AMHERST — Valley Players is a new kind of theater group with no formal home and a strong drive to bring theater to the entire community.
“Our goal is to make not just community theater, but theater centered on community. To that end, our productions will aim to be nimble, meaningful, and accessible,” explained Matteo Pangallo, president of Valley Players. “Our present aim is not to create a theater space but to fill spaces with theater. Nimble theater reaches into the community, bringing plays to the audience. It builds relationships with venues, traditional and nontraditional, and explores the unbounded creative potential in the unexpected places all around us.”
Valley Players aims to put on community theater that contributes to, builds and transforms the community through its productions. A portion of ticket sales will be donated to a non-profit organization or charity serving people of the valley.
“The Valley Players want to make meaningful theater in both senses: by staging plays of consequence and by being consequential for the communities where we stage those plays,” explained Pangallo. “To that end, Valley Players is entirely volunteer-based, so anyone can get involved. Our auditions are open auditions — no prior experience or commitment is necessary. We have no membership dues. Our programming will strive to be diverse, appealing to the many different communities who call the valley home.”
To ensure the accessibility of the programs, tickets for its first play will be a pay-what-what-you-can system and Valley Players will put on free events throughout the year.
The first play for Valley Players will be an October production of “Constellations,” a “spellbinding romantic journey that begins with a simple encounter at a barbecue between a physicist and a beekeeper but then defies the boundaries of the universe we think we know by delving into the infinite possibilities of their connection,” explained Pangallo.
“We wanted to start with a play that is a proven hit and that has shown itself to be moving, meaningful, and compelling,” added Pangallo. “[The] play centers around a simple but profoundly thoughtful concept that touches on many of the core elements of good drama: how relationships work or don’t work, how the stories we tell each other and ourselves unfold in often unexpected ways, of how the language we use — down to individual words — truly matters.”
As a shorter play, with no real set or lighting needs, the play is easy to put on in virtually any setting and cost-effective, both of which work well for a new theater group. Because one of the characters receives a cancer diagnosis, Cancer Connection will receive 50% of the net ticket revenue.
Auditions will take place Monday, Aug. 12 and Tuesday, Aug. 13, from 6-9 p.m., at the Munson Memorial Library in Amherst. Audition slots must be booked in advance at www.valleyplayers.org. No preparation or prior performance experience is required. All auditioners will read excerpts from the script. Though the play is written with two characters, the Valley Players production is looking to cast eight actors, four in each role.
Although the process of choosing a play is relatively simple, it does require looking at several different items. The organization’s goal is to gather ideas and then look at factors like what space would work, the scheduling and technical demands, who the audience would be, who might want to be in the play and potential funding.
Valley Players came about when Pangallo felt the urge to get back into theater after taking several years off. He had been involved with theater as a child and even founded another theater group in his hometown of Salem.
“After that, my wife and I moved to the valley so I could attend graduate school and I became active in local theater here as well. With the start of my career as an academic, I took a break from theater for several years, but in 2021 I felt the hunger again to get back into the game and so I floated the idea for the Valley Players to some other theater folks I knew in the area,” recalled Pangallo. “After the delay of the pandemic, we finally held an initial community meeting in November 2023 and incorporated in January of this year.”
Valley Players kicked off with Sceneathon in April, a cabaret-style event featuring 30 local actors putting on 19 scenes and speeches. The group followed this up with Bard in the Bar, an unrehearsed, script-in-hand reading of “Much Ado About Nothing.”
“The Valley Players is an entirely volunteer-run nonprofit group that relies on the contributions of donors and business sponsors. Without their generous support, none of what we seek to do is possible,” said Pangallo. “All contributions are tax-deductible and go fully and only to support the Valley Players’ mission and programming. If anyone wants to get involved in any capacity — as an actor, a member of the production team, a house volunteer, a donor or sponsor, or an audience member — they can always reach out to me by emailing info@valleyplayers.org.”
