BC3’s Pioneer Players return to stage with love-themed monologues
Butler County Community College’s theater troupe returns next week after a four-year hiatus with free public performances of monologues about an emotion, a BC3 professor said, in which one experiences a rapid heartbeat, becomes shaky and begins to perspire, and that “feels a lot like fear.”
Love, Mike Dittman added, “is probably the most powerful emotion. Think about how it upsets you. There’s a French phrase for having a crush. Coup de foudre. You go crazy.
“And I think everyone can relate to that.”
The Pioneer Players’ performance of “Love-Logues: A Night of Original Monologues” — in collaboration with BC3’s writers club and in recognition of Valentine’s Day — will be at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 13 and 14 in the Succop Theater on BC3’s main campus in Butler Township.
The shows will last about 75 minutes, said Christopher Bondi, a BC3 assistant professor of communications and adviser of the Pioneer Players. Performers will dress in attire appropriate for each monologue.
Scripts were written specifically for the shows, said Dittman, a BC3 professor of English and adviser of the college’s writers club.
“Valentine’s Day can be a fraught time for people who aren’t in a relationship and they see all the advertisements,” Dittman said. “Or people who are in a relationship feel all this pressure to make it perfect. So what we are trying to do is to bring it into a place where the audience can think about their own situation regarding romance or feelings about Valentine’s Day.”
And, Bondi said, “It’s a night of entertainment. … It’s really important for a college, whether it be public or private, to have a means whereby the students can channel their creativity and have a chance to show their creativity.”
“Love-Logues: A Night of Original Monologues” will be the first production following collaboration between the Pioneer Players and BC3 writers club since at least 1998, Dittman said.
Light refreshments will be available.
The shows also will be the Pioneer Players’ first since November 2019 and BC3’s third free public performance in the past year in which guests will be seated at candlelit tables on a darkened stage and behind a drawn 37-foot-wide curtain.
“We are going to have it decorated like a little coffeehouse or café and with roses on the tables,” Bondi said. “It will be something like you would see at an open-poetry night. The students will come out one by one and perform monologues.”
Bill Foley is coordinator of news and media content at Butler County Community College.
