The Last Five Years

To those who know me, I’m a fan of bridespotting, a sport I coined living here on Peaks Island, which has become a wedding destination, like it or not. My rules are to 1) be uninvited and 2) not go out of my way and when I spot a bride, I post a photo. I’ve been married over 30 years, am a believer in marriage, weddings, and saying yes to the dress. So illustrating The Last Five Years poster for Portland Stage was an eager challenge.

The script by Jason Robert Brown was confusing to me, though. The story between two lovers, Cathy and Jamie, arcs from beginning to end for Jamie, ending to beginning for Cathy. I barely remember doing these really rough sketches last March in my scramble to meet the deadline.

A wedding ring was a metaphor in many ideas.

The play begins with Cathy finding a note with Jamie’s ring….

How about an embracing bride and groom? The only time Cathy and Jamie are in the same moment is when they exchange vows. In this, I drew them disappearing, with her dress disintegrating into shards of white against a backdrop of New York City.

Here I was trying to convey the opposite directions of their relationship.

I couldn’t resist a variation on the dress becoming torn paper. Jamie is a writer, whose success eclipses Cathy’s.

My rule of thumb is NOT to submit any sketch that I wouldn’t want to illustrate, because clients are known to pick them. In one scene, Jamie gives Cathy a watch. Here it doubles as the face of time and a ring. But, what was I thinking here?! Not keen on this drawing!

In this one, I was referencing one of the song lyrics about sailing to each other, a love boat sort of?

This one is all about the setting, with the couple walking on fragments towards a NYC skyline.

Fortunately for me, Portland Stage said yes to the dress!

The next step was hand-lettering, which involved doing many versions of my handwriting over and over to find one that wasn’t flawed in some way. I drew the number 5 in the title.

In the end, it turned out the word “five” was required in the title. But voila, it’s always fun to see the poster appear a year later in the theater sign, quite cropped!

The scenic design by Meg Anderson is a bold but stunning ode to that metaphor, the wedding ring. The stellar band led by USM Music Director, Ed Reichert, plays off to one side at the edge of a rotating set.

Maine native Laura Darrell is drop-dead amazing as Cathy. She gives it her all, and the moment she jumps up on a bench wearing tall heels is just one sign of her nimble talents. Johnny Shea does Jamie’s slide from crush to cheater with incredible clarity.

My only wish is that the two were in the same moment for more than a minute, but according to the playwright, “these are two people who were never really in the same place at the same time.” Fun fact: Johnny’s sister, Julianne Shea, is the Education Administrator at Portland Stage, who also brims with energy for getting kids involved in theater.

My theater date, professor at Maine College of Art, Mary Anne Lloyd, said, “I give them all A’s!”

Thanks to Portland Stage for a fantastic season that explored borders and boundaries and those precious moments where humans connect. The Last Five Years is a hit musical that you don’t want to miss!