Jason Robert Brown Is Finding the Balance in a Bigger THE LAST FIVE YEARS

Cathy and Jamie are getting a new sound this spring. The first-ever Broadway production of Tony Award winner Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years will begin performances on March 18, 2025 at the Hudson Theatre. The production will star Grammy and Golden Globe Award nominee Nick Jonas and Tony Award winner Adrienne Warren. 

The production will feature brand-new orchestrations by Jason Robert Brown. BroadwayWorld spoke with Jason Robert Brown about expanding the music while staying true to the show's intimate roots, what audiences can expect, and much more. 

You’ve created brand-new orchestrations for this production. What inspired you to expand the musical’s sound?

Every show is a product of where it’s being done. Theatre is sort of specific to its architecture. So, The Last Five Years was created for a very intimate space, and the orchestration was designed that way. It was entirely acoustic and could be performed unamplified. And that was sort of the whole idea behind that production, it was a chamber piece. And when you put that show into a larger theatre—and the Hudson’s not enormous, but it’s considerably larger than the Minetta Lane was, for example— it broadens the scope of the performances, and it changes the way the audience hears it.

And so, I just wanted to make sure that the music was supporting what the production was. So when you get into a bigger space, the music needed to be bigger to fill that space in a different way. And having said that, the point isn’t really to make the show sound much different, because I love the way that the show sounds. What ideally I’m trying to do is to keep it so the show feels the same as it felt, even though the scale of it is larger.

What was your process in expanding the musical to fit Broadway while maintaining the intimate feel?

The original only had two cellos and one violin, that was the whole strings section. And the trick about doing anything like that, is that if you ever want a high counter melody to be played, you only really either have one violin to do it, or you have the cellos way up at the top of their range. And so, we’ve added two other violinists so those strings lines now get to soar because they can support a bigger performance.

But, I think really the biggest change is we’ve added a drummer and percussionist to the show. We had these performers, Nick and Adrienne, who are these dynamic, energetic performers who really know how to fill a large stage, and I wanted them to be able to feel like their energy could be supported. And across a much larger stage, sometimes that can get lost, and I wanted to make sure that we weren’t losing it, but instead building on that energy. So, adding the drummer allows Nick and Adrienne to really feel like there’s a groove beneath them, and a real pulse going on around them.

We added the drummer, we added the two strings, and I think beyond that, the pianist is also on electronic keyboards, he’s doing some of the stuff on Fender Rhodes, and digital samples of things. And in the original, the guitarist was playing acoustic guitar, and now the guitarist is also playing electric guitar, and a ukulele. Giving everyone a broader palette to play with.

Did you ever envision The Last Five Years as a Broadway show?

I mean, I don’t mind! [laughs]. But the scale of the show was always very deliberately small, and when I started writing it, I wanted to write something that you could do in your living room. Because I wasn’t at all sure when I started writing it if anyone was ever going to produce any of my shows anymore. And so, I thought, ‘Let me do something that I can just do.’ So, the idea of doing it in a big venue, in a Broadway theatre, with all the expectations that that comes with, that was a lot. It wasn’t in my mind originally, so I have had to take a breath and say, ‘What does this show need if it’s going to play in a bigger space?’

If you’re used to seeing Nick Jonas in an arena that seats 20,000 people, then this is an extremely intimate experience, but if you’re used to seeing The Last Five Years in a 300 seat theatre, this is actually a much larger stage. And so, my job is to negotiate how to make it feel intimate, but also feel like it is scaled up from the original. One of the ways I’m doing that is by expanding the instrumental palette a little bit.

And how did it feel for you to return to this music after so many years?

It’s very interesting that you ask that. I mean, ‘Still Hurting’ I’ve probably played in 400 concerts since I wrote the show. So, I know it so well, but to put on your orchestrating hat is a very different thing, and it just felt so strange to me, to be sitting at a piano orchestrating a song that I initially orchestrated 25 years ago. And I remember doing it. I was in Chicago where we were doing the original production of the show, in a little apartment, with a little electric keyboard, writing those orchestrations. And I still remember that, I remember why I chose what I chose. And so, now I’m having to negotiate with the memory of why I orchestrated it the way I did back then, and try to keep the same intentions, but with different forces.

You’re collaborating with an incredible team of musicians and actors, what’s it been like working with this company?

As far as the actors go, I had a week of work that I did with Nick back in the beginning of December that was really sort of electrifying, and thrilling, watching him take the measure of what this was, and what it was going to require of him, but also what new things he brought to the material. There was so much that was exciting in that week of working with him. And I worked last week with Adrienne, and got her going on the material, and she has such strong instincts, and has such a beautiful way of approaching this character and making it her, making it true to who she is. So that’s been exciting.

But, I have to say I really kind of left them to it, cause I can feel when I come into the room that everybody’s like, “Oh, Jason’s here,” and they all take a deep breath and stand up a little straighter, I’m like, “No! I don’t want to ruin your fun!” So, I haven’t spent a lot of time in the rehearsal room with them, because I’m letting them find their way to their own version of it before I sort of come in and say, “Oh, that wasn’t what I thought that beat was,” whatever criticism I might have of it. I want to let them play first before they get worried about what it’s supposed to be. And then I can always pull it back if I feel like it’s gone someplace bizarre. But what I’m really looking forward to is seeing something unexpected that is beautiful and illuminates the show in a way that I didn’t expect.

What are you most looking forward to with new audience members, and a Broadway audience, seeing this production for the first time?

I think there is a big audience that will come to this show having a very intimate knowledge of The Last Five Years, and so I want them to feel like this is a new experience, and this is a new take on it, and a new look at it. But I think there will also be a very large percentage of the audience that doesn’t really know what this show is, and I want them to feel like they’re getting what I intended the show to be. Which is, it’s really a piece about connecting, it’s a piece about belonging. There are these two artists in New York in their twenties, and they make a lot of mistakes together. And watching them make those mistakes is sort of the story of who we all are.

I always feel very protective of these characters, and I think everyone who loves this show feels protective of them too, because they’re so much who we are if we wanted to be creative artists and we moved to New York City. The process of finding out who we are also is the process of finding out who we want to be with. And I think we don’t always make the right choice. And I think that’s sort of what the show is about. So, I want the audience to be able to find that, and to feel that, and to connect to these two characters, but I also want to make sure that audiences who know this show coming in still feel the electricity of what it is when these two people connect like that.

The Last Five Years will open April 6, 2025 at the Hudson Theatre. View the full 2025 Spring Preview!