By: Kristina Ferry
Photography by Michelle Magnussen
Over the weekend, a group of our peers here at McKendree put on a wonderful play that they had been practicing for months. This play was called Months on End, and it was written by Craig Pospisil in 2002. This play covered the lives of eight young individuals over the course of a year and the struggles they face within their relationships, both familial and romantic. Some of the key relationships that the audience watched roll out were: Phoebe and Ben, two fiancees who have some lingering doubt about whether marriage is right for them, and Elaine and Walter, a couple unsure of what their future actions should be as Walter is currently divorcing his wife.
Walter (played by Hunter Tucker) and Elaine (played by Jayden Touchette) meet at a New Year’s party
Also, Nick (Walter’s brother) asked his girlfriend Paige to marry him, but in response she flung the ring onto a sandy beach. Phoebe’s sister Heidi rounds out the group by providing some outside perspective to the situation and delivering some of the best comedic timing found within the play.
Heidi (played by Madison Rohn) delivers an unforgettable graduation speech.
The acting performed by our peers was phenomenal, leading to memorable moments and quotes such as “Scrunchies are sexy.” One of the details that really spoke to me that showed the amount of effort put into the play was how there was different colored lighting for each of the scenes, many of them conveying the emotional tone of the scene. For example, during the March scene after Nick proposes to Paige the lighting is pink, a common symbolic color of love, and this coloring contrasted with the April scene, in which there was a soft warm yellow glow of a home. While not a detail that many people will pick up on, this gave the emotional needs of a scene much more to work with than just props or the acting of the cast members. In addition, in the scenes that did not have a heavy emotional tone, such as the hilarious graduation speech during the month of May, the lighting was just plain white.
Paige (played by Sedra Wahid) tries to explain her feelings, while Nick (played by De’Shawn Ware) searches the beach for the lost engagement ring.
Another thoughtful detail that was put into this play was how the background screens changed from month to month. Instead of a simple sliding transition between the months, each transition started with a calendar being flipped through until the calendar sheets wiped away the old month and replaced it with the new. This was such a nice detail that may have also been nostalgic for those who used to rip days off a paper calendar.
In the August scene, Ben (played by Khaleo Price), Heidi, Paige, and Phoebe (played by Baileeanne Brunais) play softball.
Overall, this is a play that I hoped everyone at McKendree attended, as it is evident that a lot of hard work and heart was put into this production. Hopefully some of these students will come back to perform in future plays to entertain the McKendree campus again with their wit and charm.
