'The Last Five Years' opens this weekend at Long Beach's ICT

LONG BEACH — International City Theatre virtually presents “The Last Five Years,” an intimate, emotionally powerful musical by Tony Award-winning composer and lyricist Jason Robert Brown. 

Directed by Jamie Torcellini, “The Last Five Years” will stream June 3 through June 20 on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays (dark Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays) at www.InternationalCityTheatre.org.

“The Last Five Years” captures some of the most heartbreaking and universally felt moments of modern romance, ingeniously deconstructing a five-year love affair — from meeting to break-up and from break-up to meeting.

Jamie, a young up-and-coming novelist, falls in love with Cathy, a struggling actress. Their story is told almost entirely through song, using an intercutting timeline device: Jamie's songs start as they first get to know each other and move forward to the end of their marriage, while Cathy's songs begin as the marriage dissolves, moving backwards in time to the beginning of their love.

“The Last Five Years” premiered at Chicago's Northlight Theatre, going on to an off-Broadway production at the Minetta Lane Theatre in New York City. It was named one of the ten best productions of 2001 by TIME magazine, and garnered the Drama Desk Award for music and lyrics. 

In the two decades since, the musical continues to see productions across the country and around the world, including an off-Broadway revival at Second Stage in 2013. A film adaptation was released in 2014, starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan.

Tickets to “The Last Five Years” are priced at $35 per household.