WHO: The Cast, Crew & Audience for The Last Five Years WHEN: Tonight! 7pm! WHERE: Center for Performing and Creative Arts WHAT: Need a break from the Holiday entertainment? Don't worry. Eliot and Tina got your back! Otherwise known as the production of The Last Five Years TRIGGERS: It's a musical about a divorce. The plot will feature adultry but it is not graphic. Just discussed through song.
Cast and Crew
Cathy Hiatt Tina Cohen-Chang
Jamie Wellerstein Eliot Waugh, 1.0
Guitar Wanda Maximoff
Piano Gwen Stacey
Violin Vanya Hargreeves
Tech Viktor Viktorovich
Plot Synopsis
Cathy is sitting alone lamenting the end of her marriage ("Still Hurting"). We shift to meet Jamie. It is five years earlier and he has just met Cathy. Jamie is overjoyed to be dating outside his Jewish heritage ("Shiksa Goddess").
Cathy and Jamie are in Ohio. It is her birthday and he has come to visit her as she works in a show there ("See I'm Smiling"). She is anxious to fix any problems in their marriage but she becomes angry when Jamie tells her he has to go back early to New York. During breaks in the music, we see a younger Jamie, talking to a literary agent about his book.
Jamie is moving in with Cathy. He comments on how lucky he is that everything is going right for him; his book is being published and his life with Cathy seems too good to be true ("Moving Too Fast"). Elsewhere an older Cathy is making a call to her agent: it seems her career isn't going the way she planned it.
Cathy is attending Jamie's book party. She sings about how he ignores her for his writing but she will always be in love with him ("I'm a Part of That").
Jamie and Cathy celebrate their second Christmas. He tells her a new story he has written about an old tailor named Schmuel and he gives her a Christmas present: a watch, promising to support her as she follows her dreams of acting. ("The Schmuel Song").
Cathy is in Ohio and writing to Jamie. She describes to Jamie her disappointing life in Ohio among her eccentric colleagues ("A Summer in Ohio").
Jamie is sitting with Cathy in Central Park. Jamie proposes to her and, for the first time in the musical, they sing together ("The Next Ten Minutes"). They get married, exchanging vows to stay together forever.
Jamie is facing temptation from other women, especially now his career as a writer has escalated ("A Miracle Would Happen"). Cathy, meanwhile, is auditioning for a role("When You Come Home to Me"). She is getting down about the rejection she faces as an actress and complains to Jamie ("Climbing Uphill").
Jamie speaks to Cathy on the phone, trying to convince her that there is nothing going on with him and his editor, Elise. He wants to celebrate a book review but Cathy refuses to go out.
Jamie is fighting with Cathy, trying to get her to listen to him. He accuses her of being unsupportive of his career just because hers is failing. Though his words are harsh, he promises her that he believes in her ("If I Didn't Believe in You").
A younger Cathy is in the car with Jamie, who is going to meet her parents. She tells him about her past relationships and hopes not to end up in a small town life like her friend from high school ("I Can Do Better Than That"). She asks Jamie to move in with her.
Near the end of the relationship Jamie wakes up beside another woman ("Nobody Needs to Know"). He tries to defend his actions and blames Cathy for destroying his privacy and their relationship. Jamie promises not to lie to this woman and tells her that "I could be in love with someone like you," just as he does to Cathy in "Shiksa Goddess."
Cathy is ecstatic after her first date with Jamie. She sings goodbye ("Goodbye Until Tomorrow"). She proclaims that she has been waiting for Jamie her whole life. Simultaneously but five years forward, Jamie sits in their shared apartment writing laments over the relationship ("I Could Never Rescue You"). As Cathy waves Jamie "goodbye until tomorrow", Jamie wishes Cathy simply "goodbye".
That Last Five Years is minimalist when it comes to musicals. There is two characters and that is it. Eliot and Tina stripped it down to even more minimalist aspects by eliminating much in the way of set design. This will be, for all intents and purposes, a theater in the black production. There'll be one backdrop of an abstract clock, representing the passage of time, but the story is being told through the lyrics and their performances during the songs.
It is important to note that the story is not told in a linear format. Cathy's story will be being told in reverse, from the end of their marriage to the beginning of their relationship; while Jamie will be told from the beginning of their relationship to the end of the marriage. The two characters will not interact in the same narrative moment of time throughout the entire play -- with the exception of the song "The Next Ten Minutes," which is effectively the middle of the production.
There have been some NPC Tumbleweed community members brought in to fill in the rest of the orchestrations.