ROXBURY, Connecticut (NYTIMES) - Had I known what was about to happen, I would have asked so many different questions. But I didn't and, presumably, neither did he.

It was Nov 21, a lovely fall Sunday, and I had driven to rural Connecticut to talk with one of the greatest figures in musical theatre history, Stephen Sondheim, about a Broadway revival of his seminal concept musical, Company.

We chatted about the show with its director Marianne Elliott. We talked, too, about an unfinished musical he was hoping to complete (Square One, adapted from two Luis Bunuel films), his work habits ("I'm a procrastinator") and his health ("Outside of my sprained ankle, okay"). And he showed us a few rooms in the house, which he had used for years as a weekend getaway, and where he had spent most of his time during the pandemic.

Five days after our conversation, Sondheim died. He was 91.

What stands out, as I think back on that afternoon? Every time I looked up, I saw a big, bold Company artwork, a multicoloured print by American artist Deborah Kass with the words "Being Alive" - the title of one of the show's biggest songs.

Company, with music and lyrics by Sondheim and a book by George Furth, first ran on Broadway in 1970 (and won the Tony for best musical the following year). The non-linear show is about a single person, just turning 35, feeling pressure to settle down from paired-off friends.

The current revival, which changes the gender of the protagonist (the male Bobby is now the female Bobbie), is now in previews and is scheduled to open on Dec 9, following a lengthy pandemic delay. Over the course of 90 minutes, we mostly talked about the new revival, but he also offered flashes of insight about theatre and theatre-making.

These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Let's talk about why you decided to revisit Company.

Stephen Sondheim: I revisited it because Marianne wanted to. I was a big fan of Marianne's. I was sceptical. Then she did a workshop, and videoed it, and there was a young cameraman there who had never heard of the show. When Marianne told him about what the show was originally, he said, "You mean it worked with a guy?" And then I knew we had a show.

Marianne Elliott: I'd always loved Company. I'd never seen it actually, but I listened to it quite a lot.

But if it was set now, it feels like it would have more potency if it was with a female Bobbie, because a male Bobby who is 35 now, who has clearly got a lovely life - lots of friends, lots of girlfriends, obviously doing quite well, an apartment in the city - nobody's going to be pushing him into getting married. They'd probably just slap him on the back and say, "Have a great time."

But for a woman at 35, it's quite a threshold. There's going to be a lot of pressure on her from her friends to make a wish that she will "sort her life out" and settle down and get married and have a family, maybe.

You had turned down a proposal for an all-male Company with a gay Bobby, directed by John Tiffany.

Sondheim: Yes. There were certain scenes that worked really well and certain scenes that just seemed forced. The scenes that worked best were what we call the girlfriend scenes. But the marriage scenes didn't really work well.

So why did you say yes to this one?

Sondheim: My feeling about the theatre is the thing that makes it different from movies and television, is that you can do it in different ways from generation to generation. Just as you can have many different actors play Hamlet, you can have many different ways of looking at a show without distorting it. And also, shows change their life according to what is going on in the world around them. Assassins now has an entirely different and ominous quality to it because of what's going on with guns and violence. Company has a different flavour than it had before feminism really got a foothold.

What keeps theatre alive is the chance always to do it differently, with not only fresh casts, but fresh viewpoints.

How did the two of you collaborate?

Sondheim: We just went over it scene by scene. And I would change, and Marianne would, taking some of George's lines. And she'd say, "Well, that's okay, but I wish it were more this", and I'd say, "That's okay, but I don't quite understand what she's feeling". That kind of thing. (One of the last decisions Elliott and Sondheim made was to change the gender of one of Bobbie's friends, replacing an Amy with a Jamie, so there is now a same-sex couple in which one person is having wedding day jitters.)

Is there something about same-sex relationships that made that work?

Sondheim: It's contemporary. This makes it so much "of today". The whole cast takes it for granted. It's just, "Oh, those two guys are married". It's what people would do today.

Elliott: I don't know whether this is modern or not, but there's something about a woman saying to a gay guy, "Oh, God, we're both getting older, let's just you and I get married", in a sort of flip way, that feels quite real, but then it becomes more serious.

Sondheim: The great key line - I'm going to paraphrase it - is "Just because we can get married, doesn't mean we should" and that sums up everything about the gay aspect of marriage. That's such a prescient line.

This production of Company began its life with a run in London. Was there anything you saw there that you decided to change for New York?

Elliott: I wanted to make it really clear it was all about the moment when, at her birthday party that she's going to have, she's going to have to blow the candles out on the cake. I also wanted to make it clear that in my head - I mean, this is not in my head, this is as it's written - it's all in her head as she's waiting for this surprise party to turn up. As she's drinking, on the bourbon, she's probably hiding under the stairs thinking, "What's going to happen?" And she drifts from thought to thought to thought. So it's not necessarily a narrative, but there's logic from one thought to another thought to another thought, which then takes her to the place of "Being Alive".

Sondheim: That's why it's not a revue. It has the form of a revue, but it's not. It's a play.

Elliott: Yeah. And I wanted to make that clear. So the "Alice in Wonderland" features more heavily here than it did in London.

Sondheim: And also you wanted to restage Another Hundred People. That's a complete restaging of what was in London.

Why?

Elliott: Well, I didn't think it worked particularly well in London.

Sondheim: No, it didn't. And of course, it wasn't written to be a group number - it was written as a solo. And so Marianne had to invent something - I don't know exactly why you wanted a group number, but it's nice to have one there.

Elliott: I wanted it to look like she was being taken through the streets, alleys and corners, and the highs and the lows of New York, and also through, possibly even, an app. So it has connotations of her walking, but also connotations of her going through a dating app.

Sondheim: This is New York's solo.

Elliott: That's a great way of putting it: New York's solo. Every single scene, New York is mentioned. They all have something to say about New York. And it's fantastic to come back and do a show, in the year after the pandemic, that is absolutely the antithesis of being locked down, because everybody is crammed in her apartment - all her friends - and also to do a show that is about how fantastic New York is.

Sondheim: The image of all of them crowding that small room, at the beginning, gives the show an entirely different flavour than it's ever had before. It gives a whole other meaning to the title, Company, cause they're smothering her. That's something it's never had before. It's all friendly, and full of love and warmth, and they're smothering her.