As the Sondheim lyric goes, “Life is company,” and tonight on PBS stations across the country, it’s all the truer: The 2006 Tony Award-winning Broadway revival of the composer’s 1970 musical, Company, will make its broadcast premiere on PBS’s Great Performances. The show airs at 9 PM ET on WNET Thirteen in New York City. Visit pbs.org for local listings; you’ll also find a complete multimedia site dedicated to the performance, including a video excerpt from the show’s opening number, “Company.”

Click on the play button here to listen to that track off the cast recording of the production, available on Nonesuch Records:

And here’s another track, the unforgettable “Ladies Who Lunch,” from the same recording:

The San Jose Mercury News’s Charlie McCollum was originally doubtful that TV could capture what he calls “one of the brightest lights on Broadway in the 2006 season.” But, he writes, Great Performances has done a remarkable job at giving the PBS audience an intimate look at director John Doyle’s “inspired reinterpretation of one of Sondheim’s finest pieces.”  McCollum concludes:

It was all wonderfully sophisticated, stylistically and challenging, on a human level. It also, it turns out, makes for wonderful television … Those who love the musical theater should be grateful to Great Performances for capturing the revival with style and flair. For devotees of Sondheim or otherwise, this is a rich production that should not be missed.

Newsday’s John Crook concurs. He credits Stephen Sondheim’s “dazzling score” as being the “musical pulse of the show,” and speaks with the production’s lead, Raúl Esparza, who says: “I am sure that Company is the best work I have ever done.” To read the article with more of the candid interview with Esparza, visit newsday.com.