July 10, 2024

“The Last Five Years” at Princeton Summer Theater

Princeton Summer Theater’s season continues this summer with Jason Robert Brown’s musical The Last Five Years. The show runs through July 21 at Princeton University’s Hamilton Murray Theater.

The musical tells the story of a five-year relationship between Jamie, a rising novelist, and Cathy, a struggling actress. With a storytelling twist — his tale moves forward, hers backward — the show explores love and ambition. The actors Julien Alam and Kate Short are both graduates of Princeton’s Class of 2023. Alam, an actor based in New York, has worked on both stage and screen, including everything from Shakespeare to sitcoms. He earned a B.A. at Princeton, where he studied English, theater, classics, and humanistic studies, and is currently pursuing an MFA at NYU. He recently appeared at the Brooklyn Comedy Collective, Under St. Marks, and will be performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival later this summer.

Short is an actor-musician, also based in New York. She has played her original music on tour across the U.K., and recently at Heaven Can Wait and Rockwood Music Hall in New York. Recent credits include the Soprano in Ghost Quartet, Jane in Pride and Prejudice, and Pat Nixon/ Robin Bush in First Daughter Suite. She received her bachelor’s degree in comparative literature from Princeton.

Founded in 1968, Princeton Summer Theater is a professional summer stock theater company. Notable alumni include Tony Award-winning actress Bebe Neuwirth, Tony Award-winning producer Geoff Rich, Drama Desk Award-winning playwright Winnie Holzman, and Hollywood actor William Hootkins.

Performances are Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $35. Visit princetonsummertheater.org/tickets.