About The Last 5 Years

The Last 5 Years was named one of TIME Magazine’s ten best shows of 2001. This emotionally powerful and intimate musical ingeniously chronicles the five-year relationship between two New Yorkers: Cathy, a struggling actress and Jamie, a budding novelist. The Last Five Years is told through an unconventional structure in which Cathy tells her story in reverse-chronological order (beginning the show at the end of their marriage), while Jamie's is told in chronological order (starting just after the couple has met for the first time). With book, music and lyrics by Tony Award winner Jason Robert Brown (The Bridges of Madison County, Honeymoon in Vegas, 13), this modern 90-minute musical has enraptured audiences around the world with its spellbinding and emotional score and was adapted into a film in 2014, starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan.

Originally Produced for the New York stage by Arielle Tepper & Marty Bell. Originally Produced by Northlight Theatre, Chicago, IL.
THE LAST FIVE YEARS is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI). All authorized performance materials are also supplied by MTI. www.mtishows.com

Who’s Who

Jason Robert Brown (Writer & Composer) is the ultimate multi-hyphenate - an equally skilled composer, lyricist, conductor, arranger, orchestrator, director and performer - best known for his dazzling scores to several of the most renowned musicals of our time, including the generation-definingThe Last Five Years, his debut song cycle Songs for a New World, and the seminal Parade, for which he won the 1999 Tony Award for Best Score. Jason Robert Brown has been hailed as “one of Broadway’s smartest and most sophisticated songwriters since Stephen Sondheim” (Philadelphia Inquirer), and his “extraordinary, jubilant theater music” (Chicago Tribune) has been heard all over the world, whether in one of the hundreds of productions of his musicals every year or in his own incendiary live performances. The New York Times refers to Jason as “a leading member of a new generation of composers who embody high hopes for the American musical.” Jason’s score for The Bridges of Madison County, a musical adapted with Marsha Norman from the bestselling novel, received two Tony Awards (for Best Score and Orchestrations). Honeymoon In Vegas, based on Andrew Bergman’s film, opened on Broadway in 2015 following a triumphant production at Paper Mill Playhouse. A film version of his epochal Off-Broadway musical The Last Five Years was released in 2015, starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan and directed by Richard LaGravenese. His major musicals as composer and lyricist include: 13, written with Robert Horn and Dan Elish, which opened on Broadway in 2008 and was subsequently directed by the composer for its West End premiere in 2012; The Last Five Years, which was cited as one of Time Magazine’s 10 Best of 2001 and won Drama Desk Awards for Best Music and Best Lyrics (and was later directed by the composer in its record-breaking Off-Broadway run at Second Stage Theatre in 2013); Parade, written with Alfred Uhry and directed by Harold Prince, which won both the Drama Desk and New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards for Best New Musical, as well as garnering Jason the Tony Award for Original Score; and Songs for a New World, a theatrical song cycle directed by Daisy Prince, which has since been seen in hundreds of productions around the world since its 1995 Off-Broadway debut, including a celebrated revival at New York’s City Center in the summer of 2018. Parade was also the subject of a major revival directed by Rob Ashford, first at London’s Donmar Warehouse and then at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. Jason conducted his orchestral adaptation of E.B. White’s novel The Trumpet of the Swan with the National Symphony Orchestra, and recorded the score for PS Classics. Future projects include a new chamber musical created with Daisy Prince and Jonathan Marc Sherman calledThe Connector; an adaptation of Lilian Lee’s Farewell My Concubine, created with Kenneth Lin and Moisés Kaufman; and a collaboration with Billy Crystal, Amanda Green, Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel on a musical of Mr. Saturday Night. Jason is the winner of the 2018 Louis Auchincloss Prize, the 2002 Kleban Award for Outstanding Lyrics and the 1996 Gilman & Gonzalez-Falla Foundation Award for Musical Theatre. Jason’s songs, including the cabaret standard “Stars and the Moon,” have been performed and recorded by Ariana Grande, Audra McDonald, Kristin Chenoweth, Billy Porter, Betty Buckley, Renée Fleming, Jon Hendricks and many others, and his song “Someone To Fall Back On” was featured in the Walden Media film, Bandslam. As a soloist or with his band The Caucasian Rhythm Kings, Jason has performed concerts around the world. For the past four years (and ongoing), his monthly sold-out performances at New York’s SubCulture have featured many of the music and theater world’s most extraordinary performers. His newest collection, “How We React and How We Recover”, was released in June 2018 on Ghostlight Records. His previous solo album, “Wearing Someone Else’s Clothes”, was named one of Amazon.com’s best of 2005, and is available from Sh-K-Boom Records. Jason’s 2012 concert with Anika Noni Rose was broadcast on PBS, and he was the featured soloist for a live episode of Friday Night Is Music Night, broadcast live from the London Palladium and featuring the BBC Concert Orchestra. His collaboration with singer Lauren Kennedy, “Songs of Jason Robert Brown”, is available on PS Classics. Jason is also the composer of the incidental music for the Broadway revival of You Can’t Take It With You, David Lindsay-Abaire’s Kimberly Akimbo and Fuddy Meers, and Kenneth Lonergan’s The Waverly Gallery, and he was a Tony Award nominee for his contributions to the score of Urban Cowboy the Musical. He has also contributed music to the hit Nickelodeon television series, The Wonder Pets as well as Sesame Street. Jason spent ten years teaching at the USC School of Dramatic Arts, and has also taught at Harvard University, Princeton University and Emerson College. For the musical Prince of Broadway, a celebration of the career of his mentor Harold Prince, Jason was the musical supervisor and arranger. Other New York credits as conductor and arranger include Urban Cowboy the Musical on Broadway; Dinah Was, off-Broadway and on national tour; When Pigs Fly off-Broadway; William Finn’s A New Brain at Lincoln Center Theater; the 1992 tribute to Stephen Sondheim at Carnegie Hall (recorded by RCA Victor); Yoko Ono’s New York Rock, at the WPA Theatre; and Michael John LaChiusa’s The Petrified Princ at the Public Theatre. Jason orchestrated Andrew Lippa’s john and jen, Off-Broadway at Lamb’s Theatre. Additionally, Jason served as the orchestrator and arranger of Charles Strouse and Lee Adams’s score for a proposed musical of Star Wars. Jason has conducted and created arrangements and orchestrations for Liza Minnelli, John Pizzarelli, and Michael Feinstein, among many others. Jason studied composition at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., with Samuel Adler, Christopher Rouse, and Joseph Schwantner. He lives with his wife, composer Georgia Stitt, and their daughters in New York City. Jason is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and the American Federation of Musicians Local 802. Visit him on the web at www.jasonrobertbrown.com

Keely Baisden Knudsen (Director, Artistic Director & Co-Founder) An award winning director, Keely has performed, directed, and choreographed internationally in plays, musicals, operas, and dance companies in hundreds of theatrical productions and has performed in 48 of the United States and in the UK. Realizing her vision of a new theater company on the Connecticut Shoreline, Keely’s ideals of inspiring, inclusive work that uplifts the human spirit and connects communities formalized in the creation of the Legacy Theatre with Co-Founder Stephanie Stiefel Williams, a performing colleague and dear friend. Keely has directed, choreographed, and taught a myriad of performing arts courses at such institutions as Quinnipiac University, Yale University, Fairfield University, Hartt School of Drama, Southern Connecticut State University, Westminster College, and was the Director of Education of New Haven’s acclaimed Elm Shakespeare Company for several years. Additionally a composer/lyricist and playwright, she is currently collaborating on two musicals and is a member of ASCAP. Her directing has been heralded by the Arts Paper as “…visually striking, emotionally moving” and “captivating” and of her direction of Hamlet it was said, “Knudsen has made the notoriously difficult Shakespearean language accessible.” Her creation of the Wheel Life Theatre Troupe has been an especially rewarding program as she acts and directs with those who ambulate with crutches and wheelchairs. Her BFA is from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, at which she graduated first in the class, and she received her Masters Degree in Drama on full scholarship from The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. Keely, her husband Brian, and five children (Saviah, Liviana, Wynter, Emery, and Reeves) reside in Guilford, CT, where she thoroughly enjoys running the Legacy with a tremendous staff and community support.

Kiersten Bjork (Assistant Stage Manager) is thrilled to be a part of the company of The Last Five Years for Legacy Theatre’s inaugural season. She is also Legacy’s Theatre Manager. Kiersten recently graduated from Fairfield University, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, with degrees in Theatre and English. She made her debut on the Legacy Theatre stage as Young Joan Joyce in Joan Joyce! this spring, and also served as the Assistant Stage Manager for Oedipus Rex. Additionally, Kiersten has had the opportunity to play a variety of roles, both onstage and off, for Fairfield University’s resident theatre company, Theatre Fairfield. Favorite performing credits with Theatre Fairfield include Percy in The Spitfire Grill and Susan in [title of show]. Additional selected credits with Theatre Fairfield include Scenic Designer for Rabbit Hole, Master Carpenter for Silent Sky, and Director of Hot Wax as part of the 2020 production of Director’s Cut. As a Branford resident with a love for theatre and music, she is beyond excited to be a part of Legacy and their mission to bring inspiring theatre to the community.

Elizabeth Bolster (Costumer Designer) has been the Wardrobe Supervisor at the Yale Reparatory Theater since 2002 where she enjoys working backstage and training student work study crews. Outside of her job at Yale she is a Costume and Scenic designer whose work has been seen at Elm Shakespeare Company, Yale Baroque Opera Project, and Trinity College Hartford. In what little free time she has Elizabeth enjoys exploring different mediums of visual and fiber arts as well as DIY home projects. Professional training: MFA in Costume Design from The Conservatory of Theatre Arts and Film at SUNY Purchase, and a BFA in Performance Production from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, WA.

Rich Burkam (Technical Director) came to Connecticut to study music and music recording at UNH. And played in bands such as 4:20, Space Cushion, and Over The Line. His studies continued learning to be a luthier under Barry Lipman and Chris Tatalias, giving him a taste for fine woodworking. Richard now owns a woodshop that makes fine furniture, in a space which is shared with lighting designer Jamie Burnett. Together they have built sets for many production companies, including Elm Shakespeare, Yale Baroque Opera Project, and many small black box theater productions.

Jamie Burnett (Set & Lighting Designer) is a Founding member of The Elm Shakespeare Company. The Summer of 2019s production of Love’s Labour’s Lost was his 23rd Season with the illustrious company. As resident Set and Lighting Designer for the Elm Shakespeare Company he designed lighting for every production for the past 23 years. He has designed sets for almost every production till 2009. International Festival of Arts and ideas 2018, Lighting design: Requiem for and Electric Chair, 2017 Never Stand Still, Iseman Theater. Collective Conciousness Theater company: Lighting Design. Skeleton Crew, Rasheeda Speaking, Jesus Hopped the A Train, Sunset Baby, Top Dog Underdog”Also designed the past 4 seasons. SCSU shows include lighting design for Stop Kiss, Much Ado about Nothing, The Boyfriend and Our Country’s Good. Sacred Heart University: In The Heights, Jesus Christ Superstar. The past few years he has lit the main hall in the New Haven Armory with artistic lighting for the Citywide Open Studios events serving the unique art installations there. With Projects for a New Millennium, he was Designer for the Stamford Train Station Façade Lighting. Producer/Lighting Designer/Production Manager for 2014 hit Terra Tractus (The Earth Moves), Also (2005) Terra Mirabila, (2001) Terra Lumina and Terra Continuum (1999) the grand multimedia extravaganzas all performed in the Stony Creek Granite Quarry. He also designed PNM’s Branford Luminata (2010) lighting the town hall on the Branford Green. He is a consultant, Lighting and Set designer, special events planner, and film/video Gaffer as well as a licensed electrical contractor. His company, Luminous Environments, specializes in Theater and TV Studio Renovations and site-specific public art installations involving specialized lighting. His latest Projects include Branford High school Theater, Fairfield Community Theater, Southington High School Theater and This very Theater as consultant and Lighting and rigging Systems design and installation. He is a 2005 recipient of the New Haven Arts Award.

Matthew Harrison (Musical Director) graduated from Amity Regional Senior High School (Woodbridge, CT) before attending James Madison University (Harrisonburg, VA) for his undergraduate degree in piano and music education.  He then went on to earn his M.M. from the New England Conservatory (Boston, MA) in voice performance. Matt is the President of the Connecticut chapter of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), and has served on the Connecticut Music Educators Association (CMEA) executive board as the Membership Chair.  In his current position in CMEA, Vocal Czar, he helped to revolutionize the adjudication process for high school singers across the state.  Matt chairs both the Southern Regional Treble Honor Choir and the All-State Mixed Honor Choir.  His focus in these professional organizations has been to champion underrepresented factions of musicians in Connecticut and facilitate access and equity for all students. In 2018 he became the first choral artist to be granted a National Park Artist-In-Residence position (Glacier National Park, Montana) and earned the distinction of Connecticut ACDA’s Choral Director of the Year, culminating in the first published choral work created specifically for a national park (Glacier Suite, Pavane Publishing).  Matt is currently working on a book to help students build music literacy fundamentals called, “The Gravity of Solfege,” which will hopefully be in print by 2022. Matt has been the choir director at Hamden Hall Country Day School since 2014. He also serves as the organist and choir director at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Cheshire, CT. Matt has been a member of Actors’ Equity Association since 2005, writing original musicals and performing leading roles for touring union companies.  Matt has been the director and music director of Madison Beach Club Follies (a musical review running for 85 years) since 2017.

Jason Germaine (Sound Engineer) Bio to come

Callie Liberatore (Prop Designer) Bio to come

Sarah Pero (Production Stage Manager) is thrilled to be back at Legacy as Stage Manager for The Last Five Years. Born and raised in New Haven, CT, Sarah has been involved with local community and professional theatre for 20+ years. As Production Stage Manager for various Community Theatre Productions in Rhode Island and Connecticut, some of her favorites include: Tick, Tick Boom; Little Women: The Musical; You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown; Christmas Eve: A New Beginning (original work). As a graduate of the University of Rhode Island, Sarah taught drama in New Haven Public Schools and taught theatre classes with Performing Arts Programs (South Windsor, CT). Sarah then worked at the Music Theatre of CT (Norwalk, CT) School of Performing Arts, as Administrative Manager, Teaching Artist, Director, Music Director, and Choreographer for the school. Sarah also managed the Box Office and was the Resident Sound Designer for MTC’s Professional Main Stage. Following MTC, Sarah worked as Administrative Manager at the Downtown Cabaret Theatre (Bridgeport, CT). Most recently, Sarah co-directed Shrek Jr. with Alliance Children’s Theatre (New Haven, CT) and was the Production Stage Manager for Legacy’s World Premiere of Just Desserts, and the Greek tragedy, Oedipus Rex.