I said, 'Fine.' I was amused by that 'Oh, by the way,'

When we did the first preview, we weren't ready. We hadn't teched the show.

I was in Canada running the Manitoba Theatre Centre as artistic director and I had written to Mr. Prince and asked him if he would give me his stage manager copy of the musical 'Company,' which I was going to do in my season there, ... He said, 'Yes,' and then said, 'By the way, Stephen's written you a musical and I'm going to send you the book.'

But we proved them wrong.

[Many people in the theater business attended that first preview on Feb. 6, 1979.] A lot of them said it was too bad, but it wasn't going to work, ... And I was really disappointed that especially actors gave it no chance.

It brought the place to its feet.