Nick Jonas and Adrienne Warren Will Bring Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years to Broadway

Nick Jonas and Tony Award winner Adrienne Warren will lead the first-ever Broadway production of Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years, opening in spring 2025 at a theater to be announced for a limited 14-week engagement. Tony Award nominee Whitney White (Jaja's African Hair Braiding) will direct. 

Jonas, best known as one-third of the pop-rock band the Jonas Brothers began acting on Broadway as a child in productions of Les Misérables, Beauty and the Beast and Annie Get Your Gun. Prior to the Jonas Brothers' concert residency at the Marquis Theatre in March 2023, Jonas was last seen on Broadway as J. Pierrepont Finch in the 2011 revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. 

Warren made her Broadway debut in 2012 in Bring It On The Musical, followed by a 2016 run in Shuffle Along, Or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed. She is best known on Broadway for her 2020 Tony-winning turn as Tina Turner in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical. She was slated to return to Broadway in 2023 in a stage adaptation of the Emma Donoghue novel Room, but the production was postponed just before the start of performances. In 2022, Warren starred as Mamie Till-Mobley in the ABC limited series Women of the Movement. 

The Last Five Years follows two New Yorkers, rising author Jamie (Jonas) and aspiring actress Cathy (Warren), as they fall in and out of love over the course of five years. Jamie's story is told in chronological order, while Cathy's is told in reverse chronological order, beginning at the end of the couple's marriage. Their timelines only intersect once throughout the show. 

The musical premiered at Chicago's Northlight Theatre in 2001 and was produced off-Broadway in 2002, starring Norbert Leo Butz and Sherie Rene Scott, who later recorded a cast album. The production won the 2002 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music and Lyrics. Second Stage Theater revived the musical off-Broadway in 2013 with Adam Kantor and Betsy Wolfe, and an off-West End production followed in 2016 starring Jonathan Bailey and Samantha Barks. A film adaptation, starring Jeremy Jordan and Anna Kendrick, was released in 2015. 

“On June 15, 1999, I wrote the first song of a new project,” said Jason Robert Brown in a statement. “It was the first time I had started a project without knowing where it was going to end up, without a producer or collaborators, just me very much on my own needing to find the music and words that would tell a story that was twisting my heart into impossible shapes every day. For 25 years, I have let The Last Five Years lead me on its journey, through our very first production in Skokie in 2001 to our off-Broadway premiere a year later, a thrilling film version, a record-breaking revival at Second Stage, and thousands of productions spanning every continent. I have always believed that when the time was right, The Last Five Years would make its way to Broadway. To have Nick and Adrienne taking on these roles is a composer’s dream come true, and to have Whitney’s extraordinary guidance and vision is the hope of every playwright. It has taken 25 years, but the time is right.”

Brown's other musicals include Songs for a New World, Parade (Tony Award for Best Score), 13, The Bridges of Madison County (Tony Award for Best Score), Honeymoon in Vegas, Mr. Saturday Night (Tony nomination for Best Score) and The Connector, a cast recording of which will be released on June 21, featuring the company of MCC Theater’s world-premiere production.

Jonas and Warren will present at the Tony Awards this evening, and will appear on ABC's Good Morning America on June 17 to talk about the upcoming production. A theater, dates and additional creative team members will be announced at a later time.