Greensburg Civic Theatre opens 72nd season with ‘The Last Five Years’

A two-person performance will light up the stage and kick off the 72nd season at the Greensburg Civic Theatre this weekend.

The show, “The Last Five Years,” will be performed at the Greensburg Garden and Civic Center on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This will be an early season opener for the Greensburg theater, said 33-year board member Teresa Baughman.

“The Last Five Years” was originally produced for the New York Stage, but it was adapted to film in 2014 starring Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan, Baughman said. It follows a five-year relationship between two individuals in their 20s.

The pair only shares the stage for one scene, Baughman said, leaving the rest of the story to be told individually.

The small cast will provide audiences a deeper understanding of the characters, said director Matt Mlynarski.

“I do think it’s a very interesting choice of a show for the theater’s show opener,” Mlynarski said. “It’s very intimate, it’s very revealing and you really see these performers put everything out there on the stage.”

The pair is “very talented and very nice to watch on stage,” he said.

Although Mlynarski has about 20 years of theater experience in Westmoreland County, this is his first show with the Civic Theatre. The same is true for the cast.

“What’s exciting about this show is that the actors have never done a show with us, nor have the directors,” Baughman said. “They’re doing wonderfully … All of them had a special place for this production in their hearts.”

The theater will hold four more shows this season — “Elf Jr.” in December, “Cabaret” in February, “The Stinky Cheeseman and Other Fairly Stupid Tales” in April and “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime” in May.