In 1999, just on the cusp of 30, Jason Robert Brown won his first Tony Award. It was for Best Original Musical Score for Parade, an ambitious, two-act drama with sweeping Americana melodies, dark themes of systemic prejudice and an actor head count hovering around 40. For his next project, he was in the market for something smaller—much smaller.
The Last Five Years, debuting on Broadway with Nick Jonas and Adrienne Warren nearly 25 years after its world premiere at Chicago’s Northlight Theatre, was originally conceived as a simple song cycle for one man and one woman. What emerged was a musical character study—yes, of writing wunderkind Jamie Wellerstein and the striving but self-doubting actress come “shiksa goddess” Cathy Hiatt—but primarily of their finite relationship where the misaligned partners are literally moving in opposite directions. Forget the will-they-won’t they. The expiration date is on the label.
Norbert Leo Butz and Lauren Kennedy led the 2001 Chicago world premiere, with Daisy Prince (daughter of Harold Prince who directed Parade) at the helm. The production moved off-Broadway to the Minetta Lane Theatre in 2002, still with Butz as Jamie but now with Sherie Rene Scott as Cathy. It ran only two months, but the album that Butz and Scott recorded (the first-ever cast album released by Scott and her then-husband Kurt Deutsch’s Sh-K-Boom Records) brought the score into the musical theater lexicon. You may never have seen the show, but you knew every word to “The Next Ten Minutes.”
The Last Five Years stayed bubbling below the surface ever since: Brown himself directed the show’s 2013 off-Broadway revival at Second Stage Theater (starring Adam Kantor and Betsy Wolfe, who also recorded an album). A year later came director Richard LaGravenese’s film version with Jeremy Jordan and Anna Kendrick (another album). Cynthia Erivo and Joshua Henry performed a memorable one-night concert at New York City’s Town Hall in 2016, right around the time the show opened off-West End in London with Jonathan Bailey and Samantha Barks (Ariana Grande, with her Covid-era recording of Cathy’s opening number “Still Hurting,” rounds out the Wicked–Last Five Years diaspora). And in 2021, the show made its West End debut with Oli Higginson and Molly Lynch.
It’s a history that’s baked into Cathy and Jamie’s long-awaited Broadway debut—and veteran Cathys and Jamies overflow with memories of their own fleeting time with this score and the blossoming-dissolving (or dissolving-blossoming) relationship with their mostly spectral scene partner. Hear from some of the people who left their mark on The Last Five Years, and who are still feeling the mark it left on them.
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LAUREN KENNEDY | CATHY IN THE 2001 WORLD PREMIERE AT NORTHLIGHT THEATRE
“It was the first time I really felt like I was creating something from the ground up.“
The middle of the show, where Jamie and Cathy are the most emotionally aligned, was always a thrilling part to play—especially since the rest of the show has them on such different trajectories. But my absolute favorite section was from “Climbing Up Hill” through “I Can Do Better Than That.” That’s the moment when you truly get a window into why their relationship wasn’t built to last.
The way Daisy Prince directed the show was incredible—Norbert and I played the scenes with each other, so when he sang “If I Didn’t Believe In You,” I was right there, listening and being his scene partner. I experienced every ounce of pain, hurt and insecurity in real time. And then, I had to turn around and be fresh and buoyant for “I Can Do Better Than That,” layering all that emotion into my performance. That exercise truly helped ground my portrayal of Cathy.
(Photo: Michael Brosilow)
I’ll also add—working with Jason and knowing the songs were being crafted around my voice was an absolute dream come true. I’ve said this before, but the way he celebrates singers and musicians made me feel like I was finally sitting at the cool kids’ table. It was the first time I really felt like I was creating something from the ground up.
And speaking of “I Can Do Better Than That,” my favorite moment to sing was:
“Nothing but fresh, undiluted and pure
Top of the line and totally mine…”
Holding that note out, then not breathing all the way through to: “I don’t need any lifetime commitments, I don’t need to get hitched tonight.” So fun!
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NORBERT LEO BUTZ | JAMIE IN THE WORLD PREMIERE AND 2002 OFF-BROADWAY PREMIERE AT THE MINETTA LANE THEATRE
“I began to feel the rush a creative person feels while creating something, in real time.”
(Photo: Joan Marcus)
The Last Five Years was quite a journey for me. It’s difficult to pick one moment or one song, as it was such a seminal time in my career. When Lauren and I did the world premiere in Chicago, we had no template, no idea how it would be received or judged. It felt very vulnerable and scary, so we really held each other up. My favorite moment by far was when we finally got to sing together on “The Next Ten Minutes.” It took me a long time to get comfortable singing a whole show with little to no spoken text. I had come from doing plays and was still new to musicals, so finally getting to look into her eyes and connect with a human being in real time was really powerful and beautiful. I felt most like an actor in that scene.
By the time we transferred to New York, the show had been road tested and I knew it worked. Putting Sherie Rene Scott in was pretty seamless.
I think my favorite song to sing by myself was “Schmuel,” funnily enough. At first, it was my least favorite. By far! I was like, “Who is this dude? A seven-minute ‘love bomb’ hidden inside a complicated Russian Folk tale as a Christmas Gift!?! Just give her the watch already like a normal person!?!” But as I let go of the judgement of the character, and just committed more and more, I began to feel the rush a creative person feels while creating something, in real time. It was really exciting once I cracked it. Daisy Prince, our director, knew I hated rehearsing it. She told me to keep at it, that it would eventually be my favorite moment in the show. And she was right.
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SHERIE RENE SCOTT | CATHY IN THE 2002 OFF-BROADWAY PREMIERE
“The show…helped me find myself as a person and as an artist.“
I first heard the show on a cassette tape of the Chicago production. For whatever reason they needed to replace a role and asked me to audition for the premiere New York production. I remember sitting on my bed listening, thinking, “Whatever I have to do, however I have to learn to sing in this musical-theater-way, I will learn.” It was a strong, fated feeling, though it wasn’t the natural way I sang. I just knew in my heart I could bring something to the piece as an actor and really serve it. The show was something I could put real devotion into. I called the magical Joan Lader that day and have worked with her ever since.
(Photo: Joan Marcus)
I sang for Jason in his apartment while he played the piano and I was in—phewf. Tom Murray, the music director for the show, came with me to my voice lessons (he’s a really wonderful guy). I was so excited to work with a female director for the first time, and so lucky from the first day that it was Daisy Prince. I knew Norbert and I would work well together because I’d done Maureen in Rent with him on Broadway when he understudied both roles of Roger and Mark.
Then September 11th happened. Life changed. But we opened in 2002. It’s a long story about how the cast album came to be on the record label I’d started and co-owned, which my ex and the great Noah Cornman ran out of our second bedroom. We did the album during our eight-show-a-week run, on our one day off, in seven hours or something. I would say my favorite singing was doing the cast album. After that, things seemed to settle in really well on stage for the rest of the run.
(Photo: Joan Marcus)
People ask, and honestly get mad at me, wondering why I don’t do songs from the show in concerts and stuff. I try to explain to them that it was very special to me, and doing songs from that show, in the wrong context, just doesn’t feel right. I think when you come from a place of devoting yourself fully to a piece of art, you want to move on to the next work, and devote yourself to that. It’s hard to explain. It’s like that with other shows too, but definitely this one.
When I wrote the show Twohander, which Norbert and I conceived of together, I wanted to explain what that Last Five Years journey was. Writing it with mostly created humorous scenes, that distance helped explain the experience of working so closely with people, and the path of friendships made during shows. Singing “The Next Ten Minutes” in that context, for that show, felt like the right time. It was a big success, and in one way, it’s a shame more people won’t be able to see Twohander, or see us sing from The Last Five Years together again. In another way, it feels out of my hands and fated, like how everything felt when I started with The Last Five Years. Because I’ve had to learn and grow and move on and create my own work, the show has been very nourishing, in that it helped me find myself as a person and as an artist.
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ADAM KANTOR | JAMIE IN THE 2013 OFF-BROADWAY REVIVAL AT SECOND STAGE
“Even if Cathy and Jamie don’t ultimately get to share dreams together, Betsy and I do.“
The experience of playing opposite Betsy [Wolfe] and being directed by Jason [Robert Brown] was deeply formative for me as an actor. It’s difficult to pinpoint one standout song or moment. I didn’t really know Betsy personally before beginning the process at Second Stage, but the bond we formed is deep and lifelong. I think that’s partially because of how Jason directed us.
His staging of our production included one moment of real physical togetherness—the proposal in the Central Park rowboat (“The Next Ten Minutes”). However, Jason had us rehearse nearly every other song with the other person—listening, responding, reacting. So, each solo came to feel like a duet for us. Even when we entered into production and lost the physical presence of each other in most of our scenes, Betsy’s spirit remained very much with me in the performance of each song.
(Photo: Joan Marcus)
If I had to pick favorites…oof. OK. I’ll pick one song that I got to sing, and one that I got to watch Betsy sing.
Looking back now, I’d have to highlight “Schmuel.” That song is a gift—quite literally. It’s a story that Jamie writes and gifts to Cathy (along with a watch). In it, Jamie creates a character, a very yiddishe tailor, who finds a way to transcend the weight of time—something that Jamie senses Cathy is burdened by. He gifts her time. And he does so by reaching deep into his Jewish roots and crafting this whimsical tale.
Schmuel’s Yiddishisms remind me of how my grandfather (with whom I lived during our production, and who passed away immediately after we closed) would often speak to my grandmother (who is about to turn 102). I’d like to think I channeled my own ancestors in that tune. The song itself is also a gift—one that Jason gives the actor. It allows for the telling of a truly sweeping story—a Jewish Christmas fairytale really, replete with talking clocks and ancient shtetlach. ‘Nuff said.
As for Betsy…just one?! OK. At least today, riding down memory lane, I’d have to say (fittingly) the one where they’re in the car together—”I Can Do Better Than That.” Another brilliant story-tune from JRB, and one that Betsy (unsurprisingly) sang the mother-loving sh*t out of. (I don’t know that humans are meant to sing like that—it’s superhuman and baffling.)
But beyond the vocals, I loved engaging in her process as an actor. Rehearsing in the “car” together, her giddy excitement over all that was possible, how she’d glance over with her sly smile after popping a somewhat vulnerable joke, her unique take on “Duran Duran,” it was all just delicious.
And it’s how I think of us. Even if Cathy and Jamie don’t ultimately get to share dreams together, Betsy and I do. We’ve had some very sweet adventures since closing at Second Stage—some of them performing music from this very show in concert—and I’m blessed with the hope for more adventures to come, down the road.
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BETSY WOLFE | CATHY IN THE 2013 OFF-BROADWAY REVIVAL
“It will go down in my books as one of my all-time cherished moments I’ve ever experienced on stage.“
(Photo: Joan Marcus)
Every night, Adam and I walked down the stairs to the stage together and it was just our moment that we shared before the show. It’s hard to describe what a wild experience it is doing The Last Five Years, which I imagine seems at times solitary, but it never did for me.
Jason Robert Brown had us rehearse as if the other were staged to be present. We were each other’s scene partners every step of the way, and even when he wasn’t physically there anymore, I very much felt him there. It’s one of the reasons the moment we held hands for the first time in “The Next Ten Minutes” just made me so happy. More nights than not, I snuck to the back of the house during “Schumel Song” and just watched up until the very moment I had to run back to enter for “Summer in Ohio.” I was so grateful every night for the eight-minute break and to be able to watch my friend be brilliant.
Perhaps one of my pinch-me moments of the show was the musical intro to “I Can Do Better Than That.” I came out on a platform in a car seat and sang the whole song scrunched up and sitting down. Just me, my car seat and my large Diet Pepsi. I will sing this song forever and ever and it will go down in my books as one of my all-time cherished moments I’ve ever experienced on stage.
