Rent Original Cast Album: Company (1970)
4.0 of 5 from 52 ratings
0h 50min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
This holy grail for both documentary and theater aficionados offers a tantalizingly rare glimpse behind the Broadway curtain. In 1970, right after the triumphant premiere of Stephen Sondheim's groundbreaking concept musical 'Company', the renowned composer and lyricist, his director Harold Prince, the show's stars, and a large pit orchestra all went into a Manhattan recording studio as part of a time-honored Broadway tradition: the making of the original cast album. What ensued was a marathon session in which, with the pressures of posterity and the coolly exacting Sondheim's perfectionism hanging overthem, all involved pushed themselves tothe limit-including theater legend Elaine Stritch, who fought anxiety and exhaustion to record her iconic rendition of "The Ladies Who Lunch". With thrilling immediacy, legendary filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker offers an up-close view of the larger-than-life personalities, frayed-nerve energy, and explosive creative intensity that go into capturing the magic of live performance. - Actors:
- Barbara Barrie, Charles Braswell, Susan Browning, George Coe, John Cunningham, Steve Elmore, George Furth, Harold Hastings, Beth Howland, Dean Jones, Charles Kimbrough, Merle Louise, Donna McKechnie, Pamela Myers, Harold Prince, Teri Ralston, Thomas Z. Shepard, Stephen Sondheim, Elaine Stritch
- Directors:
- D.A. Pennebaker
- Producers:
- Chris Dalrymple, Delia Doherty, Chester Feldman, Peter Hansen
- Genres:
- Classics, Documentary, Music & Musicals, Performing Arts, Special Interest
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 13/09/2021
- Run Time:
- 53 minutes
- Languages:
- English LPCM Mono
- Subtitles:
- English Hard of Hearing
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Full Screen 1.33:1 / 4:3
- Colour:
- Colour
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- New audio commentary by composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim
- Audio commentary from 2001 featuring director D. A. Pennebaker, actor Elaine Stritch, and Broadway producerand director Harold Prince
- New conversation among Sondheim, orchestrator Jonathan Tunick, and critic and television producer Frank Rich
- New interview with Tunick on the art of orchestrating, conducted by author Ted Chapin
- Never-before-heard audio excerpts from interviews with Stritch and Prince, conducted by D. A. Pennebaker and Hegedus in 2001
- "Original Cast Album: Co-Op", a 2019 episode of the TV series Documentary Now! that parodies the film
- Reunion of the cast and crew of "Original Cast Album: Co-Op" recorded in 2020, featuring director Alexander Buono; writer-actor John Mulaney; actors Renee Elise Goldsberry, Richard Kind, Alex Brightman, and Paula Pell; and composer Eli Bolin
- An essay by author Mark Harris
