Senior David-Gordon Johnson knew he wanted to put on “The Last Five Years” for his Theatre Department Honors Thesis after hearing the music for the first time his sophomore year.
He said the experience would allow him the opportunity to challenge himself as an actor.
“It’s a really, really wonderful show,” Gordon-Johnson said. “A large part of it was that I know with the background I have, no one in their right mind would cast me as Jamie.”
At 8 p.m. Friday in the Studio Theatre located on the second floor of the Lee Norvelle Theatre and Drama Center, Gordon-Johnson will join senior Claire Drews for the premier of “The Last Five Years,” an independent project Gordon-Johnson put together in pursuit of his honors notation for the Department of Theatre and Drama.
The musical tells the story of one couple’s five-year relationship. Jamie, the husband played by Gordon-Johnson, tells the story in sequential order from the day they met until the day they break up while Cathy, the wife played by Drews, tells the story backward.
Gordon-Johnson said he wanted the opportunity to showcase what he has learned from his degree from the Jacobs School of Music and from the Department of Theatre and Drama.
“I’m doing a theatre degree and voice degree, but unless you’re a musical theatre major, there are not a lot of opportunities to do the musicals here,” Gordon-Johnson said. “I wanted to do a project that would be a capstone for both degrees.”
Though Gordon-Johnson looks forward to singing in the show, he said he found it especially challenging because of his training in classical voice. He said the show is very pop, rock and funk influenced.
“It’s all belting and very contemporary musical theater style,” Gordon-Johnson said. “For me, that’s a 180 for most of the training I’ve ?gotten.”
Almost a year ago, Gordon-Johnson asked current senior Megan Gray to direct the musical and Drews to be his acting partner. Gordon-Johnson said it wasn’t hard to select who he wanted to work with, but he understood it would be a challenging play to put together because of the size and talent needed for the roles.
“It’s one of those shows where you have to have two people who you know can do it,” Gordon-Johnson said. “You can’t just put it on your season and hope that the right people will show up. You have to know that you got somebody to do it and do it right.”
Gordon-Johnson said their musical director was able to pull some really great instrumentalists from the Jacobs School of Music to accompany the musical.
“It’s six people, but it sounds like so much more,” Gordon-Johnson said.
Although this is an independent project, Gray said she is grateful for all the help the Department of Theatre and Drama advisers.
“We’re definitely pulling a lot of the weight with the project, but we’re still students,” Gray said. “We’re still learning, so we’ve taken every piece of help that we can get along the way.”
Drews said she is both excited and nervous for ?opening night.
“We’ve run it so many times,” Drews said. “Even thought it’s been such a short process, you can only do something so many times before you’re ready to share it with people.”
Gordon-Johnson said his adviser for the project will come to the show and afterward meet with him to discuss how the overall process went. He said he hopes it will get approved, but to him this project is so much more than an additional thing to put on his résumé.
“The whole point of these honors college thesis projects as far as I see it, is not that this is the be all and end-all of what you’re doing,” Gordon-Johnson said. “It’s a chance to work on something in-depth, and you might not get the chance to otherwise.”
