Vera
She Kills Monsters
By: Qui Nguyen
Director: Jason Bohon
The University of Kansas


She Kills Monsters
By: Qui Nguyen
Director: Jason Bohon
The University of Kansas
Vera
Vera
She Kills Monsters
By: Qui Nguyen
Director: Jason Bohon
The University of Kansas

Lusie Cuskey
The Last Five Years
QUEER CASTING EXPERIMENT:
A THR 560 PRODUCTION
The Last Five Years is a well-known contemporary musical by Jason Robert Brown. In spite of a queer narrative structure, its content is resolutely heterosexual, highlighting the challenges of a five-year marriage in some deeply gendered ways. This project places Cathy and Jaime's marriage shortly after the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court ruling to explore this canonical musical of emotion and ambition through a queer lens.
A central conceit of our original workshop production was eschewing the performance convention of having Cathy and Jamie alone onstage throughout and, instead, placing them in context in a world with both other people and each other. (For more information about the production and the questions and concepts guiding it, visit the resources linked on this page!) It is somewhat ironic, then, to adapt our experiment in a time of social distancing.
Below you will find a partial digital archive of Cathy and Jamie's relationship: video calls, social media posts, and - a holdover from our intended scene shifts in production - voicemails. View and listen in show order or, if you like, chronological. (In that case, each voicemail goes with the song that follows.)
Collaborators:
Director, Video & Images
Cathy
Stage Manager, Elise
Jamie
Music Director, Dramaturg
Asst. Director, Sound
Special thanks to the designers and ensemble members who were not able to join us in our digitized form (Petricia Hall, Matthew O’Brien, Maggie Puderbaugh, Jakob Reitz, and Kayleigh Shaffer)
Lusie Cuskey
Ella Galbraith
Gabrielle Smith
Mary Spencer
Kalen Stockton
TL5Y 1: Voicemail
TL5Y 2: "Still Hurting"

TL5Y 3: Voicemail
TL5Y 4: "Shiksa Goddess"
TL5Y 5: Voicemail
TL5Y 6: "See I'm Smiling"

TL5Y 7: Voicemail
TL5Y 8: "Moving Too Fast"

TL5Y 9: Voicemail
TL5Y 10: "I'm A Part of That"

TL5Y 11: Voicemail
TL5Y 12: "The Schmuel Song"
TL5Y 13: Voicemail
TL5Y 14: "A Summer in Ohio"
TL5Y 15: Voicemail
TL5Y 16: "The Next Ten Minutes"

TL5Y 17: Voicemail
TL5Y 18: "A Miracle Would Happen"

TL5Y 19: Voicemail
TL5Y 20: "Climbing Uphill"

TL5Y 21: Voicemail
TL5Y 22: "If I Didn't Believe In You"
TL5Y 23: "I Can Do Better Than That"

TL5Y 24: Voicemail
TL5Y 25: "Nobody Needs To Know
