Zak Resnick and Margo Seibert Journey Through The Last Five Years

For a certain generation of performers, the end-all of musicals is Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years. The show, which charts the evolution and devolution of a relationship over half a decade, has been worshipped practically since its original cast album was released in 2002.

Now, two New York stage favorites are getting to put their own stamps on the roles of aspiring novelist Jamie Wellerstein and actress Cathy Hyatt: Zak Resnick, a veteran of Mamma Mia! and Piece of My Heart, and Margo Seibert, star of Rocky and Ever After. With actor and director Michael Berresse at the helm, the production runs through June 5 at San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater.

While they weren't personally acquainted when they started rehearsals, they certainly knew of each other, through the "network of theater in New York City," as Seibert notes. "Once we heard each other were cast, I think we were like, 'OK, let's do it!'" And they dove right in.

How have previews been so far?
Zak Resnick: These are the most naked previews I've ever had. You feel very exposed. It's a minimal set and just two people onstage for an hour and a half.

Margo Seibert: It really is like a solo show for each of us, with the hope that once we get married we'll see each other.

Is it a different feeling than when you were in rehearsals?
Margo: I think it felt much differently in the rehearsal room, because of the scale. It's an eleven-hundred-seat theater. People have been saying it's the largest theater The Last Five Years has ever been performed in. It's intimidating in that way. In a rehearsal room, it feels very easy, not a big deal. And the first moment I turned around to start my first song, I was like "Oh, s**t, it's me and eleven hundred people." [laughs]

Zak: I think we thought we were prepared and then suddenly we were like, "Oh, s**t."

What's your background with The Last Five Years?
Zak: I did a production of it when I was seventeen. I'm pretty familiar with it.

Margo: I was obsessed with it in college, like everybody else. As soon as there was the potential to be a part of this production, I was like, "I can't listen to it ever again." Even if I do listen, I'm going to start copying even if I'm trying not to. When you're obsessed with something, like that music, for a period of time, it stays in you. When you're doing a production of it, however many years later, you just want to make your own choices on it, which has been really fun.

Zak, how different is your Jamie now than when you were seventeen?
Zak: Not as different as I would like. [laughs] Pretty different. Just actually having life experience now is a big help. It's pretty perfect because Margo and I are exactly the right ages for these characters. Even though we haven't been through a marriage and been divorced in real life, we have enough experience in our lives to call upon real things that we can fuse into our work.

What is the hardest song to sing in Jason Robert Brown's score?
Zak: For me, definitely "Shiksa Goddess" into "Moving Too Fast." They're the hardest two songs to sing, and of course, they're the first two songs. Damn you, JRB. Give me some time to warm into them! [laughs]

Margo: I feel similarly. In the top of the show, the songs are particularly difficult to sing, because, in the same way Zak is saying there's a ton of energy needed, my beginning is the complete flipside. If I'm not cool as a cucumber when we start this, it's hard to get to a really authentic place of the shock of your person leaving, at the end of the day that is the first day of the rest of your life. This thing that has been here for five years is now gone.

Tell me about working with Michael Berresse as a director, and the choices that he's made for the show.
Zak: Michael is a genius. His brain is pretty magnificent. In some ways, he did a lot of work for us. He had much of it already mapped out. He really did a great job of what every director should do, which is laying the foundation and letting us build it from there. He's wonderful also because he's an actor, he's a dancer, and he's a director. He wears so many hats that he understands every side of this process. It's been a joy.

Margo: Michael had a very clear idea for the show. In the room, very quickly we were having a conversation about— Sometimes there is a tendency for Cathy to not really have as much of a backbone as one might like. Or for someone to potentially see the show and be like, "Oh, I see why they divorced. She was a pain." One of the first things Michael said to me was that he thinks Cathy is extremely talented. It's not so much her being a struggling actress and not being able to get anything because she's not talented. It's that question of "Does she really want it, and does she want it in the way Jamie wants her to want it?" I think that's a more complicated exploration of the business. I want people to leave the show being conflicted and seeing both of our faults, and both of the reasons that maybe it could have worked, but our lives didn't intersect at the same time.

What are your thoughts on why it doesn't work out for Jamie and Cathy?
Zak: Personally, I think it's just the time and place. They're both finding themselves, and then the people that they found was not what ultimately matched up. I keep saying to Margo, "What would happen if Jamie and Cathy met at the end of the show, when they're 28 and not 23?" It might be a whole nother ballgame. They might really succeed in that world, or they just might be like, "Nope." But for sure, they'd be better off to have some more perspective on their own their lives.

Margo: Well said.