Letter: Riverside Center for the Performing Arts is a local gem
Riverside Center is a local gem.
Just over the river in Stafford, within sight of Interstate 95 in a quiet business park, musical theater to rival the best in the country is on stage five days a week at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts. The sparkling show “Bright Star” recently took audiences on a rail journey through time to Asheville, N.C., while telling a nostalgic love story and resolving a cruel mystery.
Live bluegrass music, a puzzlebox set and brilliantly creative lighting evoked summer nights of starlight and fireflies in seemingly simpler times. Humor and insight, exuberance and anguish turned about again and again as the story unfolded, with dancing and song to inform and entertain.
Adrienne Hick as Alice Murphy was a dramatic force with pipes of gold, and the rest of the cast buoyed her to fantastic heights. I could go on with great enthusiasm for this particular production and Riverside Center’s value to the Fredericksburg area as a dinner theater, but will cite instead the “2019 Broadway World Theater of the Year” as awarded for Central Virginia.
“Bright Star” closed Oct. 31, but is being followed by “Meet Me in St. Louis” for the holidays. Support the local lively arts!
Nancy Huffine
Goldvein
