One-Woman Show

On Thursday, April 17, Val Gray Ward came to CSU Chico to perform her One-Woman Show in the Humanities Center Gallery.

           Val Gray Ward is an actress, singer, producer, director and cultural activist from Syracuse, New York.  She has been traveling around the U.S. performing her One-Woman Show where she performs, sings, and reads poetry.   

            The first thing I noticed about Val was how vibrant and full of energy she was.  She started off with a sermon-like introduction where she got the audience to join in by having us start snapping our fingers to make the background music and every once in a while had everyone shout out “Amen!”.  Throughout her performance, Val would tell us a little about her life and what she has accomplished, which has been so much.  I liked that a lot, because instead of just listening to poetry and songs read by someone behind a lectern, Val would tell us about some of the people she has met and worked with and about some of the activities she has been involved in.  There is never enough time to hear everything, but I think the audience really got a feel for who she was by listening to the stories and the background of the poems she was reading. 

            Some of the poems she read were Aunt Sue’s Story and I Dream a World by Langston Hughes and Weary Blues by James Weldon Johnson.  She also performed a very moving narrative of Harriet Tubman that really was amazing, a narrative/poem about a little girl from Birmingham, and a comedic poem titled Sylvester’s Dying Bed.

            I have never been introduced to poetry outside of English class in high school, so I don’t know too much about it at all.  But the emotion, passion, and energy that Val had while performing these pieces was amazing.  You could really tell that it was something that she truly loved by the way she spoke and acted, and it showed throughout her entire performance.  And like I said before, I’m not too involved in poetry but if Val comes back to Chico I will definitely be there to see her again and would encourage anyone that is interested to see her too.