MONROE — This year, the Monroe Theatre Guild has some new and returning events planned with, of course, plays and musicals to enjoy. They also have a new theatre manager, Jessica Colaluca, as of the first of January, since Denise Plantenberg recently retired, though she’ll still be around often at the theatre, even directing the first play of the year.
“Rehearsals for my play that I’m directing started January 5th, and that play will be the second and third weekend of March. It’s a fairly serious drama that deals with some pretty serious social issues. I’ve got a fantastic cast, and I’m just really excited to get started. It’s called ‘Making Sweet Tea and Other Secrets’ written by Paul Elliot. There’s a lot of secrets that come forth in the play,” said Denise Plantenberg, the recently retired Monroe Theatre Guild Office Manager of many years and longtime contributor.
All the shows for the year have not been fully determined at the moment, but everything will hopefully be announced and on the website by the end of January.
“We’re still finalizing one of the shows. We’re hoping to have everything finalized and be able to announce it at our Gala on January 22nd. So, more to come,” said Jennie Lembach, the Monroe Theatre Guild Board President and director of a 2026 season show.
The Monroe Theatre Guild begins planning out the endar at the start of the season, trying to work with other events around town if possible.
“We pretty much get the calendar figured out right from the start and try to coordinate it with some of the other things going on in town, but that’s not always easy. Everybody’s calendar is always full, but we set all the dates in advance,” Plantenberg explained.
The shows won’t be the only thing that they will be hosting either, as they try to have events throughout the year for the community to enjoy.
“We normally have a show in March, which is normally a play, and then in June it can vary. Sometimes it’s a musical, sometimes it’s a play, and then an October show, and then a Christmas show. So at least four times a year, and then we have our kids’ camp at the end of July or beginning of August, which is a week-long theater camp for kids 8-18,” Lembach added. “We’re doing Game Show Night again in April, but the first thing coming up is the Gala on the 22nd.”
The process of choosing the shows that will be performed at the theatre comes down to the programming committee.
“We have a programming committee which is made up of board members and sometimes other members of the theatre guild. We meet pretty much all the time because we’re always looking for new ideas for performances, and anyone can submit an idea if they want to direct a show,” Lembach said. “You don’t necessarily have to have theater experience; it helps a lot, but our deadline is June 1st, so we like to have all the submissions by then so we can meet and go through everything, and decide how the season fits together, because we normally like to have two plays and one or two musicals. It really depends on the submissions we get though.”
Along with some other events for the community, they will most likely be doing another event for those within the theatre, like last year.
“Besides the four main shows, we’ll have Game Show Night in April and the kids’ camp. One of the things we are working on internally is doing some kind of improv. We had an improv workshop last fall on a Sunday afternoon that was very popular. We had about twenty people, and that was actually a lot of fun, so we’ll probably be doing that again,” Lembach said.
They’ll also have a special show this year at the theatre that was written by a current high school student.
“We also have a high school student who is working on writing a play right now, so we’re working with her, and we’ll probably be presenting that sometime in May, and it’s her original script. She approached us and the board to see if we would stage it for her, and we said ‘yeah we could do that,’” Plantenberg added.
The Monroe Theatre Guild continues to make updates to the building and the production process.
“We’re working on redoing our lighting structure. We got a brand new lightboard last year, so we are updating our lighting structures and actually are able to do some pretty incredible things with our little black box theatre,” Plantenberg said.
The theatre is also going to offer a chance for members of the community to come and get a behind-the-scenes look at what goes on to make the shows run smoothly.
“With the Gala on the 22nd, we also do our annual meeting during the Gala, but what we’re doing this year is having an open house, so it starts at 5 o’clock and we’re giving people an hour and a half to walk around and there will be people up in the rehearsal room and the costume shop to show anyone that’s interested behind-the-scenes and then up in the booth as well so they can see the sound board, the lighting board, and just see how the magic happens so to speak,” Lembach said.
The Monroe Theatre Guild is very excited to continue sharing shows and events with the community, and they can’t wait for everyone to enjoy another year of unforgettable performances.
