Roebling director readies for opening night.
By: Scott Morgan
FLORENCE This is a tale of two Frank Ferraras. There’s Frank Ferrara the stage actor, but also the Frank Ferrara who really doesn’t like attention being drawn his way.
The 27-year-old Roebling resident directs musicals for fun and makes his living writing for a medical trade magazine. He writes plays, but not music, so he never produces, never directs anything he’s penned, since he really only likes directing musicals.
So is it a surprise to learn that Frank Ferrara’s favorite musical and one of two that he’s currently directing is a poignant slice of married life that’s both very funny and very sad, told in two diverging story lines and entirely acted by two performers?
"The Last Five Years" is the bigger of his two projects, at least in terms of ambition and recognition. The other one is Allentown High School’s winter musical, "Once on This Island."
But "The Last Five Years" is the one he’s directing for audiences at Mercer County Community College’s Kelsey Theater on Jan. 21-23. The story itself chronicles the rise and fall of the marriage of its writer and composer, Jason Robert Brown. Told (and sung) by only two performers, husband Jamie and wife Cathy, the story follows two opposite story arcs that converge on the couple’s wedding day. We meet Jamie on the day he meets Cathy and follow his story forward; and we meet Cathy on the day of her divorce, following her story backward. Only on their wedding day do both characters actually come together on stage.
The appeal of "The Last Five Years" for Mr. Ferrara is the focus on what he said should be theater’s primary concern character.
"It’s a very personal show," Mr. Ferrara said. "The material is really good. It connects easily with the audience."
In fact, he said the material is so good that "a monkey could do my job and it would be a great show."
While that idea can be left open for debate, the sentiment is a consistent one when speaking to Mr. Ferrara about theater. His approach to directing is simple let the story tell itself and let the actors do their jobs. It is an approach he said he learned when working on theater as a student at Rutgers University in the 1990s.
Since dabbling in theater in college, the stage has grown to a sort of unofficial vocation for Mr. Ferrara who said that since he moved to Roebling three years ago, he’s already acted in or directed seven plays in the area.
"Yeah," he said. "There’s not a lot of free time."
And while his two current projects are fairly different ("Once on This Island," a musical fable inspired by "The Little Mermaid," has more than 30 actors and is a much more grand presentation), Mr. Ferrara said he is glad to get the chance to direct his favorite play. "The Last Five Years," he said, not only offers him character and music, he said, it offers the subject matter he likes best "why people do things. Things that everybody can connect to."
Despite his affinity for a play about a doomed marriage, his own life seems to be going well. He is happily married to Shannon Ferrara, with whom he often works, and has a little girl whom he swears he’ll let make up her own mind when it comes to theater.
"The Last Five Years" open at MCCC’s Kelsey Theater at 9 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 21. Tickets are $15 for adults, $12 for senior citizens and $10 for students and children. Tickets are available online at www.kelseyatmccc.org or by calling (609) 584-9444.

