‘The Last Five Years’ to open Feb. 7

One of Las Cruces’ newest theatre production companies, Blank Conversations, will open its latest production, the musical “The Last Five Years,” in February for six weekend performances, said company founder Gus Sanchez, a freshman theatre major at New Mexico State University.

Performances will be at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, Feb. 7-8 and 15, and 1 p.m. Sundays, Feb. 9 and 16, at The Range, 3217 El Camino Real Road. There will be a performance at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 14 at Isabel M. Crouch Readers Theater on the NMSU campus.

Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at blankconversations.org/store. Tickets can also be purchased at the door prior to each performance.

The musical was written by Jason Robert Brown and was inspired by his failed marriage. It opened at Chicago’s Northlight Theatre in 2001 and went to Off-Broadway in March of 2002. A film adaptation was made in 2014, starring Jeremy Jordan and Anna Kendrick.

This one-act musical takes place in New York, and tells the story of Jamie, an up and coming author, and Cathy, an aspiring actress, as they reflect on their five-year relationship, telling the story from opposite sides. Cathy tells her story from the end to the beginning, while Jamie tells his story from the beginning to the end.

The cast includes Gus Sanchez, Peyton Womble and Ben Muckenthaler. The show is directed by veteran Las Cruces actor and NMSU Theatre Department graduate Matthew Esqueda, who is making his directorial debut. The stage manager is Kaylin Berglund.

This production is funded entirely by members of the Las Cruces community, after a Kickstarter campaign that took place last summer “This campaign helped to fund the entirety of the show’s costs and helped establish Blank Conversations as a prominent theatre group in Las Cruces,” Sanchez said.

For more information, email blankconversationsco@gmail.com or visit www.blankconversations.org.