(Butler, PA) Butler County Community College’s theater troupe returns under the spotlights next week 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 held 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 Dr. Christopher Bondi, a BC3 assistant professor of communications and adviser of the Pioneer Players. Performers will dress in attire appropriate for each monologue, 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.”
Dr. Christopher Bondi, BC3 assistant professor, adviser of the Pioneer Players
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.”
“From love to heartbreak”
“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 will also 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 candle-lit 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.
“And the monologues have a theme that could encompass anything from love to heartbreak.”
“It’s giving a voice to the students”
Students Jess Sentgeorge and Tanner Hohmann are members of BC3’s writers club who wrote monologues to be performed by the Pioneer Players. Sentgeorge is also president of the theater troupe.
“It’s a great opportunity because it is the first event the Pioneer Players have had in years,” Sentgeorge said.
“It’s giving a voice to the students as well as having performing arts on campus.”
Added Hohmann: “I’m looking forward to having my work performed. It has not happened before, so it’s a big step for me and the writers club in general.”
Sentgeorge, of Butler, is an English student at BC3. She is also literary editor of FACETS, the college’s literary-art magazine; and is a member of the college’s Rho Phi chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, an international academic honor society.
Sentgeorge’s monologues are titled “All the Greek I Love Yous” and “Love Bites are the Worst.”
The first monologue “gives representation to the queer community in a positive way because so often we see it portrayed negatively,” Sentgeorge said, and the second, “a fun, kind of mythological monologue” is about a woman bitten by two brothers who were vampires.
Hohmann, of Grove City, is a general studies student at BC3. He was a member of BC3 golf squads that finished 12-0 in fall 2022, 11-0 in fall 2021 and placed sixth in the National Junior College Athletic Association Division III national championship tournament in Chautauqua, N.Y., in June.
Hohmann’s monologue is titled “The Mixup,” which, he says, “is about a guy who has a wild night and ends up in the wrong kind of situation, one that you might not be comfortable with otherwise.”
“I’m looking forward to having my work performed. It has not happened before, so it’s a big step for me and the writers club in general.”
Tanner Hohmann, member, BC3 writers club
Monologues “funny, entrancing”
Pioneer Players Camden Rockcastle, Juliana Van Hoozen, Nick Benec and Sentgeorge will perform the monologues.
Rockcastle is a mathematics student at BC3 and a member of Rho Rhi; Van Hoozen is a criminology student and Benec, a general studies student. All are from Butler.
The Valentine’s Day monologues “are just the thing to bring the drama flair back to BC3,” Van Hoozen said. “If there’s anything that can revitalize the Pioneer Players, it absolutely would be these funny, entrancing monologues written by the BC3 writers club. They’ve been a blast to practice with, and have inspired the love of acting back to our hearts. I can’t wait to show our audience what we’ve got in the works.”
The Pioneer Players will also perform monologues written by Dittman and Bondi. Dittman’s is titled “Hunter’s Monologue” and Bondi’s, “Waiting for Danielle.”
The shows will be the first in more than three years for a BC3 theater troupe whose performances were idled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Pioneer Players last performed in the Succop Theater in November 2019 with Joseph Kesselring’s 1939 play “Arsenic and Old Lace.”
BC3’s “FACETS Celebration of the Arts!” in May and Dittman’s reading from his “Who Holds the Devil” novel in October were also free public events held before guests seated at candle-lit tables on a darkened Succop Theater stage.
“The community is really going to enjoy seeing how this wonderful stage is being used, and these great talents that we have all around us,” Dittman said. “It’s important to support these performers, these young writers, as they start their careers and to show them that we respect and we honor what they are doing.”
Rho Phi was formed at BC3 in 1968. BC3’s writers club was established in 1984 and the Pioneer Players, in 1989. They are among the college’s 25 student clubs and organizations.