Joshua Henry and Cynthia Erivo to Perform The Last Five Years in Concert
(© Jenny Anderson)
Tony Award winner Cynthia Erivo and two-time Tony nominee Joshua Henry will costar in a one-night-only benefit performance of Tony-winning composer Jason Robert Brown's musical two-hander The Last Five Years.
Produced by SubCulture and Brown, the concert will be held at Town Hall on September 12, with Brown himself leading the orchestra. One-hundred percent of the proceeds will benefit The Brady Center, the national organization determined to create a safer America by cutting gun deaths in half by 2025.
"Sometimes all of the elements come together serendipitously, and that has been the case with every element of this event," Brown said. "From the moment I heard Cynthia sing 'I Can Do Better Than That' at the Royal Festival Hall in London last year, I have been determined to see her interpretation of Cathy, one of the most nuanced and difficult roles I've ever written; and who could possibly be a better partner than Joshua, a singular extraordinary performer who was the definitive Jim Conley in Parade last year at Geffen Hall. To have such amazing artists bring my work to life is thrilling enough, but to be using this performance to benefit the invaluable and desperately important work of the Brady Center is a particular honor, the fulfillment of a real obligation for me and, I think, for everyone in the theatrical community — to raise awareness and raise funds to stop one of the defining moral failures of our time."
Erivo currently stars as Celie in the Broadway revival of The Color Purple, a role that earned her a 2016 Tony Award. Henry recently concluded his run in George C. Wolfe's Shuffle Along at the Music Box Theatre. He earned Tony nominations for his previous roles in The Scottsboro Boys (2011) and Violet (2014) and will soon take on the role of Aaron Burr in the Chicago company of Hamilton.
The Last Five Years received its first off-Broadway production in 2002, starring Norbert Leo Butz and Sherie Rene Scott as the show's central couple Jamie and Cathy. The musical was revived in 2013 at Second Stage Theatre with Betsy Wolfe and Adam Kantor and went on to receive a film adaptation in 2014 starring Jeremy Jordan and Anna Kendrick. The story follows the couple through their five-year relationship, with each character moving through time in opposite directions.
Tickets will go on sale at 10am EST on August 17.
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