Venice Performing Arts Center — Attraction in Venice

"FORBIDDEN BROADWAY" is about the funniest play I ever saw!!! Genius parody of most Broadway shows and tunes that we are all familiar with and the cast did such an amazing job with each one!

Gina Kreiezmar, Jeanne Montano, Kevin B. McGlynn and William Selby each deserve a Tony for their wonderful performances. Their vocal ranges are absolutely amazing!!! I cannot praise them enough.

Towards the end of the show, Gina appears as Liza Minelli, looking and sounding so much like her (except maybe even better!) and because I was sitting in the first row she climbed down and asked what my name was. I promptly replied it was Mama Mia and pointed to the name on my sweater. She laughed and turned to the audience, but then when I told her all of my 11 given names, she as well as the whole audience was just stunned. It was a real riot, it certainly made my day, I can't remember having this much fun at any show!!

After the show some patrons asked me if I was a plant and I said no, and that they could research my names and the rest of my story in the book I wrote called "MY LIFE WITH PAPA". some did say they would check it out. What fun !!!

HIGHLY RECOMMEND...

Just experienced a performance of the Venice High School Jazz Bands One, Combo and JV! These young people are simply incredible! They played lots of standards with many in song solos that would equal many professional musicians. They even have a young female vocalist that really torched up the place with a series of Holiday arrangements, she was fantastic. This performance was so great it made you forget you were watching High School students. The other thing that was so wonderful was the concert that ran about two hours was FREE! They did have donation jars at all the entrances and I hope they were stuffed full of cash because these young artists deserve it. These VPAC performances are such a special thing to have in our community and I am so happy to now know about this incredible art that is part of the community. I am really looking forward to the Glen Miller Band performance...

Very disappointing evening. The Manilow tribute performer was mediocre but so much worse was the production. The soundboard guys must have been asleep at the controls as the bass guitar was thunderously loud the entire evening to a point where it overwhelmed the music. You could feel the thumping compressions in the seats.

There was no spotlight to feature the performer. As he moved from center stage he disappeared into darkness, you could not see him at all..... including time spent seated at the piano keyboard.

The LED light show dancing on the rear curtain was invasive and distracting, not at all in keeping with the performer's music.

Based on the pre-show hype of upcoming events I was interested in attending two future shows but no way will I consider returning to the Venice Performing Arts Center given the...