Chris Harper, Producer of Company

Join Tony and Olivier Award-Winning Producer, Chris Harper, and DMPA President and CEO, Jeff Chelesvig, as they discuss the revival of Stephen Sondheim’s musical, Company. Listen as Harper discusses the creative team’s choices, his personal affinity for the show, and why Company resonates across generations.

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Hi, I'm Jeff Chelswig, Presidentand CEO of des Wain Performing Arts.
Welcome to the second episode in ourseries of dmpa conversations podcast designed to give
you an insider's perspective on shows comingto the Civic Center and Temple Theater.
Today, our focus is on ourWillis Broadway Series presentation of the national tour
of Stephen Sondheim and George Firt's musicalCompany. Today I am speaking with Chris

(00:29):
Harper, the producer of this productionof Company, who won both the Tony
Award and London's Olivier Award for BestRevival of a Musical for this new production.
Thank you again for joining us,and now here is my conversation with
producer Chris Harper. I'm pleased tobe joined today by Chris Harper, who

(01:00):
is the producer of Company, theproduction that we'll be playing at the Civic
Center. Chris is joining us fromLondon. Chris, thanks for joining us
today. Thanks for having me.Tell us a little bit about what your
job as a producer is. Well. I think producing is a bit like
being a parent. The show hasbecome your babies, they become your children,

(01:21):
they become your live blood. YourDNA, and a producer is really
responsible for all the aspects of theproduction. You're the person that raises the
money in some instances, the personthat has the idea, the person that
puts the creative team together, andbasically takes care of the production once it's
up and running. I always sayto my friends and colleagues that the job

(01:42):
of a producer really begins in earnestthe day after the production's opened, because
it's your job to keep the productionalive and return the money to the investors,
make sure the audiences are continuing tohave a great time, make sure
the actors are happy, making surethe whole thing runs smoothly. And I
think good producing is when nobody noticesit. A producer has done his job

(02:07):
perfectly, when no one really knowswhat the producer does when it's going really
badly rolled all the producers followed.Always, let's start maybe at the beginning
with Company, because this is ashow that is a revival of a show
that was written in nineteen seventy andvery early in Stephen Sondheim's career. Tell

(02:31):
us a little bit about the historyof the show from the beginning of its
Broadway production, well. I hadseen a production of Company in London in
the nineties. I think it wasdirected by Sam Mendes and it was at
the don My Warehouse and it hada profound effect on me. I was
a thirty something meter young man atthat point of having not found love and
it affected me deeply. And cutto quite some years later, I found

(02:55):
myself in the very fortunate position ofi'd becoming a for the first time and
having twins. My twins were bornvery premature, they were born ten weeks
early, and on my way tothe hospital every morning when they're in the
nicqu I did the thing that youdo in times of crisis and stress,
you turned to the music of StephenSundheim to give you some kind of comfort,

(03:17):
and I listened to Being Alive,which is the main song, the
main anthem from Company, over andover again on my way to the hospital,
and it was a thing that gaveme courage to face what were some
really challenging, scary days with mytwo newborn twins. And on my way
to the hospital, I'd been thinkingabout what are we going to do next,

(03:38):
what are we going to do?What show should we produce? And
I'd already rejected Company as an idea. And then when I got to the
hospital, I was staring at mynewborn daughter in the way that most parents
do. They look at their childrenand think who are you going to be?
Who will you be when you growup? And I was looking at
my daughter while I was thinking ofthis song being alive, and I thought,
I wonder what Company would feel likeif Bobby was a woman. And

(04:00):
I called Marianne and said, I'vegot this great idea or how we could
do company, because I knew sheloved it. I knew she loved the
piece. I said, I thinkwe should do Company with Bobby as a
woman. So the next day shecalled me. She said, I've had
to think about it, and actually, maybe you're right, maybe this would
work, but I don't think StephenSondein will ever say yes. And I

(04:23):
reminded her that when we'd done aCuris incident on Broadway, he'd invited her
to his house because he was abig fan of the world that she'd done.
And at that meeting he'd said,if ever there was anything you would
like to direct of mine, theanswer would be yes. So I reminded
her of that, and you know, I'm a glass half full kind of
guy, and she's a little bit, you know, in the other direction.

(04:46):
And she said, oh, well, he didn't really mean that,
and I said, well, let'sgive it a try. Marie Anne went
to meet Stephen and he said,look, I'm not sure this works,
but you know what, you shoulddo a workshop. And I respect your
work so much and admire so deeplythat if you think this idea works,
test it out, you know,give it a go, try and do
it. So we went to workin London at the beginning of twenty seventeen

(05:11):
and we did a workshop of it, and on the first reading we felt
this worked completely and utterly. Wemade no actual changes to the script.
It's word for word what George Firthand Stephen Sondheim wrote, with the fact
that it's just been the dialogue hasbeen switched. All of the dialogue that
Bobby says is exactly the dialogue thata man would have said when it was

(05:31):
written in nineteen seventy, but throughthe lens of a woman it took on
an entirely different meaning. The wholething came to life from was fresh and
exciting and modern and contemporary, withoutactually changing the words cut to the production
and opening a year later in Londonwith Patti Lapone came over and did the
show in London, and she hadn'tdone a show in London for twenty five

(05:53):
years. But I was a hugefan and she was absolutely our first choice
for the show, and pretty muchof the cast were the people that had
done the workshop more or less.Stephen sometimes came to the first preview and
while we were having a drink inthe bar, he stood up and got
everyone's attention and said, Initially Iwasn't sure about this, he said,

(06:13):
but this is exactly how companies shouldhave been written. I love it.
And he was so deeply moved,and from that moment on he was an
incredible supporter of the production, afriend of the production, and was extremely
passionate about bringing the show to Broadway. So it was a journey that we
went on with him, but itwas one that was completely incredible and satisfying,

(06:38):
and he loved the production, andin fact, it was the last
musical he saw before he died.He was with us literally just a week
before he died. That's so amazing. Well, this production, as you
mentioned, opened in London, andthen you had a little bit of a
problem when you tried to open onBroadway called the pandemic. I mean,
I don't know why I'm laughing aboutit now, still painful, all right.

(07:01):
We were nine performances in, beganpreviews at the beginning of March,
and as we all know, Marchtwenty twenty was a time in our lives
that we'll never forget. And theshow was doing incredibly well. But obviously,
you know, COVID got everybody inthe end and we closed. Broadway

(07:23):
closed. I think it was Marchthirteenth, and it would be two years
before we were able to reopen theshow on Broadway. But it was worth
the way, that's for sure.The show went on to win the Tony
Award for Best Revival of a Musical, along with four other Tony Awards.
So we're very, very happy tobe a part of the Wind Performing Arts,
as you know, as part ofthe Independent Presenters Network, and we

(07:44):
invested in both the Broadway production andthe touring production, so we're happy to
be part of the family. Tellus a little bit about the physical production
of the show, because it isthe same designer Bunny Christy who designed Curious
Incident the Night and she won theTony Award for this production. Tell us
a little bit about that. Well, Bunny is truly one of the greatest

(08:05):
designers I think working in the business. But when we were doing the show
in London, the design that you'llsee in your theater is almost a very
very close version of the Broadway production. Indeed, the London production, it's
a hybrid between Broadway and London.Actually, she'd come up with this incredible
design and the production manager said tome, I'm afraid we've had to kill

(08:26):
the design, and I've asked Bunnyand Marianne to start working again because the
design they've come up with. Youdon't have the budget for it, Chris,
and I was like, okay,okay, well, yeah, I
want to stay within the budget,okay. And then I went to see
Bunny in her studio and she said, you know, Chris, could I
just give you a little glimpse ofwhat we had come up with? And

(08:48):
it was as clear as anything thatwe had to do this design because I'd
never seen anything quite like it before. It was certainly one of the most
thrilling things I'd ever seen. ButI just thought, we have to find
the budget so I actually reduced themarketing budget in London to be able to
pay for the design because I thoughtit was so integral to what was the

(09:09):
way we needed to tell this story. Because for those people listening who may
already know Company, I don't know. New York is a very important part
of the story of Company. It'sabout a city. It's about being claustrophobic
in apartments where you're compacted into atiny little room and there's no space to
move around. And what's happened isthe design is now this incredible magic box

(09:33):
of tricks. I can't wait foryou to see it because the design is
Bobby's entire imagination and the only wayI can describe it is it's a magic
box of tricks. And that's whyit feels to me, and I'm very,
very proud of it. I haveto say that's great. Well,
the comedy in the show is somethingthat I think will delight a lot of

(09:54):
people, because this is not atypical book musical right for this quote from
Stephen Sondheims finishing the Hat his bookwhere he talks about a man, or
in the case of this production,a woman with no emotional commitments reassesses his
life on her thirty fifth birthday byreviewing her relationships with her married acquaintances and
her boyfriends. That is the entireplot. Sometimes we're used to book musicals,

(10:18):
but in the nineteen seventies this waskind of an experimental piece in a
way. It was very early inhis career, but it was a huge
hit. It was It won theTony Award for Best Musical. So this
is really a very important part ofStephen Sondheimes. Cannon and the songs,
of course are iconic anything that ourattendee should think about as they attend or

(10:41):
after the performance. I think whatMarie Anne has done is actually created more
of a story than George Firth originallywrote. It's no longer just episodes.
I think the original version of theshow was one episode after another of Bobby's
life. What Marie Anne has doneby changing the genders of the various people
in the production is that she's givena reason for Bobby's lack of commitment,

(11:07):
and that is quite simple. Thebody clock it was part of my thinking
when I originally thought about Bobby becominga woman. I was forty five when
I had my children. No onewas telling me I had a body clock
or needed to have children by thetime I was ex age or whatever.
But women have a certain amount ofpressure both from themselves and a physical pressure

(11:28):
that you know, if you leaveit too long, maybe you might not
be able to have children. Soeven whether you want to have children or
not, you're asking yourself the question, should I have a child probably by
the time you're thirty five, ifyou haven't already. So it's not a
gimmick at all. In any way, it's a genuine reason for why tell
this story through the lens of athirty five year old woman? Because it's

(11:50):
about marriage, it's about love,it's about should you have a family.
So I think Stephen's analysis of whatthe story is was certainly referring to the
previous productions absolutely, And what MarieAnne did very very cleverly is there was
a sort of dance piece that wasoriginally written for Company on Broadway in nineteen
seventy called TikTok, which was cutfrom all the other productions of Company,

(12:13):
but Marianne reinstated it because it wascalled TikTok, and the whole piece was
conceived to be Bobby's dream Nightmare imaginationof what might happen if she got married
to this guy, if she gotmarried to that guy, if she was
single, if she stayed single,if she carried on drinking like her friend
Joanne. So in that moment,the whole song is, You're allowed to

(12:37):
see the world of what the futuremight look like through Bobby's eyes were she
to go this way. So it'sa sliding doors moment of all those possibilities
that await her should she choose togo in that direction. And I think
that's what defines the production. Whatit is to be a woman in today's
society through her eyes, and whatpressures that women are facing. Should they

(13:01):
have a career, should they giveup their careers, should they have a
child? Should they be all thingsto all of these people? Should they
please their friends, should they pleasethemselves? Should they make their own decisions?
And I think that's really what thisversion of Company is about, is
about empowering the individual to make theirown decisions. Mary Anne's work on this
is tremendous, and the entire creativeteam it's really a genius production. And

(13:22):
I applaud you and all your colleagues, and we are so looking forward to
having a company here in De Wines. I'm excited to hear what the audiences
think of it too, So thankyou for having me. We'll let you
know. Thank you present. Weappreciate your joining us for this special conversation.

(14:01):
The DMPA Conversation podcasts are produced byAndrew Donalds. To our donors and
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(14:22):
again for listening.