Two Lehigh Valley premieres, one of an intimate musical and the other of a comedy, will grace area stages.

Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival presents the musical, “The Last Five Years,” June 12 - 30, Schubert Theatre, Labuda Center for the Performing Arts, DeSales University.

Civic Theatre of Allentown presents “Five Lesbians Eating A Quiche,” June 14 - 23 in Theatre514, Allentown.

“The Last Five Years,” a two-person sung-through musical, stars Actors Equity actors Benjamin Lurye and Chani Werely as the couple Jamie and Cathy.

Jason King Jones, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival Artistic Director, directs the show. Jones worked with Luyre and Werely when he was senior associate artistic director at Maryland’s Olney Theatre Center.

Lurye’s recent roles include Fabrizio in “The Light in the Piazza,” Houston’s Opera in the Heights; Adolfo Pirelli in “Sweeney Todd,” Theatre Under the Stars, and Max in “A Comedy of Tenors,” Bristol Riverside Theatre.

Werely has been seen in roles at Signature Theatre, Folger Theatre, Kennedy Center, and most recently played Audrey in “Little Shop of Horrors,” Ford’s Theatre, Washington, D.C., and Yitzhak in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” Olney Theatre Center.

“I have a prior relationship with the actors,” Jones says. “That mutual trust comes in handy, especially with a two-person show.”

Jones says the production is a perfect fit for the festival’s black-box Schubert Theatre.

“This show makes a lot of sense there,” he says. “The actors along with several musicians will be visible to the audience during the entire show. They’re part of the architecture. It’s the perfect scale.”

“The Last Five Years,” first staged in Chicago in 2001 and then produced Off-Broadway in 2002, has become a staple of regional theaters in the United States and across the globe.

The love story follows two aspiring artists in New York City who fall in and out of love over the course of five years.

Jamie, a writer, has just fallen in love. Cathy, an aspiring actress, is mourning the end of their relationship five years in the future.

Jamie’s arc is in chronological order, but Cathy’s moves in reverse. They meet in the middle when they decide to marry.

The entirely sung-through musical’s emotional songs progress audiences through the love story.

“The Last Five Years” is written and composed by Jason Robert Brown, who first entered the New York theater scene in 1995 with “Songs for a New World” and is a Tony Award-winner for his musicals “Parade” and “The Bridges of Madison County.”

“He may just be the best musical theater composer alive at this moment, which is precisely what drew me to include ‘The Last Five Years’ in Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival’s 33rd season line-up,” Jones says.

Audiences can meet the actors for a talk-back after June 20 and 27 performances.

There‘s an audio-described performance, 2 p.m. June 22.

The musical runs 90 minutes with no intermission.

The play contains mature themes and brief strong language and is recommended for those age 13 and older.

“The Last Five Years,” 7:30 p.m. June 12, 13, 14, 19, 20, 21, 26, 27, 28; 2, 7:30 p.m. June 15, 22, 29; 2 p.m. June 16, 23, 30; 6:30 p.m. June 18. Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Schubert Theatre, Labuda Center for the Performing Arts, DeSales University, 2755 Station Avenue, Center Valley. 610-282-9455, https://pashakespeare.org/

“Five Lesbians Eating a Quiche” was written and first presented in 2011 by co-artistic directors Andrew Hobgood and Evan Linder for The New Colony at Dank Haus, Chicago.

The production was presented in New York City at the 2012 New York International Fringe Festival, where it won Best Overall Production. After that, it opened off-Broadway at the SoHo Playhouse.

The story takes place in 1956 and follows five widows who are members of The Susan B. Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein, and are having their annual quiche breakfast.

As the assembled women await the announcement of the society’s prize-winning quiche, atomic bomb sirens sound. Has the Communist threat come to pass? How will the widows respond as their idyllic town and lifestyle faces attacks?

“Five Lesbians Eating A Quiche” is a comedy that explores sexual innuendos, unsuccessful repressions and delicious discoveries.

The cast includes Lana Brucker, Jen Gelber, Amanda Lissette, Marley Mathias and Kelly Minner-Bickert.

The show is directed by Rae Labadie.

“Five Lesbians Eating a Quiche,” 7:30 p.m. June 14, 15, 19, 20, 21, 22; 2 p.m. June 16, 23. Civic Theatre of Allentown, Theatre514, 514 N. Nineteenth St., Allentown. 610-432-8943; https://civictheatre.com/

“Curtain Rises” is a column about the theater, stage shows, the actors in them and the directors and artists who make them happen. To request coverage, email: Paul Willistein, Focus editor, pwillistein@tnonline.com