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The stars of last season’s ‘tick, tick… BOOM!’ return to George Street Playhouse for ‘The Last Five Years.’

By: Jillian Kalonick

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TIMEOFF/FRANK WOJCIECHOWSKI
Sarah Litzsinger, left, and Colin Hanlon star in the musical love story The Last Five Years, in New Brunswick through May 15.


   With the 2004 production of tick, tick… BOOM! at George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, director David Saint paid tribute to the late composer Jonathan Larson, and ended the theater’s season with a triumph. Stars Colin Hanlon and Sarah Litzsinger also had a blast bringing the rock musical by the creator of Rent to audiences of a different generation.
   "We always joke about these old ladies in the front row," says Mr. Hanlon. "They were just rockin’ out. We were belting rock music in their face, and at the end at the talk back they were like, ‘I’m 80 and I loved it!’ It was hilarious."
   Mr. Hanlon and Ms. Litzsinger will return to George Street to star in The Last Five Years, a pop-folk musical love story running through May 15. George Street Artistic Director David Saint will once again direct the two young actors.
   The Last Five Years, with music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown, is an orchestral piece, chronicling the romance between Jamie, a hot, young New York novelist, and Cathy, an aspiring actress doing her time in the community theater circuit. The couple tell their stories separately, entirely in song, with Jaime beginning at the start of the relationship and Cathy at the end. They struggle to maintain their love for each other through Jamie’s success and Cathy’s lack thereof.
   "They’re two people in a relationship, yet they’re in two different orbits, sort of spinning around each other and telling the story from their perspective," says Ms. Litzsinger. "The only time they really truly connect is when they get married. Even in the finale when we sing together, we’re in two different times, so we’re not really singing to each other."
   Beowulf Borritt, who designed the set for the off-Broadway production, will completely reinvent the set for George Street, with a spinning turntable for each actor to stand on. With no breaks and nonstop, high-energy singing with challenging rhythms, The Last Five Years is an intense workout.
   "It’s definitely one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done," says Ms. Litzsinger. "I sing, he sings, I sing — we’re back and forth, and the songs are not short little ditties, they’re very emotional. You have to go there emotionally but also keep your voice intact. It’s like running a marathon. No intermission, you just go, and by the end of the show you’re done, and it’s sort of like being shot out of a cannon." With its nonlinear plot, The Last Five Years also presents a challenge to audiences.
   "David picks complicated pieces," says Ms. Litzsinger, "pieces that aren’t perfect, that might explore deeper emotional realms. That’s really interesting to him and it’s definitely really interesting to us. (‘The Last Five Years’) resembles a real relationship that people would have. Everyone’s loved deeply and lost, and I think people can relate to that, no matter what age you are. It’s not like a fluffy musical — it goes into those darker places.
   "When you look into it musically at the end, it sort of leaves you not feeling completely whole, which is a good thing," she continues. "I always love when I go to see a movie, and you walk out and you’re not quite sure how you feel, and then you talk about it. I think this show will open up discussions between people."
   "Everyone says, ‘Oh that sounds so tragic,’ but there are some parts in it that are really hilarious," adds Mr. Hanlon. "It’s a very imperfect piece. (Mr. Saint’s) directions help to smooth the weird transitions out. I knew it was flawed and so did he and so did Sarah, but it’s fun to take something that didn’t really get the greatest reviews in New York and then try to sort of reinvent it."
   With tick, tick… BOOM!, Mr. Saint had the opportunity to revise a piece by Jonathan Larson, a close friend of his, and provided a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Mr. Hanlon and Ms. Litzsinger.
   "The first day of rehearsal he gave us the off-Broadway script and we read it and we were like, ‘Oh great, this is what we’re doing, this is what we auditioned with,’" says Mr. Hanlon. "And he said, ‘Actually no, we’re going to do this one.’"
   After reading the revised script, "We both sobbed at the end," says Ms. Litzsinger. "It was switching the order of a few songs and putting particular monologues back in, and how the characters end up — it completely devastated us and it was amazing. We knew we had this great piece."
   "He would show us transcripts, things Jonathan actually typed, these letters and his own penciled scribbling on them," says Mr. Hanlon. "The whole thing was really great — I’ll look back on it years from now, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get to do anything as good as that… It was more raw, more of what Jonathan was."
   The idea of doing The Last Five Years at George Street came up during last year’s rehearsals, when Mr. Hanlon familiarized Mr. Saint with the Jason Robert Brown show."I’ve always been a fan of his," says. Mr. Litzsinger. "He reminds me of a pop Steven Sondheim. His songs are contemporary and fun to sing, but there’s complexity to his music, which I like."
   "At one point you’re screaming through song," says Mr. Hanlon, "and then you’re soft — it’s just like all different emotions you would feel if you went off on someone for two minutes."
   Ms. Litzsinger, who was Broadway’s longest-running Belle in Beauty in the Beast and recently starred in the Tony-nominated A Year with Frog and Toad, was eager to return to George Street for another show.
   "I feel like you really get a chance to know people around here, because it’s such a small cast," she says. "I love it, this is my favorite regional theater I’ve worked at. They have fun but they’re really good at what they do so they can have fun, which is the key when you’re doing something."
   "In Broadway shows, the trend recently has been about money," adds Mr. Hanlon. "The actors are like, ‘I don’t want to do it unless I get paid 5K a week’ or whatever… That’s not what this theater’s about. Basically, I couldn’t wait all year to come back."
   To be able to star in both tick, tick… BOOM! and The Last Five Years is especially fortunate, says Mr. Hanlon.
   "(‘The Last Five Years’) is a show that everybody who sings and acts will hopefully get to do, and they all want to do it," he says "I don’t know any other semi-famous musicals, it’s ‘tick, tick… BOOM!’ and this, that have a limited amount of people in it that are really dramatic and really funny, a lot of work but extremely gratifying when you’re done. We got to do both."
The Last Five Years plays at George Street Playhouse, 9 Livingston Ave., New Brunswick, through May 15. Performances: Tues.-Sat. 8 p.m.; Sun. 2, 7 p.m.; April 23, 28, May 7, 14, 2 p.m. Tickets cost $38-$66. For information, call (732) 246-7717. On the Web: www.gsponline.org