Nick Jonas and Adrienne Warren Set to Star in Broadway’s The Last Five Years

Jonas Brothers fans, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical fans, and Jason Robert Brown fans, get ready: Next spring, Nick Jonas and Adrienne Warren will star in the first Broadway production of Brown’s musical The Last Five Years, directed by 2024 Tony nominee Whitney White (Jaja’s African Hair Braiding).

The announcement comes nearly 25 years after Brown—known for Parade, 13, The Bridges of Madison County, and Mr. Saturday Night—wrote the show’s first song. Brown stated, “It was the first time I had started a project without knowing where it was going to end up… 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.”

He added, “For 25 years, I have let The Last Five Years lead me on its journey… 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.”

Aside from the Jonas Brothers’ residency at the Marquis Theatre last year, The Last Five Years marks Nick Jonas’s first Broadway appearance since 2012’s How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Warren last appeared on Broadway in her Tony-winning role in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical from 2019 to 2021.

The show “follows two New Yorkers, rising author Jamie and aspiring actress Cathy, as they fall in and out of love over the course of five years,” exploring “whether a couple, once united by their dreams, can remain connected as their paths diverge.” Brown based the story loosely on his first marriage.

“The Last Five Years is one of the greatest original American musicals in the canon,” White stated. “I think we all understand how hard it is to leave something behind… But for me, the heartbreak at the center of the show walks hand in hand with abundant love and possibility. I know that audiences will be blown away by the brilliance of Jason Robert Brown’s composition, orchestration, and musical vision, and that they will see themselves in Jamie and Cathy—two young people trying to figure it all out.”