THEATRE

The Lonely Painter Project kicks off with a fresh production of Jason Robert Brown's future classic, The Last Five Years!
Boy meets girl. Girl meets boy. All you can say, all you can feel, is wrapped up inside that one perfect kiss. Leave it at that...
We are Misha Chowdhury and Imani Roach, and we are The Lonely Painter Project. After a rousing first show at ZUMIX in East Boston, we are delighted to bring to Amazing Things our own version of Jason Robert Brown's two-person musical, The Last Five Years -- a story that speaks truth to us about all the pitfalls of self-sabotage in art, in life, and in love. Winner of Drama Desk Awards for Outstanding Music and Lyrics in 2002, The Last Five Years chronicles a relationship between two young artists, Jamie and Cathy, from first date to divorce. As Cathy moves backwards in time from the moment of heartbreak, we follow Jamie on his inexorable journey forward.

As two 20-something artists ourselves, this is a story that we felt we needed to tell. We may not be a Jewish boy and a Shiksa Goddess (try, gay Bengali boy and black girl from Ohio), but we know what it means to love hard, to get hurt, to stand in our own way and then step out of it. Imani is a visual artist. Misha is a writer. But music comes first, for both of us. The two of us have been singing together for the better part of a decade now, and we have been looking for a way to establish a collaborative platform for ourselves here in Boston. Telling this story, through music and performance, seems a perfect inaugural effort. We are joined by William Cheng on the piano. As both Misha and our director, Vickie Curtis, are Wayland natives, we are particularly thrilled to be performing so near to our old stomping grounds.