THE LAST FIVE YEARS
By Jason Robert Brown
WHEN: Friday and Saturday, October 23 and 24, at 8:00 pm, and Sunday, October 25, at 3:00 pm.
WHERE: Westminster Arts Center in Bloomfield, 449 Franklin St., Bloomfield just minutes off exit 148 of the Garden State Parkway.
For more information, directions, and to purchase individual tickets, visit www.4thwalltheatre.org.
Tickets may also be reserved by calling 973-566-9255.
Most recently seen on the big screen earlier in 2015 in the film starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan, The Last Five Years is a powerful musical that ingeniously chronicles the five-year life of a marriage, from meeting to break-up, or break-up to meeting, depending on how you look at it. It is an intensely personal look at the relationship between Jamie Wellerstein, a rising novelist, and Cathy Hiatt, a struggling actress, from both of their points of view—his going forward, and hers going backward in time.
This 90-minute, two-person musical requires serious vocal and acting chops, and 4th Wall has put together the stellar duo of Danny Arnold (below) of Budd Lake and Madeline Fansler (above) of New York to play Wellerstein and Hiatt.
"The emotional journeys of these two people are an excellent challenge for our talented actors,” says director Kate Swan. “Danny, as Jamie Wellerstein, has the easier job of moving forward chronologically through the relationship, but he also has the more difficult job of making his character (who cheats on his wife and then leaves her) sympathetic. Madeline, as Catherine Hiatt, usually gets the audience's sympathy from the beginning of the show, but she has to play the demise of the relationship first and then move backward through the play to the first date. Both actors are doing an incredible job."
4th Wall Artistic Director Kate Swan, of Teaneck, directs and is joined by Markus Grae-Hauck, of West Orange, as Musical Director. The two have teamed on numerous 4th Wall productions. Gwen Ricks-Spencer, formerly of Montclair, is the Production Manager, and Martha Thalheimer of Paterson serves as the Stage Manager. They are joined by Set and Properties Designer Rob Lavagno, Lighting Designer Nik Marmo, and Sound Designer Nicholas Von Hagel.
Photos by Tom Schopper
