SALON

Wednesday, Apr 6, 2011 8:07 PM UTC

Neil Patrick Harris and Christina Hendricks in good “Company”

With a cast including Patti Lupone and Stephen Colbert, we still wonder if the Sondheim production can be updated

By

Topics: Theater, Neil Patrick Harris, Stephen Colbert, Television,

Neil Patrick Harris and Christina Hendricks in good Doogie and Joan, together in song.

This must be the year the live concerts realized they could make way more money if they started filming their productions. We’ve seen the Arcade Fire, Duran Duran and the National all take part in a new media collaboration with famous directors to have their shows live-streamed on the Internet. And now Broadway’s starting to come around as well, which ostensibly should allow them to ease up on their harsh bootlegging policy. (I’m still mad about getting kicked out of “Phantom of the Opera” because I brought in a recorder during a school field trip.)

Stephen Sondheim’s “Company” will be getting the cinematic treatment this April, when the New York Philharmonic’s version of the show will be taped for a June film release. Usually I’d wonder who would go pay $11 to sit in a movie theater and watch a play, but the lineup of “Company” is so good, it might as well be a blockbuster. Not only is Neil Patrick Harris — that superstar of every medium — playing the happy bachelor Bobby, but he’ll be hamming it up with Patti LuPone, one of the biggest names on Broadway.

Oh, you don’t like musicals, you say? That’s fine, you could always go see the movie for its other cast members, which include Christina Hendricks from “Mad Men,” Jon Cryer (who apparently found another gig post-”Two and a Half Men”), “Goonies” alum Martha Plimpton, Craig Bierko and Stephen Colbert. Come on, you wouldn’t go see a movie that has Colbert singing and dancing with Joan Holloway? Really? You must be dead inside. Plus, it will be interesting to see how campy Neil plays the role of Bobby, whose bachelorhood makes his married friends call into question his sexuality at random intervals throughout the show. Though NPH has played it straight before, I wonder if the actor’s real-life sexual preference will color the audience’s view of the role. Or is that the point of this new, contemporary “Company”?

Drew Grant is a staff writer for Salon. Follow her on Twitter at @videodrew. More Drew Grant.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 14 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
232 points233 points | 8 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the persecuted late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
167 points168 points | 1 comment
vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
144 points145 points | 38 comments
vote
Obstruction will ruin the GOP: Playing politics and abusing the system can excite the extremes, but it's a recipe for long-term political disaster
49 points50 points | 8 comments
vote
How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government -- "...much of the U.S. economic security support system consists of subsidies for the affluent in the form of tax breaks, like those for private retirement savings plans such as 401(k)s and private employer-provided health insurance."
31 points32 points | 3 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations