Interview with director Kim Shively
How is your vision for Moment different from past productions?
I’ve intentionally not spend a lot of time researching previous productions. I’ve been careful to keep a specific vision for the show, so that I’m not terribly influenced by what someone else’s stamp on the production has looked like. What drew me most to the story was the opportunity to tell a story of hope and overcoming, without being heavy-handed or insincere. I think that right now, oftentimes, stories of hope and overcoming can have a pandering element, or can be manipulative. So I try to just tell human stories in a way that will be relatable a diverse audience. How is Moment valuable as an educational tool for student here at Elon? One of the things I love about Moment is the dialogue and the way that it is written. I’ve been heavily influenced by David Mamet and Chekhov, and a lot of Kinahan’s influences. My subconscious recognized those influences when I first read the play. So I was drawn to the opportunities that it would create for the actors, specifically for the women. I really want to give every actor on stage a steak sandwich. I felt like Kinahan really fleshed out dynamic characters, both male and female. And I’m a Meisner teacher – I’m always interested in behavior, and pieces that give actors the opportunity to go beyond just moving and hitting marks and reading lines, and actually act upon and react to and live and breathe in a way that they start to sense the point of view of the character they are embodying, and their role in the story as that character. What is Moment bringing to Elon that hasn't been here before? It’s our first living female playwright in a long time! So that’s pretty exciting! Students being able to work on Irish dialects is a fantastic opportunity. And I’m new to Elon, so I can’t speak to everything that has existed before, but I think there is a level of excellence that Elon always brings to their productions, and I hope that Moment fulfills that. And my hope is that this is a story that gives voice to a group of people that usually don’t receive a lot of attention. And it really does look at the reality of grief and death and how we perceive loss, which I think is something that doesn’t always receive a lot of attention. |