Melbourne's Watch This Stages COMPANY, Beginning Tonight

With two-time Green Room Award nominee Nick Simpson-Deeks as Robert and Sally Bourne as Joanne.
One of the most beloved and ground-breaking works in the Sondheim cannon, Watch This will present along awaited season of Company at fortyfivedownstairs.
Company is a musical comedy, which explores love, relationships and the struggle for intimacy - the original

production was nominated for a record-setting 14 Tony Awards and won six.

It's Robert's birthday - he's turning 35 and his closest friends are throwing him a surprise party. Witty and well-liked, living in the heart of New York and dating three gorgeous women, Robert has it all ... so why can't he blow out the candles on his birthday cake and make a wish? Over a series of dinner parties and first dates Robert attempts to understand the pros and cons of marriage from his diverse and frequently hilarious friends and begins to make sense of his own persistent bachelorhood.

Company showcases an energetic score containing many of Stephen Sondheim's best known songs including Being Alive, Side by Side, The Ladies Who Lunch, Getting Married Today and Company

Company will feature an outstanding ensemble cast of 14 led by Nick Simpson-Deeks, Sally Bourne and Gillian Cosgriff, alongside Johanna Allen, Bianca Baykara, Nathan Carter, Mark Dickinson, Nelson Gardner, Madeleine Mackenzie, Nicole Melloy, John O'Hara, Tim Paige, Sonya Suares and Carina Waye. Design by Eugyeene Teh, Zoë Rouse & Rob Sowinski.

"I'm enormously excited to be working with such a diverse and talented group of artists on a rich and complex look at human relationships that is as poignant and achingly funny today as when it made it's Broadway debut," says director Kat Henry (GRA nominee, Foxfinder 2014/ MTC Women Directors Program 2015).

Originally a collection of plays written by librettist George Furth, Company was eventually shaped into a musical thanks to the vision of director Harold Prince. Furth reworked the plays into a libretto and Stephen Sondheim was brought in to provide the music.

In just two short years, Watch This has established itself as a major player in Melbourne's theatre scene, with a sell-out debut season and three Green Room Award nominations for Assassins in 2013 to a whopping eight nominations for Pacific Overtures (winning Best Supporting Actor, Adrian Li Donni) in 2014.