UPDATE - June 12, 2022 - We won!!! COMPANY was awarded the prize for Best Revival of a Musical during the 75th Annual Tony Awards. We are proud to have been a producer of this award-winning revival as a member of the Independent Presenter’s Network. Read more below about the acclaimed production and our role.
It’s Tony Awards season! As Broadway’s Philadelphia home on Broad Street, we are always excited to celebrate another year of theater, but the 75th annual Tony Awards brings a bit of new excitement as the Kimmel Cultural Campus us NOMINATED as a producer on the hit revival of Stephen Sondheim’s COMPANY – up for the Best Revival of a Musical.
As member of the Independent Presenter’s Network, the Kimmel Cultural Campus is recognized as a producer for the acclaimed Broadway production. The Independent Presenter’s Network (IPN) is consortium of 40 of the leading Broadway presenters, theaters and performing arts centers, including the Kimmel Cultural Campus. Its members bring Broadway productions to more than 110 cities throughout North America and Japan. The IPN has produced several shows on Broadway including Thoroughly Modern Millie starring Sutton Foster, The Color Purple, and Legally Blonde.
This will be the 2nd major award nomination for the Kimmel Cultural Campus this season, alongside The Philadelphia Orchestra’s recent GRAMMY Award win for Best Orchestral Performance with their album Florence Price: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3.
COMPANY is a musical comedy with music and lyrics by the late Stephen Sondheim and a book by George Furth. It debuted on Broadway in 1970 and was nominated that year for a record-setting 14 Tony Awards, going on to win 6 of them. Through vignettes and a non-linear storyline, it follows Robert, a single man about to turn 35 and surrounded by his married friends asking the ever-pressing question – when are you getting married? As he searches for answers during interactions with his friends and lovers, he discovers why being single or married in the city could drive a person crazy. COMPANY was one of the first major musicals to deal with contemporary issues like dating, marriage, and divorce, and changed the topics talked about in musical theater forever.
The 2022 Broadway production, led by Tony and Grammy Award winner Katrina Lenk.
This particular revival on Broadway originated on London’s West End in 2018 with a gender-swapped cast for many of the main leads, including the protagonist Robert (who is renamed Bobbie), making one couple a same-sex married couple, and updating some dialogue for the 21st century. The production was led by Rosalie Craig and included the award-winning actress Patti LuPone and Jonathan Bailey of Netflix’s Bridgerton. It went on to be nominated for nine Olivier Awards, winning three of them including Best Musical Revival.
The gender-swapped production transferred to Broadway in 2020, now being led by Tony and Grammy Award winner Katrina Lenk as Bobbie. It was set to premiere on Stephen Sondheim’s 90th birthday (March 22) at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, but ultimately was shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic. It resumed performances on Broadway in November 2021 and was the last production of Stephen Sondheim’s work that he saw on stage before his passing in December 2021.
A special Playbill honoring Sondheim at the opening night performance of COMPANY after his passing.
COMPANY is up for nine Tony Awards total this year including multiple Best Actor and Actress awards, technical awards in Scenic Design, Lighting Design, and Sound Design, Best Director of a Musical, and Best Orchestrations, alongside its Best Revival nod.
Tune in to see if COMPANY becomes a Tony Award WINNER (!) when the 75th annual Awards show airs live form Radio City Music Hall on June 12 at 8PM on CBS and Paramount+.