Adam Kantor & Betsy Wolfe to Lead THE LAST FIVE YEARS at Second Stage; Opens April 2!

Adam Kantor (Rent) and Betsy Wolfe (The Mystery of Edwin Drood) will co-star in the highly anticipated revival of Jason Robert Brown's musical The Last Five Years at Second Stage Theatre. The beloved two-character musical, which has received more than 500 regional productions and 3,000 performances around the world, is returning to New York City after eleven years in an all-new staging directed by MR. Brown. The Last Five Years will begin previews on Thursday, March 7 at Second Stage's Tony Kiser Theatre (305 West 43rd street). Opening night is scheduled for Tuesday, April 2 at 7pm.

"It means so much to me to be able to bring The Last Five Years back to New York after eleven years, especially since New York is such an important character in it. In so many ways, it feels like coming home," says composer/lyricist/director Jason Robert Brown. "When we did the show in 2002, we had two amazing young performers who were just then on the verge of explosive careers in the theater; I think that we've got the same situation with Adam and Betsy. I've been watching them for so long, and am so excited to get them at this amazing moment in their lives as artists. I'm looking forward to rehearsing with them and then watching them bring these two characters to a new and fresh life."

Ticket packages, which include The Last Five Years, as well as the 2012 Pulitzer Prize winner WATER BY THE SPOONFUL and a still-to-be-announced summer 2013 production, are currently available at www.2ST.com or by calling the box office at 212-246-4422. 3-play packages begin at $141. Single tickets are $80 and go on pre-sale exclusively to Audience Rewards members from January 14-18, 2013 at www.audiencerewards.com. Tickets go on sale to the general public January 19, 2013.

Jason Robert Brown's contemporary musical The Last Five Years tells the emotionally powerful story of two twenty-something New Yorkers who dive head first into a marriage fueled by the optimism that comes with finding "the one." But in a city where professional and personal passions collide and only the strongest relationships survive, navigating the waters of love and matrimony can sometimes prove too much. Funny, honest and intimate, with an exuberantly romantic score, The Last Five Years takes a bold look at one young couple's hope that love endures the test of time.

THE LAST FIVE YEARS premiered off-Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theatre in 2002 in a production starring Norbert Leo Butz and Sherie Rene Scott, directed by Daisy Prince. Named as one of Time Magazine's Ten Best of the Year, the musical received the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music and Outstanding Lyrics, and was nominated for five additional Drama Desk Awards, including Outstanding Musical. The Last Five Years was also nominated for the Outer Critics Circle Award and the Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical.

THE LAST FIVE YEARS will feature scenic design by Derek McLane, costume design by Emily Rebholz, lighting design by Jeff Croiter, and sound design by Jon Weston. The musical director will be Thomas Murray.

While a senior at Northwestern University, Adam Kantor was cast as Mark in the final company of Rent on Broadway, the final performance of which was filmed live for the Sony Pictures DVD. Shortly thereafter he guest starred as Ezra on "The Good Wife" on CBS. Subsequently he went on to perform as Henry in Next to Normal on Broadway and then Princeton/Rod in Avenue Q at New World Stages. He most recently starred as Jeff in the world premiere of Nobody Loves You at The Old Globe. Adam is a co-founder of the non-profit arts education organization Broadway in South Africa.

Betsy Wolfe comes directly from the Broadway revival of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, where she played Rosa Bud/Miss Dierdre Peregrine. She appeared at Second Stage Theatre in Everyday Rapture, as well as its Broadway transfer. Other NYC credits include 110 in the Shade on Broadway and Merrily We Roll Along at Encores! Regionally, she created the role of Mary Ann Singleton in Tales of the City at American Conservatory Theatre. Other regional roles include Mrs. Walker in Tommy at DTC and Evelyn Nesbitt in Ragtime at Paper Mill. She also appeared in the San Francisco and Boston productions of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. She has appeared as a soloist for more than 25 symphony and pop orchestras across the U.S. and internationally, appearing at Carnegie Hall and the London Coliseum, among others. At 23 she made her concert debut at Carnegie Hall as a headliner with the Cincinnati Pops under Maestro Erich Kunzel. Ms. Wolfe was a guest soloist for the New York City Ballet where she performed at Lincoln Center and at The Coliseum in London. She holds a BFA in musical theatre from Cincinnati Conservatory of Music (CCM).

Jason Robert Brown's four major musicals as composer and lyricist include 13, a musical written with Robert Horn and Dan Elish, which began its life in Los Angeles in 2007 and opened on Broadway in 2008; 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; Parade, a musical written with Alfred Uhry and directed by Harold Prince, which premiered at Lincoln Center Theater in 1998, and subsequently 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 Best Original Score; and Songs for a New World, a theatrical song cycle directed by Daisy Prince, which played Off-Broadway in 1995, and has since been seen in hundreds of productions around the world. 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. Upcoming musical projects include Honeymoon in Vegas, a musical adaptation of the 1992 film, written with Andrew Bergman, and The Bridges of Madison County, a musical adapted with Marsha Norman from the bestselling novel. He is also working with Daisy Prince and Jonathan Marc Sherman on a new chamber musical called The Connector. His orchestral adaptation of E.B. White's novel, The Trumpet of the Swan, premiered at the Kennedy Center with John Lithgow and the National Symphony Orchestra. Jason is the winner of the 2002 Kleban Award for Outstanding Lyrics and the 1996 Gilman & Gonzalez-Falla Foundation Award for Musical Theatre. As a soloist or with his band The Caucasian Rhythm Kings, Jason has performed sold-out concerts around the world. His first solo album, "Wearing Someone Else's Clothes," featuring his band The Caucasian Rhythm Kings, was named one of Amazon.com's Best of 2005, and is available from Sh-K-Boom Records. 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 David Lindsay-Abaire's Kimberly Akimbo and Fuddy Meers, Marsha Norman's Last Dance, David Marshall Grant's Current Events, Kenneth Lonergan's The Waverly Gallery, and the Irish Repertory Theater's production of Long Day's Journey Into Night. Jason will be serving as the musical supervisor and arranger for the upcoming musical, Prince of Broadway, a celebration of the career of Harold Prince. Jason studied composition at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., with Samuel Adler, Christopher Rouse, and Joseph Schwantner.