The Last Five Years Video

The story explores a five-year relationship between Jamie Wellerstein, a rising novelist, and Cathy Hiatt, a struggling actress. The show uses a form of storytelling in which Cathy travels backwards in time (beginning the show at the end of the marriage), and Jamie travels forwards (starting just after the couple have first met). The characters do not directly interact except for a wedding song in the middle as their timelines intersect.

We were blessed with some incredible musicians: Brian Bartley, pianist/MD; Avril Javel, violin; Talia Lindsay & Ralph Stricker Chapman, cello; and Andrew Becker, guitar.

The show has the most beautiful music along with a heart-wrenching story line. For a more detailed description of the show, click here.

This video is a short highlight reel, including the very funny audition scene and the well-known song 'Goodbye Until Tomorrow.'

Thank you to all at the Oregon Musical Theatre Festival for making this production possible. We hope to do it again sometime in the future!

South America

We had the recent luxury of performing on a ship that went through South America. The ship began in Ft. Lauderdale, then proceeded through a few Caribbean ports and finally hit South America. We went to Columbia, Ecuador, Panama, through the Panama Canal, the San Blas Islands, and ended in Peru. Below are a few of the highlights.

The most beautiful, quaint church in Panama City. We visited the Old City full of history and French architecture. The city is working hard to renovate the old building to restore them to their original construction. Really beautiful.

Hanging out in the Old City square.

This is the inside of the National Theatre there. Wow. It was so beautiful. I wish we could have seen (or performed) a show there!

The view of the city from the beach.

Now we are in Ecuador. We walked everywhere despite the hot weather. We stopped in this park here to enjoy a bit of shade.

The Panama Canal. Believe it or not, this was our first trip through the canal. The history of the canal is so fascinating and just exciting to cruise through. These are pictures of us going through one of the locks. We were so close to land, we were sure the ship would hit. We could literally reach out and touch the land. So neat to experience.

It was very interesting to see how the locks operated. It was also fun to see all of the people watching the ship from the shore. We were the spectacle to the natives!

And our last, and favorite stop, was Lima, Peru. Our time in Lima coincided with the G20 summit. The conference made our time there even more exciting! This is a picture of the presidential palace. You can see all of the flags representing the 20 countries that had their heads of state there.

This is one of the many churches throughout the city. They are all beautiful and grandiose.

Our AMAZING lunch in Mira Flores in Lima. Jeff enjoyed a local beer (which he surprisingly loved). The food, service and view were just fantastic.

This is the view of the beach in Lima. Lima has the most consistent surf in the world so there were surfers everywhere.

Overall, we truly enjoyed our time in South America. These are places that we probably never would have visited on our own. We feel so lucky to have a career that takes to all ends of the world!

AMAZING!

If you like music, star wars, or just something creative, you'll enjoy this.

Caribbean

We just returned home from a great two weeks aboard the ms Westerdam cruise to the Caribbean. The weather was perfect and the ocean warm. It was nice to get back to the Caribbean (especially during the cooler times in Seattle). We sailed to Tortolla, Grand Turk, St. Maarten, Costa Maya, Grand Cayman, and Half Moon Cay (HAL's private island).

The Caribbean audiences are always energetic and well receiving. We enjoyed all of the Westerdam's technical crew, and the Westerdam orchestra was amazing as always. Here are a few shots from a couple of the islands:

The beach in Grand Turk is breathtaking. The water is the most beautiful color of turqoise and deep blue. Plus the ships docks almost on the beach so it is highly accessible.

This is a shot of what we do. No really. This is in Costa Maya, Mexico. We were the first ship to go there in 14 months due to hurricane damage. They fixed the place up nicely.

And finally, here is a very typical shot of Jeff on the plane. Thank goodness for the iPhone and all the third party apps. Keeps us very entertained on those long, cross-country trips!

Texas BUC$

We spent this weekend in Austin, TX where we performed for the Texas BUC$ annual conference sponsored by Texas Tech University. What a great time we had with these energetic bursars. This was our first time in Austin and we had a blast. It's definitely our favorite city in Texas as it's full of live music and entertainment.

Thank you Becky and all of the BUC$ team for a great evening!

A conga line during the show

In the news...

Here is a rather nice article about our upcoming McCormick Woods Oktoberfest party:

http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/kitsap/poi/entertainment/29922704.html

Oktoberfest

This weekend is the Annual McCormick Woods Oktoberfest. This is our third year performing at this fantastic celebration and one of our few public events in the Northwest. The shows are this Friday and Saturday, 10/3 & 10/4. For tickets, visit www.mccormickwoodsgolf.com. The shows are almost sold out so act quickly! Hope to see you there!

Slide Show

Thank you to all who shared in our celebration. We didn't imagine it would be so wonderful. Here is the promised slide show that was, unfortunately, unable to be presented that night. (Imagine it on a big screen with the music playing on a fantastic sound system!) Thank you again for making our night unforgettable.

The Last Five Years Photos

Finally! Some pictures of our production of The Last Five Years. It was truly an exceptional experience. We will post video once it arrives.

Rhiannon singing "See, I'm Smiling"

Jeff belting in "Moving Too Fast"

Rhiannon performing "I'm a Part of That"

Jeff during "The Schmuel Song"

Rhiannon singing "Summer in Ohio"

Jeff & Rhiannon during the marriage scene "Next Ten Minutes"

Jeff during "Nobody Needs to Know"

The Last Five Years

Next week we are performing for the 1st Annual Oregon Musical Theater Festival in southern Oregon. We are very excited to be producing the show "The Last Five Years" by Jason Robert Brown. Here is the press release for the show:

Rhiannon Kruse and Jeff Coleron star in this emotionally powerful and intimate contemporary musical about two New Yorkers in their twenties who fall in and out of love over the course of five years. The show’s unconventional structure consists of Cathy telling her story backwards while Jamie tells his story chronologically; the two characters only meet once, at their wedding in the middle of the show. The Last Five Years is made up mostly of solo turns, with beautiful music and alternately humorous and heartfelt lyrics. Jason Robert Brown won Drama Desk Awards for the music and the lyrics after the show premiered in 2002 . The show has since been produced at almost every major regional theater in the US, and has been seen in Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Germany, Italy, Canada, England and Spain.

Performance dates are July 25, 26, 27 and August 1, 2, 3, 4. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit: www.oregonmtf.com

Links

Some of our wonderful friends, family, and past clients have graciously linked our website to their sites. We are asking anyone who has done this to please use the address www.noteworthyproductions.com. The other links still work (aka amazing88s.com, jeffandrhiannon.com, etc) we are just trying our best to make each link consistent. Thank you all in advance for doing this!

Happy 4th of July!

Alaskan Beauty

We have had the opportunity to spend several weeks in Alaska this summer enjoying the natural beauty around us. The weather was unseasonably nice for us. Here are some pictures from one of the most beautiful places in the world, Glacier Bay. It was a picture perfect day. These pictures are of what is known as "calving." Basically, we stand around waiting for ice to melt. Truly magnificent:

One of Jeff's goals has been to capture the perfect eagle picture. Here are a few of a playful eagle around the glaciers. He is still searching for the perfect shot:

The captain graciously let me steer the ship through the glaciers. Apparently he wasn't thrilled with my driving skills:

Three Dog Night

Last Tuesday we had the honor of opening for the iconic rock and roll band Three Dog Night at the Washington State Convention Center. The crowd was incredible and Three Dog Night sounded as good as they ever have. This is a small recording of their song "Black and White." Of course everyone was waiting for the song "Joy To the World" and when they encored with it, the place went crazy. They are one of the few band from the 60's with all of the original members.

We played an hour set to open the show and then played for 45 minutes to close out the evening. Funny enough, the crowd chanted for us to end with the song "Free Bird" and "Shook Me All Night Long." So we played a medley of the two. Of course we didn't play any Three Dog Night songs.

New Website

We have finally updated our website! To view our new and improved site, visit: www.noteworthyproductions.com. It's still a work in progress, but we are very happy with the results so far. Enjoy!

Aloha!

Here are some photos from our recent Hawaiian cruise. We had a fantastic time visiting many of the islands. Our favorite was Lahaina, Maui where we enjoyed a traditional Luau. Hawaii has the most amazing, beautiful landscape. We can't wait to go back!

World Cruise 2008

Enjoy a slide show of our pictures & video from our amazing trip!

Istanbul, not Constinoble

Well we are on the last leg of our world cruise tour. It has absolutely flown by. We are in Istanbul, Turkey and flying back home tomorrow. As our internet connection is less than great here in our hotel, I'll wait to post pictures and video. I can safely say the highlight of our tour was riding a camel in Cairo at the Pyramids. They are so cute...and bumpy. Now we are preparing ourselves for our long travel day: Istanbul to Frankfurt, then Frankfurt to Seattle. Much easier than our flight to Mumbai, India! Bon Voyage!

World Here We Come!

Tomorrow we leave on our grand voyage cruise. The Holland America ms Amsterdam is in the middle of its 114 day cruise around the world. We are lucky enough to be the entertainment during one of the most exotic legs of the cruise. We fly from Seattle to Mumbai (Bombay), India then we visit Oman, a couple ports in Egypt, and Istanbul, Turkey. We will be gone for two weeks total. It hasn't quite hit us that we are about embark on such an amazing adventure. We will be sure to post many photos when we get back (our own of the pyramids!) So, as they say in Egypt "Senebti!"

Tuscon, AZ

We had a corporate party in Tucson, AZ last week. The event was held at the JW Marriott Starr Pass. It's a new five star resort just outside the city. We had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed the resort. These are a few pictures of the venue...

Jeff really enjoyed our spacious room...

We took am amazing hike that made us feel like we were in the middle of nowhere...

Rhiannon was very enthralled by the cacti...a little too much so...

There was a stone house literally in the middle of nothingness. No exactly move in ready...

Jeff kept looking for animals underneath the rocks...

And, to our happy surprise, there was a Starbucks in the resort. Life is good...