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Reviews
HAVE YOU SEEN MY WIFE?
Written by Amy Brousta
Testimonial by Kim Plumridge, Casting Director and Acting Coach for Have You Seen My Wife? Film
October 2009
I had the pleasure of working with Valerie David when I cast her as "MC Samantha" - the host of a dance contest in the independent short film "Have You Seen My Wife?" Valerie was a dream to work with - a consummate professional and a real team player. She made MC Samantha a truly defined, very interesting and real person. And she was terrific at the shoot. Her positive attitude and warm and upbeat spirit made the whole day easier for everyone. She even got on stage and entertained the extras while the director shot them...she sang, did a mock striptease and told some jokes! And she wasn't even on camera!! As a result, the director got some wonderfully real reaction footage from the extras. Valerie David is an amazingly talented and generous actress... a real gem...
NATIONAL TREASURE
Written by Jon Spano
November 2007
Review by tmarc123 of The New York Times
National Treasure was the most surprising, thought-provoking piece of evening with exceptional performances by funny Valerie David (in the role of Melissa) and somber Marc Garber (in the role of Barry). Two characters meet at memorial tribute to legendary Broadway actress. At-odds characters are unified by mysterious odor and play shifts exquisitely from comedy to drama, revealing secrets, impossibility of reconciliation, and dissolution of idols. Inconclusive powerful ending.
Review by Byrne Harrison of OOBR.com
National Treasure by Jon Spano is an interesting study in celebrity, as two strangers meet at the memorial service of a legendary Broadway actress. Melissa (Valerie David), a rabid fan, believes her idol could do no wrong. Both David and Garber do excellent jobs with their characters. David is great as the type of motor mouth that one wants to avoid sitting next to at the theatre, or God forbid on a plane, but it is at the end of the play that she shines, as Melissa is forced to choose between comforting Barry and honoring her idol.
Review by Duncan Pflaster of Broadwayworld.com
National Treasure concerns two strangers who meet in a Broadway theater for a memorial for great stage actress Lydia North. Melissa (a funny Valerie David) is excited and wants to chat, while Barry (the deadpan Marc Garber) isn't feeling so well and wants her to shut up. It's a fascinating and moving play. Garber and David are perfection in their roles.
Review by Amy Lerner of nytheatre.com.
National Treasure, a play by Jon Spano that takes place at a memorial service. It begins as a comedy with Valerie David in a hilarious turn as a gregarious stranger.
Review by Barry Liebman of HI! DRAMA
With the Emerging Artists EATfest, the bar was raised quite high quality-wise. All were entertaining and definitely watchable, thanks to a uniformly fine cast. Especially noteworthy was Valerie David, as a motor mouth theatergoer.
TWO-MUR HUMOR: HE’S MALIGNANT; SHE’S BENIGN
Written and performed by Valerie David and Jim Tooey
Reviewed by Andrew Rothkin of "Hi! Drama"
December 2006
Two-mur Humor: He's Malignant, She's Benign was recently staged as a reading by The Tumor Humor Fund at Chelsea Studios. Jim Tooey and Valerie David wrote the dramedy, loosely based upon their own experiences of surviving a brain tumor and cancer. The piece is hilarious and inspiring!
They also shined as actors, playing their central roles, Lisa and Paul, as real, layered people. Ms. David made the most out of her every character, making the audience belly-laugh one moment, then get misty-eyed the next. The charismatic actress was a joy to watch.
RUMORS
Review of "Rumors" by Charlie Cox of the "Advocate-Messenger" newspaper in Danville, Kentucky June 2006
Standing out in the cast , which I must point out is a huge feat, is Valerie David as the back spasm-prone Cookie. David is uniquely tenacious in her performance, and is truly talented as a physical comedian. She's charming, while being completely ludicrous. Now there's a tricky combination.
RUMORS is a comedic farce written by Neil Simon and was performed at the Pioneer Playhouse.
BLOWN SIDEWAYS THROUGH LIFE
Review by Harlan Berger of the "The Express" newspaper in Pennsylvania
August 2005
Valerie David delivers in the one-woman show Blown Sideways Through Life at the Millbrook Playhouse. I loved her stereotypical picture of a nutty, obsessed painter. She mimics his scatological reply [to her] beautifully. Laughs are plentiful. [Valerie] David carries off Shear's brash New York persona quite well. Blown Sideways Through Life is the final show of Millbrook's season, and it's a bell ringer.
BLOWN SIDEWAYS THROUGH LIFE at Millbrook Playhouse, a one-woman show written by Claudia Shear
ASTEROID BELT
offoffonline.com review
April 2005
In Asteroid Belt, Carly, a young college student on her way home from a play rehearsal, realizes in the play's opening minutes that she is about to die in a car accident. In that moment, she attempts to logically reflect on the illogical elements that placed her in such danger. In doing so, she also tries to connect with her parents by following them in spirit through the routine of worrying about the late-night whereabouts of their child.
Writer Lauren Feldman creates impressively touching characters with her simple use of detail. Carly's father, Jay (Sam Sagenkahn), tries to distract his anxious wife, Sue (Valerie David), by poking fun at her dislike of Mary Higgins Clark. And Carly reflects that she is ill equipped to handle her accident because she was "never good at spontaneity.” Directed by Caden Hethorn, these characters all come to life with warmth and realism.
nytheatre.com review
David Pumo - April 3, 2005
Asteroid Belt, by Lauren Feldman, is both fascinating and disturbing. A college girl is late coming home. As her parents worry about where she might be, she is somehow there in the room with them, unseen, describing the horrible car accident that is happening to her, and that she is unable to stop. It’s an interesting and original idea, well carried out by the writer. The audience is kept on edge from beginning to end.
Women and Men - Four One-Acts
Review by Andrés J. Wrath
Racing to the Bottom was the strongest piece in the evening, although it seems less about women and men and more about economics, power, and responsibility. Its view and scope are greater than a mere relationship play. In it, writer Jeff Love presents three sides of the economic scale: a factory owner and his secretary, an unemployed man with an ailing mom with no health insurance, and a factory worker and her father. The writing is uncompromised, terse, and urgent. Love is masterful with dialogue and the juxtaposing of scenes. Never does he try to explain or offer anything but a shell of the existence of three very different sets of people interacting and behaving. The three groups were played with skill and verve by the excellent Love and a luminous Valerie David.
VALERIE DAVID is an American actress and singer with experience on stage and screen, including Off-Broadway, commercials, films, improv/sketch comedy and even guest-hosting a food TV show. Her special skills include acting, improv, singing, comedy writing, playwrighting, marathon cycling, dialects and Afro-Caribbean dancing.
Valerie also performs at special events. This includes singing the national anthem at the annual Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Light the Night Fund-raising Walks in Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island and at the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life Fund-raiser.