Stephen Sondheim writes more songs than he uses, many cut from shows during development. An aspiring Sweeney Todd chorus member (Craig Lucas, who later wrote Prelude To A Kiss amongst other things) approached him about developing a show from this discarded material. Sondheim sat down with him and went through 77 songs before giving him the songs that form 1980’s revue Marry Me A Little. One set, two apartments, two people, one lonely Saturday night… No official filming or audience bootleg for this one: here are Suzanne Henry and Craig Lucas and E. Martin Perry on the Original Off-Broadway Cast album. [Archive.org link, streaming and download links] Two Fairy Tales (cut from A Little Night Music) is really clever, and Pour Le Sport is delightfully biting.
Music Theater International has the synopsis for the original version of the show. More goes on to provide a story than just the songs indicate.
Since this is primarily known as an album, here are the original liner notes for the LP. It’s an image, but it’s readable if you zoom in. Interesting notes by Sondheim and Lucas about the songs.
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The show was revised in 2013 with some songs dropped and new ones added, and the concept of the show the same but changed. Here are Lauren Molina and Jason Tam and John Bell on the 2013 Off-Broadway Cast album. [Archive.org link, streaming and download links] Two moments of note in this show… the song Rainbows, which was written for an abandoned film version of Into The Woods (long before Disney), and Ah, But Underneath (cut from Follies), in which Sondheim out-Cole Porters Cole Porter. [Also, this version of Can That Boy Foxtrot is significantly filthier than the first, and in my opinion the better for it.]
As for this new version of the show, Variety was not a fan, but also provides a good overview of the revamped plot.
To track changes to the show for different productions here’s an overview of the show complete with various minor revisions and also links to all the things the most obscure songs are linked to. (The Stephen Sondheim Reference Guide hasn’t been updated in over a decade, but it’s an amazing resource.)
Finally, a tiny historical curiosity: Nilsson – Marry Me A Little
[For clarification: Marry Me A Little, the song, was not in the original production of Company. It was first publicly used in this musical. It was later added back into Company, and is now an official part of that book.]