Moment at Elon
Get a look into Elon's production of Moment through the eyes of those who worked on it!
Elon's production
"We are showing the heroes within a dysfunctional family. Not focusing on the negativity. Showing how far they’ve come, and what it takes to get there: their journey."
- Kyle Brincks (Nial Lynch)
- Kyle Brincks (Nial Lynch)
"What I love so much about the show is that there are so many different driving forces within one house. ... And we just came out of the holiday season, so everyone - audience members and cast and crew members, have been home recently, so they understand that relationship and boundaries and history and ties, which is really interesting."
- Marlyn Scott (Assistant Director)
- Marlyn Scott (Assistant Director)
"Elon is a place of really passionate, intelligent, really really driven artists, and that goes for all fields of the theatre and all production elements as well. The set design is just amazing, and the choreo and the direction has been so thought out. We have dramaturgs. We have an entire team researching all of the things of this play and making the world a little clearer for us. That is such a luxury for us. You normally don’t have that, and because we’re a place of educational theater, and because it’s a place of education for all aspects, it’s just so rich. There’s so much knowledge, and everyone has been bringing everything to this process. There has not been a day of rehearsal where everyone hasn’t given everything they have. "
- Christine Lane (Niamh Lynch)
- Christine Lane (Niamh Lynch)
The process
"... Professor Shively [is] just leading us in such an elegant way. She doesn’t rush us into anything; everything’s in a step-by-step process, and I just love and appreciate that. I'm super grateful that this is my first mainstage experience, because it is treated so delicately, and I thought going into it that this three week process would be really quick and difficult and like a whirlwind, but it feels like it’s going at the perfect speed."
- Lauren Luther (Teresa Lynch u/s)
- Lauren Luther (Teresa Lynch u/s)
"As someone who is a performer first, [assistant directing is] an interesting experience, but I’m learning that watching is what teaches more than anything else. Being able to watch people go through the process and make choices, it’s an entirely different perspective."
- Marlyn Scott (Assistant Director)
- Marlyn Scott (Assistant Director)
"In many ways I get to fill the shoes of the audience and that not everything is clear straight away, so I make the discoveries when they do for the most part."
- Daniel Skinner (Fin White)
- Daniel Skinner (Fin White)
"It's been a really interesting process, the timeline especially. J-term is a really interesting concept that is special to Elon, and putting on an entire show in 2.5 weeks is a lot, but it’s a really unique thing that we get to work on a real equity schedule including breaks and stuff, so you really get the sense of what your life will be like once you graduate, but it’s a really condensed, intensive process."
- Christine Lane (Niamh Lynch)
- Christine Lane (Niamh Lynch)
"It was just really fun. I watched a lot of Paula Abdul and Janet Jackson videos, which were really fun, and they were kind of my inspiration, and mixed with show-choir and cheesiness and just lots of drama. ... I think at first I want [the audience] to just be like, in shock, because [the dance sequence is] so random and so 90s. I want them to have fun and remember when they were children dancing in their rooms having a blast. But I also hope that they see it again and that it hits home a little more."
- Emma Vance (Choreographer)
- Emma Vance (Choreographer)
The dialects
"What is nice about the Irish dialect is that it’s not as dramatically heavy. The way Americans use their cadence is they put a lot of emphasis on volume and tempo, but in Ireland it’s a lot more the musicality of it. If anything, it's being able to almost skate through things easily, but then those moments of pause and volume have more weight as a result."
- Daniel Skinner (Fin White)
- Daniel Skinner (Fin White)
"Honestly [the dialect is] what I was most scared about, because I haven’t taken Vocal Production II where we learn IPA, so I don’t know the symbols, and I haven't taken Dialects obviously, and I haven't taken Shakespeare for the musicality in the dialect. And so it feels like I’m trying to run and catch up, but it’s happened really nicely."
- Lauren Luther (Teresa Lynch u/s)
- Lauren Luther (Teresa Lynch u/s)
Moment's importance
"I think there are elements of the show that have been missing not only in our repertoire, but also in Elon’s community in general. There are elements of the show that are expanding both Elon as a school and the entire community."
- Marlyn Scott (Assistant Director)
- Marlyn Scott (Assistant Director)
"[Moment is] written on something that we think we understand so well which is family, and we’ve got to understand that there are so many perspectives to the family, and that’s great at this time in our country to understand that there’s so many perspectives, because we find that sometimes people boil it down to one side versus the other, but there are so many different perspectives and different justifications for why people feel the way they do. We have to be empathetic to that as artists, so I’m grateful for learning that here."
- Lauren Luther (Teresa Lynch u/s)
- Lauren Luther (Teresa Lynch u/s)
"[A]ll the women in this show are written so strongly and well, and it is a treat to have such a talented writer as Deirdre Kinahan who is so so smart, and who gives you such structured writing that is playable, but also gives you female characters that are interesting and dynamic. ...[A] lot of the times as a female your role is defined by your relationship to a man.... Kinahan has brought these incredibly dynamic, interesting, vulnerable, hurting people, these women who are smart and strong, but who aren't afraid to hurt, and have these incredible journeys through the show that are normally only reserved for men. This is not your everyday show with your everyday roles, and being in a show like this where you get the chance to jump in and have a good juicy role to live with is such a privilege, and it doesn’t happen a lot."
- Christine Lane (Niamh Lynch)
- Christine Lane (Niamh Lynch)