Katie Rose Clarke and Adam Halpin Star in Long Wharf Theatre's THE LAST FIVE YEARS, Running Now thru 6/1

Long Wharf Theatre, under the leadership of Artistic Director Gordon Edelstein and Managing Director Joshua Borenstein, will present The Last Five Years, written and composed by Jason Robert Brown, from tonight, May 7 through June 1, 2014 on the Claire Tow Stage in the C. Newton Schenck III Theatre.

Tickets are $40-75. The press opening is Wednesday, May 14 at 7:30 pm. Performances take place Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 7 pm, Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 pm; Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays at 2 pm.

The cast includes Katie Rose Clarke and Adam Halpin. Clarke, who made her Long Wharf Theatre debut in Prayer for My Enemy in 2007, recently played Glinda in Wicked and Clara in The Light in the Piazza, both on Broadway. Halpin is making his Long Wharf Theatre debut, and recently appeared on Broadway in Glory Days and on the Broadway tour of Rent. Brown's newest hit musical, The Bridges of Madison County, is currently playing on Broadway

The creative team includes James Sampliner (musical direction), Eugene Lee (sets), Paul Tazewell (costumes), Ben Stanton (lights), Leon Rothenberg (sound), Jason Quinn (stage manager.)

Sparks fly when Jamie, and Cathy first meet and fall desperately in love. They soon learn, however, that as their careers head in very different directions happily ever after can be hard to find. This uniquely told musical filled with intimacy, honesty, and humor features a lush and witty score. Cathy tells their story starting at the end of their marriage and ending on their first amazing date, while Jamie tells their story from the first stirring of their romance to the collapse of their marriage. Jason Robert Brown's Drama Desk Award-winning musical takes an emotionally powerful look at the joys and heartbreak of relationships in the big city. The Chicago Tribune said that the musical brings "exhilaration so intense it brings tears of joy...exciting, innovative and altogether inspiring."

"The Last Five Years is a beautiful and heartbreaking romance from Jason Robert Brown, one of Broadway's most gifted young composers. It is a brilliantly moving portrait of a marriage with gorgeous music and hilarious lyrics. I think this love story strikes a chord with people of all ages," Edelstein said.

Since its premiere in New York in 2002, The Last Five Years has become a cult classic, beloved by musical theatre aficionados, couples who see wisdom and love in its music, The cast album has sold over 85,000 copies and a recent Off-Broadway revival played to audience acclaim. A film version of the musical, starring Jeremy Jordan and Anna Kendrick, is currently in production.

For more information or to purchase tickets, visit www.longwharf.org or call 203-787-4282.

KATIE ROSE CLARKE

Cathy

Katie Rose made her Long Wharf Theatre debut in 2007 in Craig Lucas' Prayer For My Enemy directed by Bartlet Sher, and she is thrilled to return. Katie was last seen as Glinda in the Broadway production of Wicked. She also played the role on the First National Tour. Under the direction of Bartlet Sher, Katie played the role of Clara Johnson in both the Broadway and National Touring productions of The Light in the Piazza, as well as the Live From Lincoln Center broadcast. In addition, she will soon be seen in the Independent Film, Maybe There's a Tree. Katie received her BFA from Sam Houston State.

ADAM HALPIN

Jamie

Broadway: Glory Days (Skip). Off-Broadway: Dogfight (Stevens). Broadway Tour: Rent (Gordon) starring Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal. Other New York: readings/workshops include Irma La Douce, Nobody Loves You, Fiction in Photographs, Awesomer & Awesomer, and White Noise. Three shows with the New York Musical Theatre Festival. Regional includes: Triangle (Brian, Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma); Little Miss Scrooge (Bob Crachit, Rubicon Theatre Co.); Bell, Book and Candle (Shep, Judson Theatre Co.); as well as North Shore Music Theatre, Pittsburgh CLO, and Signature Theatre. Film: Grind. He can be heard on the Original Cast Recordings of Glory Days, Dogfight, and A Little Princess, all on Ghostlight Records.

JASON ROBERT BROWN

Writer/Composer

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 is the composer and lyricist of the musical, 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. Jason won a 1999 Tony Award for his score to Parade, a musical written with Alfred Uhry and directed by Harold Prince, which premiered at Lincoln Center Theatre in December 1998, and subsequently won both the Drama Desk and New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards for Best New Musical. Parade was also presented on a national tour in 2000, which Jason conducted. Jason's first musical, Songs for a New World, a theatrical song cycle directed by Daisy Prince, played Off-Broadway at the WPA Theatre in the fall of 1995, and has since been seen in more than two hundred productions around the world. Jason's newest musical, 13, written with Dan Elish and directed by Todd Graff, premiered this January to rave reviews at Los Angeles's Mark Taper Forum, and opens on Broadway in the spring of 2008. Jason is the winner of 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 Audra McDonald, Betty Buckley, Karen Akers, Renée Fleming, Philip Quast, Jon Hendricks and many others. Jasonrobertbrown.com

GORDON EDELSTEIN

Director

Mr. Edelstein is in his twelfth season as Artistic Director of Long Wharf Theatre. His most recent Long Wharf Theatre credits include The Shadow of the Hummingbird, The Underpants, Ride the Tiger, Curse of the Starving Class, Satchmo at the Waldorf, My Name is Asher Lev, Shirley Valentine, and his own adaptations of A Doll's House and Uncle Vanya. His acclaimed Long Wharf Theatre production of The Glass Menagerie played the Roundabout and the Mark Taper Forum and was the recipient of the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Revival. He has a continued artistic association with Athol Fugard, directing the world premieres of The Shadow of the Hummingbird, Have You Seen Us?, and Coming Home as well as the east coast premiere of The Train Driver. Gordon directed the Off-Broadway production of Satchmo at the Waldorf (Westside Theatre, starring John Douglas Thompson) and his NYC production of My Name is Asher Lev recently won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play. He also directed the Broadway production of Fugard's The Road to Mecca for the Roundabout Theatre Company. Among Mr. Edelstein's countless plays and workshops for Long Wharf Theatre include Julia Cho's BFE, The Day the Bronx Died, A Dance Lesson, and The Times, as well as The Blue Album, We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay!, A New War, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Anna Christie, The Front Page, and Mourning Becomes Electra. As a director of an extremely diverse body of work, he has garnered three Connecticut Critics Circle Awards and under his artistic leadership, Long Wharf Theatre has received 17 additional Connecticut Critics Circle Awards, including six best actor or actress awards in plays that he directed. He is also the recipient of the organization's Tom Killen Award, given annually to an individual who has made an indelible impact on the Connecticut theatrical landscape.

JAMES SAMPLINER

Musical Director

James started as the music director of the prestigious Williamstown Theater Festival's late night cabaret series, leading to conducting productions of Tonight at 8:30, Where's Charley? and The Threepenny Opera. Broadway credits include: Never Gonna Dance, BKLYN: The Musical, The Wedding Singer and Legally Blonde (conductor and arranger). Mr. Sampliner supervised the West End production of Legally Blonde in London and the U.S. national tour of Legally Blonde for the last two years. You can hear his work on these cast albums and At The Corner of Broadway and Soul, with Billy Porter. Off-Broadway: Radiant Baby, The Mistress Cycle and Ghetto Superstar. As an arranger/ co-writer, he has co-written two new African-American revues: Being Alive (the music of Stephen Sondheim) and The Soul Of Rodgers (the music of Richard Rodgers). He performs regularly with Mr. Porter, Shoshana Bean and other theater icons. Training: Indiana University School of Music.

EUGENE LEE

Set Design

Mr. Lee holds BFA degrees from the Art Institute of Chicago and Carnegie Mellon, an MFA from Yale and three honorary doctorates. He has been the production designer at "Saturday Night Live" since 1974. He is also the production designer of "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon", also on NBC. He has received the Tony Award, American Theatre Wing's Design Award, Outer Critics' Circle Award, Drama Desk Award, Lucille Lortel Award, Elliott Norton Prize for Sustained Achievement, and Pell Award. He is represented on Broadway by the musical Wicked, and was recently inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in New York. Previous Long Wharf Theatre credits include Krapp's Last Tape, The Price, Hughie, Coming Home, Have You Seen Us?, The Train Driver, My Name is Asher Lev, Ride the Tiger, and The Shadow of the Hummingbird. Other recent work includes Grasses of a Thousand Colors and Designated Mourner, both at the Public Theater; The Other Place (MTC); and The Velocity of Autumn (Arena Stage). Films include Coppola's Hammett, Huston's Mr. North, and Malle's Vanya on 42nd Street. He lives with his wife Brooke and their dogs in Providence, where they raised their two sons.

BEN STANTON

Lighting Design

Long Wharf Theatre: Sylvia Directed by Eric Ting. Broadway: An Enemy of the People, Seminar. Recent Off Broadway: Fun Home (The Public), Kung Fu, Angeles In America (Signature), Murder Ballad (MTC & Union Square Theater, Lortel Nomination), Belleville (NYTW, Lortel Nomination), The Whipping Man (MTC, Lortel Award, Drama Desk Nomination), Your Mothers Copy of the Kama Sutra (Playwrights Horizons), Reasons To Be Happy (MCC), Nobody Loves you (Second Stage), Into The Woods (Delacorte). Concert Designs for Regina Spektor, Sufjan Stevens, Beirut, and St. Vincent.

LEON ROTHENBERG

Sound Design

Long Wharf Theatre: February House. Broadway: Violet, The Realistic Joneses, The Nance (Tony), The Heiress, Joe Turner's Come and Gone (Tony Nomination), Impressionism. NY/Off Broadway: Second Stage, Manhattan Theater Club, Tectonic Theater Project, Women's Theater Project, Public Theater, Lincoln Center, New York City Center. Regional: Old Globe, Two River Theater, Arena Stage, Seattle Repertory Theater, North Shore Music Theater, New York Stage & Film, McCarter, Theater By The Sea, La Jolla Playhouse, Intiman. International: Cirque du Soleil, Dijon Festival, National Theater of Cyprus. klaxson.net

JASON A. QUINN

Production Stage Manager

Broadway: A Tale of Two Cities, Cabaret, The Phantom of the Opera, Urban Cowboy, Candide with the NY Philharmonic. Pre-Broadway Normal Heart, First Date, Annie Get Your Gun, In My Life. Tours: Tommy Tune's Dr. Dolittle, Big Apple Circus. Off-Broadway: Criss Angel Mindfreak, Rooms: A Rock Romance, Scott Wittman's Jukebox Jackie, Roundabout's Howard Katz, Beyond Glory, The Overwhelming. For BC/EFA; Broadway Bares, Easter Bonnet, Broadway on Broadway. For The Actor's Fund; The Visit, Nothing Like A Dame. Events: Reopening the Statue of Liberty after 9/11, GLAAD Media Awards, US Open, Clinton Global Initiative; events for Miller Light, VH1, New Yorker Magazine, NY Yankees, and NFL.

AMY PATRICIA STERN

Assistant Stage Manager

Amy Stern's Production Stage Manager credits include Mary Stuart (Pearl Theatre Company); Waiting For Godot, Therese Raquin and Another Part of the House (Classic Stage Company); and The Dying Gaul (Vineyard Theare). Her Assistant Stage Manager credits include over 25 productions with Long Wharf Theatre, among them 4000 Miles, Fences, Clybourne Park, Sylvia, The Fantasticks, The Glass Menagerie, A Civil War Christmas, The Bluest Eye, Let Me Down Easy, Uncle Vanya, and Travesties. Other ASM credits include A Naked Girl on the Appian Way, Intimate Apparel and The Foreigner (Roundabout Theatre Company); Crimes of the Heart and Tiny Alice (Second Stage); The Tale of the Allergist's Wife (Manhattan Theatre Club); Iphigenia and Other Daughters and Endgame (Classic Stage Company); The Waiting Room (Vineyard Theatre); and Golden Boy (Blue Light Theatre Company).

CALLERI CASTING

(JAMES CALLERI, PAUL DAVIS, ERICA JENSEN)

Long time Casting Director for Long Wharf Theatre. Broadway Current: Of Mice & Men, Hedwig and The Angry Inch Murder for Two, Satchmo at The Waldorf, Buyer & Cellar. Past Broadway: Venus in Fur, 33 Variations, Raisin in the Sun, Chicago, James Joyce's The Dead. Some past Off-Broadway credits include: The Hill Town Plays, The Revisionist, All in the Timing, Passion, My Name is Asher Lev, Fuerza Bruta, Silence! The Musical, Playwrights Horizons (10 seasons). Also Rattlestick, CSC, Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Flea, Keen, McCarter, Berkeley Rep. TV: "Army Wives," "Lipstick Jungle," "Monk," "Hope & Faith," "Ed'. Lots of films including Mike Cahill's I Origins, Sundance 2014. Awarded 12 Artios Awards for Outstanding Casting Achievement. Member CSA. www.callericasting.com