The Last Five Years. You’ve seen it. I’ve seen it. You cried, I cried, we all cried. You think you know Last Five Years, but you’ve never seen it done like this.

With very minimal scenery—a piano at center stage and a few acting blocks— we did this show in a cabaret space. We trimmed down the orchestration to just a piano, an acoustic guitar, and a cello. The actors alternated the piano and guitar and accompanied themselves and each other throughout the show. It was a very stripped down version of a familiar show that breathed new life into it. Sound had to do some lifting, adding sound effects to try to set each scene since we did not have scene shifts. I worked with Maaz to fill in Jamie and Cathy’s worlds as they told us their stories. The most frequent (and best) compliment I got on this show was being asked, “is that a real grand piano?” (Spoiler alert: It was a keyboard).