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a 5 time Billboard Magazine Award winner, is perhaps best known for her unprecedented success holding the #1 position in the New York radio market as the midday host of New York’s 106.7 FM. She was also the co-creator, writer, producer and host of 'Spotlight On,' a nationally syndicated program that featured in-depth interviews with top recording artists such as Paul McCartney, Elton John, Sting and Celine Dion, to name a few.
Presently, Valerie can be heard on her new daily radio show, Valerie’s New York on WOR.710.com. She is also the voice of numerous commercials and television promos. She has been the “Voice of God” for many prestigious live events including: The Clinton Global Initiative, The New York Emmy Awards, The Tony Preview Concert on CBS, and many more. She writes a weekly nightlife column for TheThreeTomatoes.com and writes a theater column for Examiner.com.
As adjunct professor at the School of Visual Arts, Valerie teaches a course on Internet Radio and Voice-over, coaches talent privately, and produces promo reels and demo tapes for various clients.
An actress and writer, she has appeared in numerous off -Broadway productions and co-wrote a play with music entitled, "Spit it Out!"
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Wit on Broadway.
The title of the play that the Manhattan Theatre Club is currently offering at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre is Wit, and despite the heavy subject matter (a solitary, learned scholar of poetry who is told she has late stage ovarian cancer and agrees to aggressive treatments by the medical establishment), plenty of wit is, in fact, displayed.
Cynthia Nixon plays the unfortunate Dr. Vivian Bearing, who exhibits great strength, black humor and finally, personal illumination as she battles the devastating effects of chemotherapy and a virulent advanced cancer on her increasingly frail body. Struck by the irony of creating bonds and relationships in the final stages of her life, Dr. Bearing is able to realize that that pursuit can be fruitful and even fun.
As an expert on the works of John Donne, the themes of her precarious existence are juxtaposed against the writings of the 17th century metaphysical poet, creating insightful musings on the part of the professor. Ms. Nixon tackles this role very well, as she does display a quirky wit herself. All of the additional performers in the cast are very convincing as medical personnel and people from her academic life.
One of the themes also integral to the plot is the often trivial and possibly silly way the medical field treats patients, under the guise of preserving life at all costs for mainly research driven purposes.
We know from the start that the play will not have a happy ending. Or does it? One would argue that the inevitable death of this tortured body does bring forth freedom and that the excruciating suffering of the patient, is finally relieved.
Credit: Joan Marcus
In a talkback after the show, one of the actresses in the play astutely explained that upon hearing the dialogue, performance after performance, it has prompted her to examine her feelings about death, and in the process,
how she might live and leave her life. (The topic of whether or not to agree to a DNR is brought up during the play, and Dr. Bearing agrees that it is a good idea.)
Wit, written by Margaret Edson, (this is her first and only play to date), does bring all these issues to light, and certainly tests how we feel about illness, medical intervention, death, and relationships.
If you have personally dealt with anyone facing a terminal illness, this play may be difficult to take, or, conversely, may provide a tremendous catharsis.
Wit runs through March 11, 2012
