THE LAST FIVE YEARS offers an intimate production staged in the round, with dual casts and live music.
Written by composer and playwright Jason Robert Brown, The Last Five Years follows Cathy, a struggling actress, and Jamie, a young novelist whose career begins rising quickly. Over five years the two New Yorkers meet, fall in love, marry and eventually separate.
What makes the musical unusual is the way their stories are told. Jamie begins at the start of the relationship and moves forward in time. Cathy begins at the end of the marriage and works backward. Their timelines meet only once, at the show’s midpoint, around their engagement and wedding.
Director Michelle Grubert said the structure reveals how two people can share a relationship while experiencing it very differently. Cathy and Jamie often miss one another emotionally, projecting their own fears, expectations and ambitions onto the other. The musical contains warmth, humor and generosity, but it also moves into disappointment, resentment and grief.
The show has been nearly three years in the making. Grubert and members of the cast began preparing the musical for Prescott Center for the Arts, but could not move forward when the organization closed. The cast and production team remained committed to the project and waited for the right opportunity.
Grubert embraced staging the play in the round, the audience surrounding the performers. Rather than watching Cathy and Jamie across a traditional stage, audience members will sit close to the action as apartments, auditions, celebrations and arguments unfold around them.
The circular staging also supports the musical’s treatment of time. Grubert describes the movement as almost clocklike, the characters shifting around the space as they move through different points in the relationship. She’s watched rehearsals from different seats to understand how the experience changes depending on where an audience member sits.
Because the show is almost entirely sung, the two lead roles require considerable vocal and emotional endurance. Grubert chose to double-cast Cathy and Jamie so the performers can alternate nights and protect their voices during the run.
The two pairings are Miko Tipping with Chris Tenney and Lisa Washburn with Roger Tipping. Each pair brings a different emotional quality to the relationship, meaning audiences may experience the same story differently depending on the performance.
Tenney is also serving as musical director. A musician and faculty member at Yavapai College, he auditioned for the production several years ago. His connection to the material has remained strong throughout the show’s long journey to the stage.
Although The Last Five Years is typically performed with only Cathy and Jamie, Grubert has added an ensemble of two women and two men. The additional performers help create the social and professional world surrounding the couple, giving context to scenes set in rehearsal rooms, apartments and public spaces across New York.
A six-piece band will perform inside the black-box space, displacing a seating section. The instrumentation includes a strong string presence, including two cellos, bringing forward Brown’s emotionally detailed score. The musical does not offer a simple villain or an easy explanation for the marriage’s failure.
Both Cathy and Jamie are loving, ambitious, frightened, generous and flawed. The audience knows at the outset that the relationship will end, but the emotional power comes from watching its happiest moments while already knowing what will eventually be lost.
By the final scene Jamie has reached the end of the marriage just as Cathy arrives at the hopeful beginning. One is walking away while the other still believes everything is possible.
The Last Five Years will play August 20–22 and 27–30 in the Cosmos Theatre, 222 N. Marina Street in Prescott. For tickets and details visit CosmosTheatreArts.org.
