Opening night for some good ‘Company’ at BPP

You could hear the vibrato of voices through the doors in the Bellevue Gallery as the cast was warming up, finishing last-minute costume details and getting focused one hour before the show was to start.

“Company” is not the theater normal. There’s no curtain, the cast sits with the audience and they all stay in character even as the audience mingles with them.

Stephanie Tuck, an instrumentalist for the show, said there were eight members in the band and they had been practicing since last Thursday. The band played the music for the whole performance and even entertained the crowd a little before the show started.

The stage had 10 chairs placed around it, pictures of the cast – in costume and in character – scattered around the stage and the first row of seats in the audience saved.

Junior Bridie Jurasevich played Sara, a dieting, karate-taking wife of Robert’s friend Harry.

“It came together in the last week, but we’ve been working on it since mid-November,” Jurasevich said. “It’s been crazy, but very exciting.”

Before the audience came in at 7 p.m., there was little confusion as the cast started to head toward the changing room, but that soon changed as they were told they were going to mingle with the crowds and stay in the stage area.

One of the first audience members into the theater was Sharon Penny, mother of performer Jacque Donahue.

“The show is going to be wonderful,” Penny said. “It’s a Sondheim.”

The performers did everything from teach each other a little martial arts to talk about diets and even bring up some superstitions.

One person said a simple “Good luck,” and Trent Hulen quickly told her to not say that in the theater.

And then, the lights dimmed and the show started as “Robert,” usually referred to as “Bobby,” was having his 35th birthday. He didn’t want a party, but his friends threw him one anyway.

Throughout the musical Bobby saw how his friend’s relationships were bad, good or just different. In the end, the musical was about his change into the type of person he wanted to be.