Interview: Kristina Sullivan of THE LAST FIVE YEARS at Queensbury Theatre

Kristina Sullivan is the Executive Artistic and Education Director for Queensbury Theatre, and the director of their upcoming production of THE LAST FIVE YEARS. The show opens and closes this week, only running July 23rd through the 27th. BROADWAY WORLD writer Brett Cullum sat down with Kristina to talk about taking on a show that just left Broadway, and how the company is approaching it to make it their own. 

Brett Cullum: How the heck did you guys pick THE LAST 5 YEARS? And how the heck did you get the rights when it was just on Broadway with Adrienne Warren and Nick Jonas?

Kristina Sullivan: I know! Well, I can answer the first one, so I have always loved Jason Robert Brown. He writes songs for singer-actors that are giant monologues set to music, and I've always loved this musical. When I approached Music Theater International about it, I didn't even realize that the Broadway revival was happening. I don't honestly know how we got it. We lucked out and ended up with the rights to it. But I was like, “I will take it!” Maybe it's just we're far enough away. We're probably not competing with the New York Theater, but it's one of my favorite shows. I did PARADE years back. I just love his music, love his scores. So that was kind of how we started on it.

We've been rebuilding our professional wing since COVID. We’re trying to get back into the swing of doing things with the incredible adult professional community that's here, or that's now regionally, and can come down to us. So, picking a show that worked well for our space, and we thought we could bring something new to and do it in our house in a way that would be special. This is one that I think we, Marco Camacho, who's my assistant director, and I both thought this would be a really great fit for us.

Brett Cullum: It's a short run, though it's July 23rd through the 27th! Was there any reason for the strategic really short run?

Kristina Sullivan: Well, there are a couple of reasons. Queensbury is the house for the professional wing, and also for all of our education wing, which is the Tribble School. You're always trying to kind of figure out, what are you going to do with the kids and the students? What are you going to do with the pro wing and managing all those pieces? So some of it has to do with that. 

But the other thing was doing a two-person show. That's so demanding. It's such a heavy, heavy ask, and Mia Gerachis and Austin Colburn are both just like mutants. They're so gifted. But doing a show like that, we felt a five-performance run where it's here, and then it's gone, and they get to pour everything into it for the one week. It ended up making sense for a lot of reasons. The logistics, but also artistically, to give them a chance to really throw themselves into it, but not ask them to do that for a month. Mia and Austin are two of the best! They are just fierce vocalists. So they could have done it, probably without breaking a sweat. But you know we ended up deciding it would be a good way to balance everything.

Brett Cullum: Well, I'm excited because the audience will see them very fresh and not vocally tired, or anything like that. That is one of the things that you worry about when you do a show that is this demanding, because, oh, my gosh! The Jason Robert Brown scores! Those are hard.

Kristina Sullivan: Not only finding Mia and Austin, but our music director, who plays the keys, Alex Navarro, is finding someone who can play that score. It's just not easy, and he does a brilliant job of it as well.

Brett Cullum: Yeah, I'm scared of Jason, Robert Brown, and I've done Sondheim. But he's really having a moment this month in Houston, which is wild because we just had PARADE at The Hobby Center. And now THE LAST FIVE YEARS! People are going to get a really special chance to catch two very different works by the same composer. And this one is obviously more personal. Obviously hit such a nerve with his ex-wife that she tried to sue him over it. How do you approach the intimacy and the fact that it has two separate timelines, with Jamie’s story moving forward while Kathy starts at the end and goes back? 

Kristina Sullivan: It’s fascinating. I remember the first time I was introduced to the show, and, like my mind, was blown by the device. If you read Jason Robert Brown, it's almost like he just kind of stumbled on it. I thought it would be a cool thing to do. But it's so novel. The idea of how the timeline works, and what I love about it, is that a lot of times, when you say this is a story about a breakup. It's almost inevitable that you're gonna you're going to attach yourself to one of the narratives. You're going to make judgments as you go, and the timeline being the way that it is. It shakes you of that ability, and it throws you into this world where you feel on unsteady footing in a way that you can't quite land on where your sympathy should lie, because you see both of them in such fullness. I think it's wise that Jamie's story goes the way his does in chronological order. Because you want to be connected to Jamie, and for him to have the chance to show you all the things about himself before you land on the things that are harder about the end of their relationship. I think it's a special way whenever you have a show, that kind of shakes you out of your expectations. It's an opening, it's a door to experience something in a totally new way and come in with no preconceptions, and I feel like the show does a brilliant job of that. The personalness of it. It’s an acting piece with an arc and a journey. That's where you have to find you have to have actors who can handle the athleticism of the music, but handle that weight of each song. We all keep joking in the rehearsal room that we can't decide who we side with. Hopefully, the audience will feel the same way. 

Brett Cullum: And is that what you want them to walk away with? 

Kristina Sullivan: I do. We were talking about it the other day because the show is built with these beautiful bookends of this piano arrangement. It's very spare, and it feels like when I look at it at the end of the show, it's that no relationship ends. That person is going to be a part of you forever. They're going to be a piece in your puzzle. There is never a solid breakup of a relationship, because you can't remove it from who you are. 

Brett Cullum: Yeah, yeah, no kidding. And some of us are quite large puzzles! So, how are you approaching this differently to give it the Kristina Sullivan spin? I heard that you are doing some different tweaks.

Kristina Sullivan: Yeah. So we… I'm gonna shout his name out again! Marco Camacho, who is my assistant director, is brilliant as a creative concept person. We talked early on about the fact that we thought you would go through the book. There's nothing in it that ties it to the nineties, we thought, especially coming out of the pandemic in the past five years. We were thinking about the fact that it's really been like the last five years for all of us! Relationships got challenged, and the idea of virtual and digital presence in our lives, especially as artists, became something that we all had to contend with in a different way. Whether it's virtual auditions or the way that this thing [holds up her phone] is such a part of our lives now. You don't ever want to change the heart of a show, or change any part of it. But we thought the heart of the book of this musical could absolutely work set in 2020 to 2025. At one point, Kathy is walking into an audition room and taking off a mask real quick, or she's doing this horrible Zoom audition. So we thought it would be interesting just for them, in terms of their character development, to think about what that looks like in the past five years. You know, modern, you know, in our current era. 

The other thing, speaking of a home team, we met our designers, our scenic and projection designer, in town. Talk about artistry! Afsaneh Aayani (scenic design) is a genius, and Dat Peter Ton (projection design is a wizard. When we did THE WIZARD OF OZ, I was like, he's the Wizard of Oz, because of what he can do with images! It creates a whole frame and a feeling for these songs. I'm really excited for people to see it. We're using that technology and the ability to project and have LED panels. It gives you an emotional setting and a feeling during these songs. 

Afsaneh, she's a genius. When we talked early on, we said, “We kind of picture this almost like an art installation!” It’s here, and then it's gone. And what can we do with the scenic design to give it that feeling of something beautiful, but that's ephemeral. I can't wait for people to see it, because her design is so gorgeous.

Brett Cullum: So, what is next for Queensbury Theatre? 

Kristina Sullivan: We want to do two shows a season that we feel like we can contribute something artistically to this community. We hope to announce very soon what will be coming up. But it would be another two-show season next year.