10/09/2026
Lee Eddy and Jeff Mills, the two actors starring in The Making of a Great Moment, are revered for their long and impressive careers in Austin theater. They’re also old friends who genuinely love being on stage together.
“I've known Lee since my freshman year of college,” Mills says. “We met at the dorms, and so that was a while ago. But we've been very close friends for…”
“Ever?” Eddy says, finishing Mills’ thought for him.
“Ever,” he agrees. “As long as I can remember. And it's been really, really fun to have this time together and play and just be at this stage in our lives, as well. We both have kids and families, and it's a little different than it used to be. But it's really nice to look across the way and know that that person has your has your back not only on stage but off stage.”
Eddy agrees. “Oh, it's a dream come true again,” she says. “I mean, the last play we did together was a decade ago. I think that the show would not be what it is if it were not Jeff being by my side during it, just because we do have a long history of playing together, and so there's an automatic… we know what we're going to do without even really having to rehearse it, because there's just a known vocabulary.”
Ken Webster, the artistic director of Hyde Park Theatre, where The Making of a Great Moment is currently running, agrees as well. “I've been doing theater in Austin for 47 years and I don't think I've ever seen two actors who have better chemistry together,” he says. “It's so much fun to watch them in rehearsal and in performance. Like they were saying, they have this shorthand and it's a joy to watch and it makes me excited to do theater.”
Written by playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, The Making of a Great Moment is a two-actor comedy about two actors. As director Mark Pickell describes, “[It’s] about two members of the Victoria Canada Bicycle Theater Company… and they're touring a four-hour show by bicycle across North America. And they're just sleeping on the side of the road and performing in… nursing homes, transitional facilities, kind of low audience turnout [venues]. This is not Broadway or the Great White Way and they are out there struggling on the road trying to express their art to wherever they go.”
Mills finds some common ground with Terry Dean, the veteran actor he plays in The Making of a Great Moment, though he doesn’t have quite the ego Dean has. “I think [my career] used to be a little bit more ego-driven, if I'm being honest. Like, how am I doing? Is this good? What's a career? What does this look like?” he says. “Whereas at this point, I'm just so grateful to play and have fun and make art that I've kind of released a lot of that. I mean, there's still a voice in here that wants to do the best that you can, but also it's kind of not the reason for the season.”
“Which is totally what this play is about,” Eddy says. “There's something about performing this play where it has really spelled out some of the reason why we've been doing this for so long. I mean, it's definitely not the pay or the accommodations or the glory. It's just like, there is something just very, very wonderful about being able to create this kind of art in front of people.”
'The Making of a Great Moment' runs through October 24 at Hyde Park Theatre
