The First Look at Nick Jonas’ Jewish Role in ‘The Last Five Years’ Is Here

This performance doesn't bode well for "Shiksa Goddess" and "The Schmuel Song."

Last summer it was announced that Jason Robert Brown’s “The Last Five Years” would be going to Broadway with Adrienne Warren and Nick Jonas in the lead roles. If your immediate reaction to that statement is, “Wait, Nick Jonas is going to play super Jewish character Jamie Wellerstein? Oy,” you’re not alone. “Nick Jonas and his boyband brothers famously wore purity rings in the mid-2000s,”  I wrote when the casting was first announced. “The idea of Nick Jonas calling himself a Hebrew slave or saying the word ‘shabbos’ in ‘Shiksa Goddess’ with any authenticity is a little laughable.”

Now, “The Last Five Years” has released first looks of Nick Jonas and Adrienne Warren performing songs from the show. In Nick’s preview, he’s singing “Moving Too Fast,” a song in which Jamie shares his amazement at all the literary success and success in love he’s had at just 24 years old. It’s a vocally challenging song that requires a performer to balance their singing skills with emotive acting. Unfortunately for Nick, the response to his performance has been, well, not good.

“This is the 2nd most anti semitic thing I’ve seen this week” one user wrote on Twitter. “Jeremy Jordan help us” another said, referencing the Jewish actor who played Jamie in “The Last Five Years” movie. Even Vulture contributor Tom Smyth shared, “the last five years is gonna have to replace nick jonas with lea michele, aren’t they?”

Yikes.

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On a less jokey note, there are a few notable concerns from Broadway fans on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. First, the songs in “The Last Five Years” are outside of his vocal range and in clips Nick is clearly straining his voice. Similarly, some are saying he’s a little flat, staying under the notes instead of hitting them directly in the center of the pitch. And finally, fans also suggest that Nick isn’t enunciating the words clearly. The latter two problems are totally fixable before “The Last Five Years” is slated to open at the Hudson Theater on March 18. However, there’s nothing Nick or the music team can do about the fact that the songs are out of his range bar transposing the songs lower or into a different key.

Double yikes.

This preview doesn’t bode well for the more Jewish songs “Shiksa Goddess” and “The Schmuel Song.” But hey, to quote the name of another song in the show, maybe “A Miracle Would Happen” with Nick’s performance before opening night.

Evelyn Frick

Evelyn Frick (she/they) is a writer and associate editor at Hey Alma. She graduated from Vassar College in 2019 with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature. In her spare time, she's a comedian and contributor for Reductress and The Onion.

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