In the Company of comfortable couples

When Huntington Beach High School’s Academy for the Performing Arts opens its latest production, Stephen Sondheim’s “Company,” this weekend, it will do so fortified by a chat with one of the cast members from the show’s Broadway premiere 36 years ago.

Teri Ralston, an Orange County resident who divides a still-flourishing professional career with a teaching gig at the academy’s sister school in Santa Ana, created the role of Jenny in the Broadway production of “Company,” which opened in April of 1970 and ran for 690 performances. She dropped by last week for a “master talk” with the students and offered some professional advice and insight.

The show won six Tony awards, including best musical, and featured, along with Ralston, such luminaries as Dean Jones, Barbara Barrie, Charles Kimbrough (of “Murphy Brown”), Donna McKechnie (“A Chorus Line”) and Elaine Stritch, who’s still cracking up theater and television audiences with her one-woman show “At Liberty.”

“Company” is set in New York and tells the story of five couples and their mutual friend, Robert, who’s turning 35 as the show opens and seems to have everything ? charm, good looks and a great sense of humor. Nevertheless, he is still single, which concerns his married friends.

In “Company,” Robert watches and learns from the various couples. He sees both the wonders and pitfalls of relationships but eventually realizes that while relationships rarely turn out as they do in fairy tales, life still is better when you have someone to share it with.

Tim Nelson, who’s directing the academy production, appears to be as excited as his young charges as he prepares his latest show for the stage of the Huntington Beach High School auditorium.

“All the actors are really eating this music up,” he said. “I’m really proud of the kids. Especially fun is Skye Bronfenbrenner as Sarah and Josh Allton as Harry. Their opening ‘Karate’ scene is hysterical ? great chemistry.”

Alex Syiek heads the cast as Robert. Other principals in the production include Katie Ulrich, Brittany Gerardi and Kendall Richardson as his girlfriends and, as the other couples, Katie Dixon and Adam Mantell, Joanna Syiek and Alex DesCombes, Sally Blotzer and Neil Starkenberg, and Erin Bull and Jared Swartz.

The Sondheim score includes some certified gems ? “Another Hundred People,” “Getting Married Today,” “Side by Side by Side,” “Being Alive,” “The Ladies Who Lunch” and the title tune.