With a Grammy Win and a Big Screen Last Five Years Launch, Kurt Deutsch is Having a Good Week

Even before winning his record label's third Grammy Award on Sunday night, Kurt Deutsch was planning on having a big week. The film version of The Last Five Years that he spearheaded is premiering in New York City tonight and Los Angeles on Wednesday, with releases set for both cities (and video on demand) on Friday. And the movie’s soundtrack is also set for release tomorrow on Sh-K-Boom Records, the label that has been his passion project for 15 years. But a Grammy for the original cast recording of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical? Icing on the cake.

“I felt our chances were good at winning because we had three albums in the category,” Deutsch said. His sister label, Ghostlight Records, is responsible for the nominated cast album for A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder and also served as executive producer on Disney’s Aladdin album. “I'm just happy for everyone involved with Beautiful,” he added. “We’re the little independent label always going up against the big guys.” Sh-K-Boom and Ghostlight previously won Grammy Awards in the Best Musical Theater Album category for In the Heights and The Book of Mormon.

Originally an actor (he romanced Kristin Davis on Sex and the City and starred on Broadway in A Few Good Men and in Randy Newman's Faust at La Jolla Playhouse in 1995), Deutsch started Sh-K-Boom in 2000 with wife Sherie Rene Scott with the plan of releasing rock albums for theater stars like Scott, Adam Pascal and Alice Ripley. Cast albums didn’t come into the picture until Scott appeared in the off-Broadway premiere of Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years in 2002. The show only survived two months at the Minetta Lane Theatre, so making a cast recording wasn’t high on any record label's to-do list. But Deutsch was determined and did it himself, with the help of the show's producers.

“It’s become this classic cult record,” he said. And a wildly popular one, thanks to Brown’s powerful songs and the now iconic vocals of its stars. “It’s our most successful off-Broadway album,” Deutsch confirms. “And probably the biggest selling off-Broadway album overall since Little Shop of Horrors. The amazing thing about the cast album business is that every year, there’s a new group of people that discover it.”

Deutsch always had the idea of turning the musical into a movie so, when acclaimed screenwriter and film director Richard LaGravanese told Scott at an audition that he also had the same thought, she hooked the two men up. Interestingly, LaGravanese had never seen the show, only knowing the story of Jamie and Cathy from first date to marriage to divorce from listening to the album.

LaGravanese's film adaptation, which stars in-demand Hollywood star Anna Kendrick and Tony-nominated Broadway favorite Jeremy Jordan, succeeds in ways the stage version of The Last Five Years traditionally struggles, Deutsch said. “The movie enlightens elements that the show can’t. You can actually see Cathy’s reaction to Jamie when he’s singing ‘If I Didn’t Believe in You’ and ‘Schmuel.’ And you can see how in love they are during ‘Shiksa Goddess’ and you see Jamie with other women. I think it makes you feel it all deeper.”

For Deutsch, the rebirth of The Last Five Years is somewhat bittersweet as he’s now separated from Scott, whom he married in 1998 and has one son with, Elijah. “It's a private matter, but we’ve been living separately,” he said. “Our main focus is the well-being and nurturing of our son.” Both producers of the film, Deutsch and Scott appear together in The Last Five Years on screen opposite Kendrick in a joint cameo.

Looking ahead, Deutsch is currently developing a new Alice in Wonderland-inspired musical with Spring Awakening authors Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater called Alice By Heart and is looking forward to watching The Last Five Years in movie theaters with fans. Although it will also be released on TVs via video on demand on Friday, the same day as movie theaters in New York and Los Angeles (before opening wider on February 20), he encourages the “leaving-your-house” option.

“To me, musicals are meant to be experienced with an audience,” he said. “So if you can go to the theater and see it together, go and have that experience jointly. But if not, invite some friends over and watch it in your living room! I’m just thrilled everyone is going to get to see it.”

Get the Sh-K-Boom Records original motion picture soundtrack of The Last Five Years here.