Antonio Banderas to direct and star in the musical Company at his Soho theatre from next autumn
By Mas Property
on Tue Nov 03 2020
The Hollywood actor has set aside eight months of his schedule to bring this Stephen Sondheim show to Malaga city.
It will be the last to reopen, but don’t for one moment think that things have been standing still at the Teatro del Soho CaixaBank in Malaga city. Antonio Banderas, who had led the theatre project, made this very clear during a theatrical press conference he gave at the theatre.
The curtain rose and backed by an orchestra and twenty artists on stage, Banderas sang a number from the musical Company, the next show to come to the theatre.
The Hollywood actor has set aside eight months of his schedule from September 2021 to feature almost daily as the main character and director of the show. Besides on Gran Vía in Madrid, never before has a show been on for such a long time in a single city in Spain. Banderas, however, is confident that the general public will respond with the same enthusiasm as they did with the last show, A Chorus Line, for which all the tickets sold out almost immediately and the run had to be extended.
Banderas will stick with more or less the same line-up as the last production, owing primarily to the fact that mass auditions aren’t possible at this moment in time. However, the actor believes he has a “strong company” capable of adapting to any new show.
Company, a musical comedy that premiered on Broadway in 1970 and won six Tony Awards (including Best Musical), now takes shape in the hands of Banderas in a free version with a “dreamlike” feel. While in A Chorus Line he couldn’t “change a comma” for rights issues, Stephen Sondheim encourages new and different productions of his work.
Banderas explained that the Soho CaixaBank will be “completely” transformed to welcome the show with the idea of installing a circular stage, with the audience around it. “It’s a daring and complicated proposal that we’re going to deliver,” promised Banderas.
However, the show will only be able to go ahead, the actor said, if all 840 seats in the theatre can be filled.
Source: SUR, October 2020