Valley Performing Arts

Reviews

Some commentary about our productions.

Valley Actors Bring A Christmas Carol to Life

Ahriel Porter The Frontiersman December 1, 2011

As snow lightly falls upon the valley, so does the magic of Christmas spirit. Tis the season for a classic! It seems as though A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens has been portrayed in every way imaginable. However, if you read the book you’ll know that it is hard to find such a traditional version as performed by the Valley Performing...

» Read complete review

The Woman In Black is Chilling Ghost Story

Ahriel Porter The Frontiersman October 17, 2011

Just in time for Halloween, Valley Performing Arts has put together a chilling ghost story. Imagine yourself caught in a horror movie, the characters have come to life and reality seems far away.

Arthur Kipps is sent to a small market town to appear at the funeral and organize the affairs of and elderly widow, Mrs. Alice Drablow. It’s at...

» Read complete review

Proof That Not All Bad Boys Go Gray

Sean Talbot The Frontiersman May 17, 2011

Imagine this: you're back in your favorite childhood place with your best friends and a chance to take a short break from life to remember the good ol' days.

Got that in mind? Good.

Bad Boys Gone Gray is a dynamic musical about five aging-but-lively guys that meet up at the cabin of their youth to party, reminisce, and settle old scores with best friends. Oh,...

» Read complete review

A Little Princess

Sean Talbot April 2011

There are few things more powerful than a child’s imagination. This is especially true with Sara, whose father dies fighting a war in India after leaving her to Miss Minchin (T. Arlie Reed-Lewis), the spiteful director of the Select Seminary for Young Ladies in England.

Read complete review

Fly-By-Night

Andrew Wellner Frontiersman 02/25/11

Mental health and how we treat the mentally infirm among us is one of those issues that doesn’t ever seem to go away. And America seems, from time to time, to produce unsettling, timeless works of fiction and non-fiction that expose the shortcomings of the institutions set up for these unfortunate souls. In the late 1800s, it...

» Read complete review

Cast of A Cuckoo's Nest Draws Audience Into Tragic Hospital

Sean Talbot Frontiersman 02/22/11

I have to say that Ken Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest has been one of my favorite stories since I was in high school, and that I had high expectations for VPA's production. I was not disappointed.

Read complete review

VPA's Nunsense II

Sean Talbot January 2011

The house was packed. Nuns were running up the aisles with their eccentricities and glee. The audience laughed and clapped along, high on the adventure. In our laps laid Bingo cards, and in the back of every person’s mind that night, a grasshopper was saying you’re going to win something tonight!

» Read complete review

King Island Christmas

Sean Talbot 11/27/10

Disclaimer: every year, when the holidays start to show up with the cold, I’m usually the first to pass them off as hokey and commercialized - which gives me reason enough to ignore them entirely.

Within the first...

» Read complete review

Enthusiasm sells sweet Valley 'King Island Christmas'

Mike Dunham Anchorage Daily News 11/27/10

"King Island Christmas" -- the musical based on the book by Jean Rogers, itself based on a true story of Alaska Native village life in 1951 -- has been reeling in friendly reviews around the country since its 1997 debut in Juneau. A CD of the show indicates that the lyrics by Deborah Brevoort -- a...

» Read complete review

Blithe Spirit

Sean Talbot 10/23/10

Doing research for a book, the author Charles Condomine (played charismatically by Ted Carney, a longtime VPA actor) invites a psychic into his home to perform a séance, much to the amusement of hi wife and friends, his co-conspirators. When Madame Arcati, the communicator to the dead (Bonnie Honkola), shows up in all her eccentricity and flare and commences...

» Read complete review