I recently spoke with Kathy McKean – the Managing Director of the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts. MIFA owns and is renovating the Victory Theatre in Holyoke, MA. 

1. What is MIFA?

“MIFA is a Holyoke based International Festival that brings world-class events to Holyoke and the Pioneer Valley. MIFA’s 2011 Season included Hal Holbrook in ‘Mark Twain Tonight’ and Silent Film Night The Last Command. Other presentations in Holyoke have been Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’, contemporary Irish Dance in ‘Irish Cream’, Eddie Palmieri in Concert, a series of French Dance, Enchanted Circle Theatre in ‘Sojourners Truth’ and Mikhail Baryshnikov 2004 World Tour. MIFA is a vehicle for community restoration and historic and architectural preservation and is renovating and reopening the historic Victory Theatre, a 1600 hundred-seat Broadway style theater in downtown Holyoke. The iconic theater will be returned to its original use as a live theater house for Holyoke, the Valley and the Northeast.”

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