When Nick Jonas was cast as Jamie Wellerstein in the “The Last Five Years” on Broadway, the Jewish side of the internet was, understandably, confused. Writer-composer Jason Robert Brown’s semi-autobiographical musical features multiple songs devoted to Jamie Wellerstein’s Jewishness. And, as we all know from his purity ring-wearing days, Nick Jonas is famously not a member of the tribe.
For his part, Jason Robert Brown, who is Jewish, didn’t seem to mind this choice. In fact, he praised the casting of Jonas as Jamie Wellerstein and Adrienne Warren as Jamie’s wife Cathy Hiatt. “To have Nick and Adrienne taking on these roles is a composer’s dream come true,” Brown said in a statement at the time.
Now, Jason Robert Brown has explained why he doesn’t mind that Nick Jonas isn’t Jewish. “Nick Jonas wanted to play the part and Nick Jonas is an international pop star who’s going to sell a lot of tickets and you’re talking about a show that has to sell a lot of tickets to be on Broadway,” said in recent episode of “Being Jewish with Jonah Platt.”
The composer shared that early on, the production team behind “The Last Five Years” did reach out to other actors who were in the right age range, could sing the part of Jamie and are Jewish. According to Brown, those unnamed Jewish actors were other unavailable or uninterested in the project.
But that isn’t the only reason Nick Jonas won the role, and nor is the pragmatism of having to sell tickets.
“I liked Nick and I trusted him to respect it and to do it well,” he continued. “And I said, I want to be clear to everybody that the part is a Jewish character and we’re not going to not have it be a Jewish character and we’re not going to make fun of it being a Jewish character.”
He added, “I did not think there was anything inherently disrespectful about Nick doing it. And I thought the only issue was is he going to be good or he is not going to be good. And I think he actually does a beautiful job with it.”
For what it’s worth, this author has seen “The Last Five Years” on Broadway and I agree that Nick Jonas creates some moving moments, particularly his rendition of “Nobody Needs to Know.” I also agree that, while I believe Nick Jonas isn’t really believable as a Jew, there’s really nothing really insulting to Jews about Jonas’ performance. That said, I respectfully disagree with Brown on the point that Nick Jonas can fully sing the role. The pop star struggled with the higher range required for the first two songs, “Shiksa Goddess” and “Moving Too Fast,” before finally settling in to the role.
Later on in the episode, Brown shared that in the revival of “Parade” on Broadway and the Netflix movie adaption of “13: The Musical,” he insisted that Jewish actors play the Jewish roles. The difference, he says, between those shows and “The Last Five Years” is that the Jewishness of the characters is “absolutely essential to the storytelling.” Meanwhile, he argues, because “The Last Five Years” has been around for 20 years and the Broadway production is a limited run, Nick Jonas is not the definitive Jamie Wellerstein.
“Nick playing the show for 14 weeks, where what I think is, I get to see some great pop star, you know, bring this role to life 14 weeks,” he concluded. “Who’s being harmed by that?”
