The Last Five Years

Music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown

April 4th, 5th and 6th, 2008

Prepared and Directed by: Jason and Amy Longtin and Kristen Neander

Staring Kayla Kelsay and Gary Meimen

For the benefit of
Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids

A contemporary song-cycle musical that ingeniously chronicles the five year life of a marriage, from meeting to break-up... or from break-up to meeting, depending on how you look at it. Written by Jason Robert Brown (Parade, Songs For A New World), The Last Five Years is an intensely personal look at the relationship between a writer and an actress told from both points of view.

The show is presented in "forward time" as we follow the story of their relationship from Jamie's perspective, starting with their first meeting and following through with their wedding and ultimate breakup. At the same time, Cathy relates the story in "reverse" - starting with their breakup and moving backwards in time until their first meeting at the end of the show. Made up mostly of solo turns, with beautiful music and alternately humorous and heartfelt lyrics, it is only in the middle of the show that Jamie and Cathy come together as Jamie proposes and the two are wed.

Musicals about relationships are nothing new, but The Last Five Years manages to reinvent the familiar formula and offers up one of the brightest, freshest scores of the new century.