Pioneer Players opened their 2023-2024 season with Diana Son’s off-Broadway hit, “Stop Kiss.” The production ran from Oct. 18 through Oct. 22 and was performed in Platteville’s Black Box Theatre in the CFA.
“Stop Kiss” follows Sara and Callie, two women living in New York City in the late 1990s, as the pair slowly develops romantic feelings for each other. The two women are attacked after going out to a bar, and from there the play jumps back and forth in time, with each scene alternating to a period pre- and post- the brutal hate crime and assault.
“Stop Kiss” is a bittersweet, empathetic and, at times, humorous production that took a lot of time and dedication for the Pioneer Players to perform.
Director Dr. Ann Dillon Farrelly wrote that, “While this play involves a hateful and violent act, it is ultimately a play about love.”
Farrelly went on to praise all the students who worked diligently to bring the play together in such a short amount of time.
The production ended with Sara and Callie’s first kiss, moments before the violent assault takes place. The violence is never seen on stage but is referenced multiple times in the scenes that take place afterward. Farrelly spoke about the ending, stating, “While we know what will ultimately happen to Callie and Sara in the aftermath of their expression of love, the play allows us to imagine something different. Something better. Something more hopeful.”
The Pioneer Players are continuing their 2023-2024 season with Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” from Dec. 6 through Dec. 10, 2023.
Then, Andrew Lippa’s “The Addams Family,” adapted from Marshall Brickman’s and Rick Elice’s book of the same name, is running April 5 through April 14, 2024, before finishing with the One Act Festival running May 2 through May 4, 2024.
