On Friday, March 25 at 7 p.m., nine of NOVA’s top singing sensations will battle for the title of this year’s NOVA Idol. The college finalists are Erika Anderson, John Ashburn, Martina Green, Lyndsi Hicks, Kelley Kime, Elaine Lopez, Laura Manzer, Lauren McLeod and Edwin Thorpe. And from various high schools in the region, CJ Marble, Devyn Metz, Padideh Guodarzi Nejad and Joao Versos will be competing for a prize of $1,000.

The iconic play, “A Streetcar Named Desire” comes to life at the Waddell Theater through thefinal weekend of February, presented by Taking Flight Theatre Company. The demanding, emotional play fares well on the stage, breathing an honest, raw air into the gritty play set in the 1940s.

“A Streetcar Named Desire” follows Blanche DuBois, a fading southern beauty, who comes for an extended stay with her sister Stella and Stella’s husband Stanley Kowalski. Blanche works to keep hidden her real reasons for visiting, and her secrecy begins to wreak havoc on Stella and Stanley’s relationship, as Stella often finds herself defending her sister to her husband. As Blanche tries to find her place into the industrial, blue collar New Orleans, her world as she knows it begins to crumble.

A retelling of the classic Shakespearean story of Romeo and Juliet, Gnomeo and Juliet takes the tail of the feuding Capulets and Montagues into the back yard and recasts the principal characters as an assortment of ceramic garden gnomes. Much like Toy Story, the gnomes appear to be simple inanimate objects when viewed by humans, but when the humans are gone, they come to life and attend to their respective gardens.

In 2001, MAGFest was billed as primarily a music-centric convention intended to promote smalltime bands and, hopefully, breakouts. In recent years, the focus has changed in encompass entertainment in general, with a variety of panels and topics ranging from music genres to collecting and trading comics to the history of video games.

If you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah or just about any other national holiday in the month of December, chances are that you’ve got a wallet stuffed with gift cards. They’re as useful as currency, but unfortunately consumers tend not to spend them as carefully as their own cash, sometimes missing out on good deals or forgetting about the gift cards entirely in all the hustle and bustle life can bring. This article is aimed to help all of you post-holiday shoppers get the most bang for your gift card buck and ring in the new year with high style.

For those who are unaware of what NOVA Idol is all about, the answer is in the name. NOVA Idol is like the TV show “American Idol” in that the singers compete against each other for cash prizes and a bit of localized fame. The fame and fortune in winning either the first, second or the third-place spot in NOVA Idol are, of course, to a lesser degree than one would achieve in winning “American Idol,” but it’s still well worth the effort to win.

Each year for the past three years, NOVA has teamed up with Home Instead Senior Care to bring warmth and joy to financially challenged and lonely seniors in the Prince William County area. Students, faculty and staff participate by stopping by the Christmas tree at the Howsman Building or the wreath at Innovation Park at the Manassas campus, picking up an ornament with a preferred gift listed by a senior, purchase the gift, and then returning it to the Provost’s office of the campus.

As a writer, I enjoy many forms of written expression including poetry, essays and obviously journalism. They each bring me a level of satisfaction, a feeling of a job well done and sometimes the delight in creating something of which I am truly proud. However, one form of expression gives me such a feeling of excitement, pride and creative satisfaction that participating in it is a joy to rival all others, and that is singing with the NOVA Community Chorus.