Where does the end begin? The answer isn't so simple in The Last Five Years, which finally arrives on Broadway led by Nick Jonas and Adrienne Warren. The beloved Jason Robert Brown musical has enjoyed many productions all over the world, but not until now has it landed on Broadway, directed by Tony nominee Whitney White.
What's it all about? The Last Five Years tells the story of a five-year relationship between Jamie Wellerstein, a rising novelist, and Cathy Hiatt, a struggling actress. The show is known for its unique storytelling structure, as it presents the couple's relationship from two opposing perspectives.
Cathy tells the story in reverse chronological order, starting from the breakup and moving backward to the beginning of the relationship. Jamie tells the story in chronological order, starting from the beginning of the relationship and moving forward to the breakup. The two characters only interact directly in the middle of the show when their timelines overlap at their wedding.
The score features songs like: "Still Hurting," "Moving Too Fast," "A Summer in Ohio," "If I Didn't Believe in You," "I Can Do Better Than That," and "Goodbye Until Tomorrow/I Could Never Rescue You."
The original production premiered at Chicago's Northlight Theatre in 2001 and was then produced Off-Broadway in March 2002. It starred Sherie Renee Scott and Norbert Leo Butz, who also lent their voices to the iconic cast recording.
The show was revived off broadway in 2013 starring Betsy Wolfe and Adam Kantor and was made into a film by Richard LaGravenese in 2014 starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan. A 2016 off-West End production starred Jonathan Bailey and Samantha Barks.
Get ready to fall in (and out) of love with The Last Five Years.
Director Whitney White—who has done notable work of late in both Jaja’s African Hair Braiding and Liberation—sees fit to disrupt Brown’s cannily crafted plan. (Brown seems to have permitted this, as he has been on hand contributing modernized alterations to some lyrics.) With the two characters frequently interacting through the 15-song evening, a first-time viewer might not glean that while Jamie ends the evening five years older and five years sadder, Cathy is just embarking on what will hopefully be—as Jamie earlier puts it—the next 10 minutes, and then another 10 minutes, and then the next 10 lifetimes. An enigmatic song list, hastily inserted into the Playbill during the final previews, doesn’t help.
The production saga in its final section, perhaps more a problem of material than staging—as Jamie and Cathy’s doomed love hurtles towards its last gasps, Brown has made his point and runs out of things to say. White similarly runs out of ideas, and her sharp-edges give way to an unwelcome note of sentimentality. All the same, White has crafted an intriguing and intellectually ambitious revival, one that embraces the brutal emotional honesty of Brown’s source material.
2002 | Off-Broadway |
Original Off-Broadway Production Off-Broadway |
2006 | London Fringe |
London Revival London Fringe |
2013 | Off-Broadway |
Second Stage Theatre Production Off-Broadway |
2016 | West End |
West End Production West End |
2021 | West End |
Vaudeville Theatre Transfer West End |
2025 | Broadway |
Broadway Premiere Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2025 | Drama League Awards | DISTINGUISHED PERFORMANCE | Nick Jonas |
2025 | Drama League Awards | DISTINGUISHED PERFORMANCE | Adrienne Warren |
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