4/25/24, 4:11 PM Elon Performing Arts presents “Myths and Hymns” for spring musical - Elon News Network

Elon Performing Arts presents “Myths and Hymns” for spring

musical
Director Alexandra Joye Warren adds narrative to devised theater piece, shows light at end of tunnel
By Nia Bedard | 4/25/24 12:37pm

Photo by Nia Bedard | Elon News Network

Seniors Jacob Atkins, Camille Fundingsland and Kyra Britt perform "Come to Jesus" on April 23 during a dress rehearsal in Roberts Studio Theatre.

Elon University’s performing arts department presents the song cycle, “Myths and Hymns” for the black box spring musical from
April 26 to April 28.

After learning “Myths and Hymns” would be the spring musical, Elon professor and director Alexandra Joye Warren knew she
would have to add some sort of story into the song cycle. Song cycles are a group of individually complete songs designed to be
performed in a sequence without having an overarching narrative.

“It is typically performed as a concert,” Warren said. “What we decided to do, with our time and energy that we had, maybe we
could be a little bit ambitious and try to cultivate a story that connects all the songs.”

Warren elaborated saying this practice is known as devised theater — where an ensemble collaborates to create a story.

“We decided to build a story based on what is in the text of the lyrics, the tone, all the things, the elements of the music of the
songs, and so we crafted our own story for this particular show,” Warren said.

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4/25/24, 4:11 PM Elon Performing Arts presents “Myths and Hymns” for spring musical - Elon News Network

Nia Bedard | Elon News Network

The cast of "Myths and Hymns" performs "There's a Land" on April 23 during a dress rehearsal in Roberts Studio Theatre.

Warren also gave the students the freedom to come up with their own characters based on the concept she had come up with.

“I knew that I would need to create a kind of a playground basically, if you will, for structure,” Warren said. “The students came up
with their characters based on the songs that they were assigned to sing and the themes that came out of that.”

While professor Warren was able to give the students the freedom to come up with their own characters, Chris Rayis — music
director and assistant professor at Elon — made sure the students knew everything they could about the music of the show.

“This piece is extremely advanced, and extremely difficult to sort of pull apart and rebuild,” Rayis said. “Each of them had to learn
musicality in a way that neither of them have been asked to before.”

In addition to the advanced nature of the piece, one of the characteristics of a song cycle is that the entire production is song
with no dialogue. Rayis said this also added another challenge to learning this production.

“Here, each person in this cast needed to become an expert in the show, which is very rare,” Rayis said.

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4/25/24, 4:11 PM Elon Performing Arts presents “Myths and Hymns” for spring musical - Elon News Network

Nia Bedard | Elon News Network

Sophomore Gabe Tobierre performs "Saturn Returns" on April 23 during a dress rehearsal in Roberts Studio Theatre.

In spite of the challenges in learning the show, junior Aubee Billie said she was excited to have the freedom to create her own
character.

“One of the first things that Warren asked us was, ‘What do you want to bring to the table whenever you step into this room?’”
Billie said. “I want to bring my crazy self, so I'm coming into this and I've just been really happy and ready for anything at any
turn.”

Regardless of the excitement, Billie was also nervous to perform in a devised theater piece.

“It's been difficult, especially with devised theater and I've never been a part of a devised piece,” Billie said. “Being a part of
something like this where you have the songs laid out for you, but you don't have the storyline it's like, ‘Wait, but where do we go
with this?’”

In the show, Billie performs the songs “Jesus the Mighty Conqueror” and “There’s A Shout.” She said while she was both nervous
and excited to perform in “Myths and Hymns,” she thinks she and her fellow cast members have figured the show out.

“We finally figured out the layout of how the songs were going to be,” Billie said. “We see the vision, we see how this is going to
work, and everything pieced together little bit by little bit.”

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4/25/24, 4:11 PM Elon Performing Arts presents “Myths and Hymns” for spring musical - Elon News Network

Nia Bedard | Elon News Network

Seniors Jacob Atkins and Camille Fundingsland perform "Hero and Leander" on April 23 during a dress rehearsal in Roberts Studio Theatre.

With director Warren having to piece together a structure for the show, she had to put the songs in an order that would create a
narrative for the audience to follow. During Warren’s narrative creation she decided that the centerpiece of the show would be
“Come to Jesus.”

“I had this sort of crazy sticky note pad of all the song titles and how they might connect,” Warren said. “I put a heart around that
song because I knew that everything needed to connect to that,”

Senior Camille Fundingsland, who performs “Come to Jesus,” said she believed the structure of the songs was also essential to the
impact of “Come to Jesus.”

“We have this sequence, ‘Hero and Leander’ into ‘Life is but a Dream’ into ‘Come to Jesus’ and so I think once we had those three
songs down, we really worked through them,” Fundingsland said. “That sequence is really important to this whole process.”

With the combination of the structure, the narrative, the music and the character development, junior Kameron Askew said he
hopes that audience members will find a light at the end of the tunnel.

“I think the show is a great reminder of keeping faith,” Askew said. “In life, we go through so many different things, we're given so
many different challenges, but I think it's important to remember to stay strong.”

“Myths and Hymns” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. on April 26, at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. on April 27 and at 2 p.m. on April 28 in
Roberts Studio Theatre in Scott Studios. Tickets are $15 cash or check at the door or free with an Elon ID and can be reserved on
Elon’s ticketing website.

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4/25/24, 4:11 PM Elon Performing Arts presents “Myths and Hymns” for spring musical - Elon News Network

LIFESTYLE | 04/25/2024 12:37pm

Elon Performing Arts presents “Myths and Hymns” for spring musical
After learning “Myths and Hymns” would be the spring musical, Elon professor and director Alexandra Joye Warren knew she
would have to add some sort of story into the song cycle. Song cycles are a group of individually complete songs designed to be
performed in a sequence without having an overarching narrative. “Myths and Hymns” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. on April 26,
at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. on April 27 and at 2 p.m. on April 28 in Roberts Studio Theatre in Scott Studios. Tickets are $15 at the door
or free with an Elon ID.

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