SHU Theatre put on its spring production, “Months on End,” from Feb. 21 to Feb. 23.
The play, which was written by Craig Pospisil, tells a story of the progression of love and friendship within a fearless group of friends in their 30s over the course of a year in upper-middle-class New York City.
“[Months on End] preaches a nice message of all the interpersonal connections that are part of someone’s life, how those change throughout the year, and how important those kinds of relationships are to people,” said Christian Mayer, a sophomore physics and philosophy major who played Chris in the show—father to main character Phoebe.
Nayla Paula, a junior secondary education and English major who played Phoebe, said that the play displays different types of relationships: familial relationships, friendships, and romantic relationships, and how they evolve over time.
Kyus Wright, a senior theatre major and director of the play, said that in contrast with their previous productions, this one was the most realistic.
“Professor [Peter] Reader, the [program] director of theatre, suggested the show to me to read,” Wright said. “I fell in love with it because it’s just so different from anything we’ve ever done.”
Wright said this production challenged the actors to adopt a new style of acting.
“The biggest struggle was taking these actors who don’t have experience in this,” Wright said. “A lot of them are comedic, they’re very good at comedy and trying to work with them on this whole new style of acting…they all did amazingly.”
With this new style of acting, the actors shared how they are able to embody a character to the fullest.
“Don’t be afraid to add a little of yourself in them,” Paula said. “Add a little quirk, even if it’s facial expressions, mannerisms, all that stuff. Don’t be afraid to make that character you.”
Mayer shared how he gets into the mind of a character.
“The biggest part about embodying the character is getting to know how your character thinks,” Mayer said. “Once you track how your character thinks, you can contort your facial expressions to explain the emotion.”
Whereas plays tend to be more dramatic than comedic, “Months on End” had a realistic, serious tone to it.
“This show is very grounded,” Wright said. “Every [character] is like someone you could realistically know in real life, and I think that’s how it’s written to be and that’s not the kind of shows that we normally do here.”
Mayer said that the play is supposed to make the audience think about their relationships.
“It’s supposed to invoke something more reflective in the audience but generally the subject matter is more serious,” he said.
Since the play was realistic, some of the cast members related to the characters they played.
“The way that [Phoebe] cares about people—her and I are similar in that sense,” Paula said. “She’s a very uplifting and go-happy girl and that’s kind of how I feel too that I can be sometimes.”
Mayer shared that although his character is a father, he still finds himself connecting to his character.
“He does seek to resolve conflict, and he makes it a mission to prioritize his relationships, with his daughter and with his wife,” Mayer said. “I relate to that in a sense that I also hold those things to be important in my life, and I hope to kind of embody those as I become a father later in life.”
Because of the realistic approach to the play, some of the crew members and actors provided their own pieces of clothing for costumes.
Gianluca Fortunado, a freshman business management major and assistant stage manager, shared the process of costume designing.
“We let our actors have their own jurisdiction on costumes,” Fortunado said. “They brought in pieces from home and Kyus just had to approve of it. Sometimes they didn’t have anything, so Kyus had to do thrifting and get some stuff.”
With costuming, one of the biggest challenges was finding a wedding dress for a scene where Paula’s character Phoebe was getting married.
“We had someone in the theatre department who happens to have wedding dresses lying around, so we came in and did a huge fitting for that,” Wright said.
Wright also shared some other challenges they encountered while constructing the set.
“Luckily, we didn’t have to build anything,” Wright said. “I was hoping to keep it a little more on the minimalistic side. We didn’t own a couch so I had to search around for a couch to buy and we ended up getting one on Amazon.”
While the actors performed, the crew members took care of the behind-the-scenes.
“The [tech crew] is the backbone of a show,” Wright said. “You can have a bunch of actors on stage. They can say as many funny lines as they want, but if you don’t have everyone behind them moving set pieces for them, getting their props ready to go…then the show doesn’t exist.”
Fortunado shares some behind-the-scenes work he did.
“In scene two, there’s a phone call that John Henri’s character gets, Tony’s his name,” Fortunado said. “I’m the one who’s calling him from my phone.”
When it came to collaborating for this production, both the crew and cast members came together cohesively.
Wright said that communication is important when collaborating on a project of any kind.
“Especially when people get stressed because you’re going to get stressed in a process like this, the closer you get to the opening, it’s going to happen,” Wright said. “So for me, one of the big things was being able to realize that I can trust the people around me to get things done that I need to get done.”
Mayer said that although the long rehearsals caused fatigue, the cast and crew had fun.
“There were some rehearsals where we could have gotten out early, but we just kept laughing so much backstage that we kind of delayed things,” Mayer said. “It’s a good way to spend the time.”
Paula shared a similar sentiment: “It was possibly one of my favorites. It was the best bonding experience ever, although our relationships on stage are altered in a way, it really got us closer.”
Delianie Cerda is a writer for The Setonian’s Campus Life section. She can be reached at delianie.cerda@student.shu.edu.
