One of the biggest holidays at the Niswonger Performing Arts Center is coming this week!\u00a0 This Thursday, July 7, is the beginning of the Select Series sales.<\/p>\n
Over the past several years, this day has become a much-anticipated one for many patrons of the Niswonger.\u00a0 Doors to the Grand Lobby and sales of Select Series will begin at noon on Thursday.\u00a0 Those attending in person will be given a number and served in the order of their appearance.<\/p>\n
We enjoy seeing so many of our friends on this day.\u00a0 We open up extra stations, as many as our server will allow, serving each patron as quickly and efficiently as possible.\u00a0We will be showing a promotional video in the First Federal Lecture Hall, where people can sit, relax, view the video, and ask questions.\u00a0I always enjoy watching patrons talk with each other about what choices they intend to make.\u00a0By the way, refreshments are always available while you wait.<\/p>\n
This year, there are 25 events to choose from.\u00a0The gala concert featuring Bernadette Peters with the Boston Pops Orchestra on April 1 will become available to the open public beginning January 4.\u00a0There are ways to purchase gala tickets earlier by buying a membership or Grand Series.\u00a0Feel free to ask the box office about this.<\/p>\n
The 2016-17 Niswonger season is filled with such variety of options once again.\u00a0Some of the big name concerts will likely be very popular during Select Series time, but allow me to say a word about a select few events that might not be as well known.\u00a0Vocalosity on October 22 will be an exciting show of young a cappella<\/em> voices put together by Deke Sharon, the creative mind who produced \u201cThe Sing-Off\u201d and \u201cPitch Perfect\u201d for TV.\u00a0He personally auditioned and selected over a dozen male and female voices for this touring show, which took off last year primarily on college campuses throughout the country. I understand they even do a little barbershop music and have been written up in national barbershop publications.<\/p>\n Another show that could fly under your radar screen may be Artrageous.\u00a0This is a very unique and highly entertaining show of music and visual art.\u00a0We are proud to be working alongside Wassenberg Art Center to bring this to you.\u00a0Live musicians will perform music the likes of Frank Sinatra, the Beatles, Ray Charles, and others while artists will be on stage painting portraits of the musician whose music they are performing.\u00a0 It looked so cool I just had to bring it to Van Wert for you to experience.<\/p>\n One last show I will mention is \u201cBroadway & Beyond\u201d, which can be purchased as part of the Community Concert Series (a great bargain) or independently.\u00a0This is a show I have helped create with two performing artist friends of mine.\u00a0J. Mark McVey, who appeared with Signature Sound on our stage back in 2014 with the \u201cInspiration of Broadway\u201d, will now join forces with the Heartland Singers of Fort Wayne to perform a newly created show: \u201cBroadway & Beyond\u201d.<\/p>\n We have had discussion of the content and I believe it will be a tremendously enjoyable evening of beautiful music on March 18.\u00a0J. Mark McVey is a seasoned Broadway veteran, having performed the role of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables<\/em> 3,268 times.\u00a0Included in those performances were London\u2019s West End — the first American singer to sing that role in London — and with the Los Angeles Philharmonic to a sold-out Hollywood Bowl performance.\u00a0 He was also featured in the 25th anniversary tour of Les Mis<\/em>.<\/p>\n He will join his voice with the Heartland Singers and instrumentalists under the direction of Maestro Robert Nance to create a memorable night at the Niswonger.\u00a0We are hopeful this will launch the show nationally, with the premier, of course, at the Niswonger.<\/p>\n A couple updates on other coming Niswonger attractions that made news recently: Mutts Gone Nuts, which will be here on April 30, was recently on ABC\u2019s \u201cThe View\u201d.\u00a0I also heard that REO Speedwagon, which will appear the day before on April 29, just sang the \u201cNational Anthem\u201d on July 4 for the Chicago White Sox-New York Yankees game.\u00a0Just thought you would like to know!<\/p>\n This Friday night, a combined concert with the Van Wert Area Community Concert Band and the St. Marys Area Community Band will be featured in Fountain Park.\u00a0I hope you can attend this first-ever event as these two bands will entertain individually, as well as combined with exciting band music selected especially for you.<\/p>\n Directors Richard Sherrick and Dane Newlove hope to welcome a big crowd to Fountain Park this Friday night at 7 p.m.\u00a0 And bring your appetites, as food will be available in the Rotary concession booth.<\/p>\n FIN\u00c9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the biggest holidays at the Niswonger Performing Arts Center is coming this week!\u00a0 This Thursday, July 7, is the beginning of the Select Series sales. Over the past several years, this day has become a much-anticipated one for many patrons of the Niswonger.\u00a0 Doors to the Grand Lobby and sales of Select Series […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-02 17:11:15","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}