“The Last Five Years” is a song cycle by Jason Robert Brown about the dynamic between two people, their relationship, and its subsequent destruction. The man, Jamie, is a successful author who writes a novel that skyrockets to the top of the charts. The woman, Cathy, is an actress who can’t get a job and finds herself resorting to a second-rate regional theater in Ohio every summer. The discord between them leads to jealousy, cheating, and other subtextual elements that lead to Jamie’s leaving. The story of “The Last Five Years” is the dynamic between these two people.

A lot of the musical relates to gender roles. Cathy finds herself trapped by the idea that Jamie, the man, has to be the breadwinner in the family and she has to follow at his heels. She finds herself stuck in the hundreds of thousands of girls singing the same song and wearing the same dress at auditions. In the same vein, Jamie looks at other women and eventually cheats, something that is statistically more likely to be done by men. Women, in a very general sense, are more likely to sympathize with Cathy, as well as men with Jamie.

Our production of “The Last Five Years” will explore these same gender roles in some of our casts. However, we will also be destabilizing and switching these gender roles by casting seven actors, three men and four women, and giving each actor two to three shows, one or two shows playing the role of Jamie, and the other one or two playing the role of Cathy (or, if performed by a man, Cary). These actors will pair in different combinations: man and woman, woman and man, two men, and two women.

What would this story look like with the woman as the breadwinner, with a man trailing at her heels? What would this story look like with a woman cheating on the man? How would it look with two men, two women? How would the audience react? Will people who would usually sympathize with the character of Cathy still understand that character if it’s Cary? I am so anxious and excited to see how the audience will react to this drastic change in the story.

On another more selfish note, I am so excited for people to see just how versatile some of our performers are. Playing two completely different roles back to back is no easy feat, even beyond the hurdle of memorization. I am so excited to showcase our fantastic actors performing in these two roles of a lifetime. This show is unlike anything we’ve ever done with Zneefrock Productions, and I am so excited to push even more boundaries than we have in the past. This is going to be a fantastic ride.

- Andrew