Jason Robert Brown Plays Jamie in Sold Out Last Five Years; Completes 13 Score

By: Jan. 19, 2006
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Tony Award-winner Jason Robert Brown has been keeping busy with a one-night-only Reprise! concert production of The Last Five Years around the corner; he is also ready to begin the workshop process for his latest musical 13.

Brown will play loving but self-absorbed writer Jamie opposite Julia Murney (Lennon, The Wild Party), who will be seen as Cathy, the insecure actress who is Jamie's wife. Brown has stated that the performance is sold out, but urges fans to write to Reprise! to request another showing. The Last Five Years, which features Brown's music and lyrics, will be presented at UCLA's Freud Playhouse in L.A. on January 30th.

Brown has completed the score (as well as the notations and arrangements) of 13, his latest show. The show, which will be directed by Todd Graff when it is presented by the Center Theatre Group next month, features a book by Dan Elish and is a musical comedy about thirteen year-olds played by thirteen young performers of that age. A cast and creative team have also been assembled for the show, which will begin its L.A. workshops on Wednesday, January 25th. According to Brown, the workshops are not likely to be open to the public, but there is still a possibility.

In other news, The Jason Robert Collection will be published by Hal Leonard; Brown is trying "to get it out as soon as possible."

With The Last Five Years, Brown won Drama Desk Awards for Best Music and Best Lyrics. Brown received 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, subsequently winning 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 Brown conducted. Songs for a New World opened 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. Brown provided the orchestrations and contributed songs to Urban Cowboy, as well as handling the arrangements and musical direction. Wearing Someone Else's Clothes is his recently-released solo CD.

More information (as well as a "sound blog with never-before-published songs) will soon be available on www.jasonrobertbrown.com.



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