Nick Jonas was solely 9 and portraying a teacup on Broadway when he first heard a couple of buzzy new musical enjoying manner downtown.
“All my adult castmates were talking about how great the show was and how amazing the music was,” Jonas remembers of his days in “Beauty and the Beast.” “I went to the record store with my dad and picked up a copy of the cast recording and really fell in love with it.”
What he adored was “The Last Five Years,” a two-person stage present with a cult-like following that he’s now main onto a Broadway stage for the primary time, capping a 24-year journey. It opens Sunday.
“In a time where musicals are based off of movies, are based off records or coming from London, this is a great American piece by an American composer, writer, songwriter,” says its Tony-nominated director Whitney White. “That is type of considered one of our nice American masterpieces.”
What the present is about
Jonas co-stars with Tony Award-winner Adrienne Warren within the heartbreaking take a look at a five-year marriage between aspiring novelist Jamie and budding actor Cathy from each factors of view.
Her musical arc traces their relationship backward, from their parting kiss to their assembly 5 years earlier. Jamie’s arc strikes in the wrong way, starting with a tune about his pleasure at encountering the girl of his desires, transferring ahead in time to the sad unraveling of their marriage.
“I think everyone can relate to falling in love, meeting someone, that relationship evolving to something else,” says Warren. “There’s marriage involved and there’s breakup and heartbreak. I think we all have experienced one of those things in our lifetimes, if you’re lucky enough.”
Composer and author Jason Robert Brown’s present debuted in Illinois in 2001 after which arrived off-Broadway the subsequent yr. It has turn out to be a staple in regional theaters and schools and made right into a film starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan.
“I think the brilliant thing about the writing is that it really makes you ask a lot of questions about yourself,” says Jonas. “And I certainly kind of looked inward as I’ve been digging into this work.”
A wedding below stress
The wedding of Jamie and Cathy comes below stress when his profession begins taking off and hers doesn’t, exploring how imbalances can check a relationship. “I will not fail so that you can be comfortable, Cathy. I will not lose because you can’t win,” he tells her.
“There was something about the way this crystallizes what it is to be a young artist in this business, or really to be a young artist in any business,” says Brown. “I think that’s sort of what the show is about, and I think it’s why young artists connect to it as much as they do.”
White is a superfan of the present, having seen it when it premiered on the Northlight Theatre outdoors Chicago. She desires to have fun its intimateness and realness.
“We all know the stresses of one partner being the earner and the other partner struggling, right? Capitalism comes into our bedrooms and affects our lives and in a very unpredictable way,” she says.
Warren, who received a Tony enjoying Tina Turner, discovered about “The Last Five Years” whereas finding out musical theater at Marymount Manhattan Faculty.
“I always heard my fellow students singing it in class, and so I became a fan of the music from afar,” she says. “I always thought it was an interesting piece. I just never thought it was something that I could ever perform or be a part of.”
Flash-forward to her auditioning for Brown, marking the primary time she seemed on the rating and sang the music. “I sang two songs and he looked at me and he was like, ‘I’m done. This is it.’”
Taking sides?
White, Jonas and Warren every insist they do not need the viewers to facet with one or the opposite companion on stage. They need us to spend money on the couple.
“I have been Jamie in relationships, and I have been Cathy, so I can’t judge either of them. I’ve been both of them at different times in my life,” says White.
“I love both of these characters so equally that I’m just trying to love on them at every beat in the story and not judge them. I feel very non-judgmental about this portrait of failure.”
To make the leap to a bigger stage — the Hudson Theatre has some 977 seats — Brown has given the present a much bigger sound and has up to date a few of the references, transferring it to modern-day. In some productions, the 2 lovers solely work together as soon as, however this new one has them attain out loads regardless that they’re in several timelines.
Brown says seeing it on Broadway — now starring an enormous pop star beside a theater powerhouse — is a bit surreal, laughing that there are cocktails named after his doomed lovers on the bar.
“I’ve never had ambitions for this piece to be a Broadway musical. It was always this little weird, intimate show.” he says. “I’m very protective of my little show. And at the same time, I have to let it go do its thing in the world.”
