Twenty-five years ago, the Stephen Sondheim musical Company opened on Broadway, and made a sensation. Company has now returned to Broadway for the first time in a revival at the Roundabout Theater. But something interesting happened in the years between the two productions: Broadway died. And one of the causes of its death was this extraordinary piece of theater.

In 1970, Company seemed like a message from the future — an entirely new style of musical, one that would liberate a form that had grown stale and formulaic.