VPA conflict an opportunity to move forward

Valley residents are blessed with a multitude of year-round recreation and entertainment options. So it is testimony to the quality of work done at Valley Performing Arts that the theater company has grown with the community it serves and is now in its 30th season of producing top-notch theater.

Longtime subscribers and occasional theater-goers alike are equally inclined to see a familiar face on stage, or a familiar name in the playbill, of any given production. That familiarity is a drawing card. It underscores the sense of community, of family, that VPA has come to mean to folks who call the Valley home.

It is with some concern, then, that we watch an internal conflict - a family squabble of sorts - over an upcoming play escalate into a public battle that threatens to divide the theater's board and alienate some of VPA's most ardent and enduring artistic contributors. A scheduled production in March of David Auburn's Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning play &#8220Proof” is now in jeopardy because of what some board members consider objectionable language.

They have requested that director Dean Phipps, a longtime VPA mainstay and one of the group's most consistently visionary members, modify the script to soften the dialogue. Phipps has declined.

As practitioners of a vocation that relies on the First Amendment, we are naturally repelled by the spectre of censorship. But we also are sensitive, as the VPA board seems to be, to the values of our respective audiences.

That said, a steady diet of journalistic Pablum is no better for our readers than all Rodgers and Hammerstein, all the time, would be for theater-goers. We are constantly cognizant of the need to reflect the values of our community, while also informing, entertaining and even challenging readers.

It is a tightrope we walk every day, and there's no shortage of guesswork and experimentation in finding the right balance. Practitioners of community theater need to find the right balance, too.

Clearly, the VPA board could have avoided the present flap by simply knowing the material it was sanctioning last year when it chose the lineup for the current season. Instead, board members find themselves in the middle of a conflict.

Conflict has always been the essence of drama. It is the element threaded through a dramatic work that moves it from the first act to the climax and the eventual resolution.

The VPA board meets today at 2 p.m. to work out its own conflict. It is our hope that all involved will put aside personal issues and work toward a resolution that not only eyes the future, but also honors the work of all who have been a part of building a foundation of excellence at Valley Performing Arts.