hit me with
some tidbit that makes me think."
Bynum elaborated, "This show is a mirror that reflects a lot about how people of all ages deal with each other and
learn to understand themselves."
Stage manager Rochelle Urban, a Barnard College alumna, who is also handling lighting and technical design, said
she "can't help but reflect on [her] own relationships with people." As President of Columbia Musical Theatre
Society, Urban has watched the actors "become their characters offstage. It's remarkable," she noted, "even scary
at times."
"The show itself has so much to say," Nora Simpson, explained, adding, "I've learned a great deal about the
paradoxical nature of relationships and the power of love, just by reading the script."
The cast makes "the words come alive," Simpson said, also crediting Bynum's directing for the overall success of
the show. He "has made this show work on levels I didn't even know existed."
Simpson, who plays Joanne, said her favorite part in the show is the opening number, called "Company." It
epitomizes "the real love that we all have for each other -- it's so palpable that it overwhelms me."
Company contains "some of the most challenging music ever written for the stage," Simpson, a theater major, said.
Even so, she added, "It was more than worth it. It was a delight just to be working with people who are brilliant and
good-natured."
Company will be presented at the Roone Arledge Auditorium on Broadway between West 114th and 115th
Streets.