Until relatively recently, my stage experience beyond the obligatory grade school Christmas Pageants was extremely limited. I was comfortable in the theatre environment and being around theatre people (I live with one!), but beyond The Wizard of Oz in high school and Cabaret in college, I hadn’t really thought much about acting.

Then Urinetown came along and the perfect storm of factors (awesome show + familiar setting + “the itch”) led me to a few solos and some actual lines.

I was hooked.

Connections from that show led me to Wausau Community Theatre, where I eagerly anticipate my eighth new role in the last two years. Again, it’s a show that I’m incredibly fond of, and again it pushes me into a new and strange environment. This is the first time I’ll be working with Abe as a director, and the first time that I make up exactly 50% of the cast.

The Last 5 Years is a story about a man (Jamie) and a woman (Cathy) and their relationship as it develops and ends over five years. The twist, if you want to call it that, is that Jamie tells his side of the story from the beginning to the end, while Cathy starts at the end and rewinds to the beginning. It’s quite interesting, because you’ll hear songs where Jamie is excited and enthusiastic about his life with Cathy, while she is frustrated and unhappy, and vice versa. If it sounds kind of convoluted, that’s because it is; but when you hear the music, it all clicks together and works really well.

Auditions for the show were quite early because of another WCT show happening first, and so rehearsal for this hasn’t kicked in yet and probably won’t for another month or so. Still, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that this is the most excited and nervous I’ve ever been for a show: excited because it’s a role I’ve often admired, and nervous because I pray that I’m able to pull it off.