Jason Robert Brown
Arielle Tepper and Marty Bell
Chicago, IL
Magnum Builders
“Some people can’t get success with their art. Some people never feel love in their heart. Some people can’t tell the two things apart…”
The word “contretemps” literally means “untimely.”
Time.
It’s on our minds a lot these days. We walk back into a building we haven’t entered for two years or more, feel the sting of the past lingering, and yearn for the future when things are “normal.” Is there really such a thing?
In “The Last Five Years”, the relationship of the two characters spirals past each other in two different time frames. Jamie is eager for a future ideal that will never be reached, and Cathy aches for a past that never really existed.
A story unfolds in “contratemps”. The French word means, among other things, “a note played against the beat”, or literally “against time.”
Carl Jung said, “Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. To perform this difficult office it is sometimes necessary for him to sacrifice happiness and everything that makes life worth living for the ordinary human being.”
Some people can’t tell the two things apart.
We walk into a theatre to see a play about “never” and hope it will come out better, hoping we recognize the mistakes along with the joys in the story. Hoping we can tell the two things apart.
Did you take sides? Why?
Do you sometimes feel another time stream brush past you, moving “against time?” Don’t ignore it.
Take a breath.
Take a step.
Take your time.
~ Kelly Wynn Woodland
Jason Robert Brown is the ultimate multi-hyphenate - an equally skilled composer, lyricist, conductor, arranger, orchestrator, director and performer - best known for his dazzling scores to several of the most renowned musicals of our time, including the generation-defining The Last Five Years, his debut song cycle Songs for a New World, and the seminal Parade, for which he won the 1999 Tony Award for Best Score.
He lives with his wife, composer Georgia Stitt, and their daughters in New York City. Jason is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and the American Federation of Musicians Local 802.
Learn more about his many, many endeavors at www.jasonrobertbrown.com.
Kelly Carney, Sandra Wall, Joe Wall
