Theater group celebrates 40 years in the Valley

WASILLA — Valley Performing Arts Director Garry Forrester said that without plenty of fresh blood onstage, the organization might not have survived this long.

Think new faces, not gore.

The nonprofit organization’s 40^th season starts Friday, Sept. 11 with a Robert Johanson adaptation of Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre,” directed by Mariah Schachle. In the summer of 1976, it was “The Plays At Pooh Corner” and “Harvey” that put VPA in the spotlight for the first time.

Many thespians, directors and crewmembers have come and gone between those plays — some sticking around longer than others, like longtime director Grant Olson — but that’s healthy for community theater, Forrester said.

“If we didn’t rely on new people, we might have only survived 10 or 15 years,” he said.

In last season’s “South Pacific,” one of the largest musical undertakings by VPA, Forrester said, more than 80 percent of the cast was new to either the Wasilla theater or had never graced any stage prior to auditions for the show. Some were doctors, some stay-at-home mothers, others teachers and students.

“We attract people from all walks of life,” Forrester said.

And eventually, most of them find lifelong friends, no matter their background.

“The more you are involved with VPA, the wider your circle of friends,” Forrester said.

Meet the players

Marcia Beck, who will be directing the Christmas play “Fruitcakes” by Julian Wiles this season, came to the Valley about five years ago with six years of high school teaching and directing experience at Glennallen High School. She also took years of college theater classes, but it was her elementary-age kids and their new friends, Wasilla residents Dan and Janet Kennedy, that got her into VPA.

“Valley Performing Arts is a wonderful place to spend time with your family,” Beck said. “Everyone can be involved with it whether onstage or behind the scenes.”

And while youth can easily be recognized in the community by their involvement in school sports, community theater also provides a spotlight for local students. VPA’s summer theater camp for young thespians has been an especially popular way of engaging students in the art early.

“It’s another way to let your children shine, and I think that's really important,” Beck said.

Of course, the adults need time to shine, too.

Dave Nufer, who retired after 21 years as principal at Finger Lake Elementary School this past spring, let life get in the way of his theatrical desires for a while, but quickly found a home at VPA. After debuting in “Beauty and the Beast” in 2007, Nufer was hooked, and continued to perform and eventually direct VPA plays. He is now the artistic director for the organization.

In 2013, Nufer directed self-proclaimed computer geek Todd Broste in Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Nile.” Broste said he first got bit by the theater bug in 2011, when he was cast in the Valley’s own “Bad Boys Gone Gray,” written by Rachel Underwood, KerryAnn Byrd and Judy Dossett.

“It’s become my primary hobby,” Broste said, of participating in theater productions.

He, like Beck, also was inspired by his daughter and her friends to act onstage, and will be directing his first play, “Bell, Book and Candle” by John Van Druten, for this season’s Halloween show. Although Broste is “a bit trepidatious” about taking on a play from such a different perspective, he said, he’s excited about the cast.

“The actors I’ve chosen have really come into their characters,” he said.

Katy Schmidt, a 2009 Colony High School graduate who now lives and worked in Anchorage, played Dorothy in VPA’s “Wizard of Oz” in 2012 after an extensive high school theater career.

“It was a lot more involved,” Schmidt said, of the community play. “(Oz) was like a full time job, but it was so fun.”

Although the musical was the only show she participated in at VPA, Schmidt well remembered key members like Nufer, Forrester, Broste and founding VPA member Larry Bottjen.

“They just do it because they love it,” she said. “I think when you see VPA plays, you feel that. It makes you wanna be involved.”

That goes for Anchorage residents as well.

“I see more posters for VPA plays in Anchorage than Anchorage plays,” she said.

A little history

On average, VPA sees 400 to 500 volunteers (including casts, crew, directors and administrators) and up to 30 designers and 700 costumes over 80 shows per season. That may sound like there’s room for people to fall through the cracks, but Schmidt, Broste, Nufer, Beck and Forrester all testified to the contrary.

One of the aspects of VPA that has appealed to newcomers and regular show-goers alike over the years, Forrester said, is the emotional and physical intimacy of small, community theater.

In the ’70s, for example, winter shows were BYOB — bring your own blanket — and attendees would need to cozy up with their neighbors to stay warm. The device they had to heat the old church building VPA used at the time (now the wine barn at the Alaska State Fair) was so loud it couldn’t be turned on during the shows, Forrester said, and it would blow off a man’s hat if he was sitting too close to the vents.

Now, at its current Swanson Avenue location — which no longer resembles its humble beginnings as a pole barn/mechanic shop — theater enthusiasts need not huddle for warmth, but must sit shoulder to shoulder to accommodate a full house.

“A large number of our shows are sellouts, and we don’t like to turn people away,” Forrester said.

But sometimes they’ve had to, with all 172 seats filled. That’s why he and the VPA Board of Directors have been looking at a new and improved venue.

The next step

Last year VPA had looked at purchasing the old Mat-Su Cinema on Old Matanuska Road at the other end of Wasilla, but it’s become clear that “the funds just aren’t there,” Forrester said.

“A lot of organizations are competing for the same dollars,” he said, and “crisis issues” like food and shelter for the underprivileged “take a priority.”

So now it’s either a renovation of the current building, or a design for a whole new facility onsite, with about twice as many seats. Renting the Glenn Massay Theater for shows isn’t really an option, Forrester said, because VPA needs 24/7 access for rehearsals, staging and performances for the regular season and summer youth camps. (The Massay can’t offer such free reign to an organization because it is a school facility used regularly for graduations, guest lectures, band concerts and various other performances.)

“We never go dark,” Forrester said.

It will most likely be another eight to 12 months, he said, before VPA moves beyond the pre-development stage of their new or improved theater with the Foraker Group.

Meanwhile, the current VPA building got a facelift last week with a new paint job — something that had been at least several years overdue, Forrester said.

Whatever the future of the performing arts in the Valley, Broste said, VPA has proven itself worthy of investment.

“(VPA) has shown that whatever they have they can work within their means and keep increasing the revenue stream,” he said. “They’ve already proven they can do good business. Having bigger and better tools just means they can do more.”

For more information on Valley Performing Arts and its 40^th season, visit valleyperformingarts.org, or call 373-0195.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.