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It's not too often that we in the Capital Region have the opportunity to be the first public eyes and ears to a world-premier theatrical production. Add to the…

Playwright Heidi Schreck has written a provocative, mind-stretching examination of self through the lens of the US Constitution. The Pulitzer Prize finalist…

Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical, with book by Dennis Kelly and music and lyrics by Tim Minchin, premiered at Stratford-upon-Avon, England, in 2010 and on…

 The Marvelous Wonderettes, another jukebox musical, rounds out a near-perfect season at Mac-Haydn Theatre. Set in the gymnasium of Springfield High School,…

I do not profess, by any stretch of the imagination, to be an expert on classical music. I probably couldn't differentiate Beethoven from Chopin or Mozart.  I…

It can be very exciting when a theatre company reaches out beyond the comfort zone of not only the company but their audience as well. The results may be…

As the season winds to a close at Chatham's Mac-Haydn Theatre, it has become something of a tradition that they bring out the best of their summer casts to…

Mac-Haydn stalwarts lit up the stage with a wonderful, but all-too-short tribute to Stephen Sondheim. The cast of six Mac vets spend the evening paying tribute…

Barrington Stage's newest production is a somewhat lighter reimagining of what has become a theatrical classic. A New Brain, by William Finn, who wrote the…

At last, Mac-Haydn Theatre is presenting the show that their audiences have requested more than any other: "Jersey Boys." For those not in the know, "Jersey…

It always rather amazes that something written for the stage approximately 140 years ago still has legs in today's theatrical world. That is the case, though,…

The Capital Region has certainly been alive with the sounds of the American Songbook this past week. From Saratoga to Chatham, audiences have been treated to…

I am not often called upon to review music of a classical nature or any music performance, for that matter. I was, at best, a bit apprehensive about the…

Have you ever noticed what happens when you ask three or four people to explain an incident they have just witnessed? Often, their individual recollections…

Godspell, a collection of parables primarily based on the Gospel of Matthew, is not your parent's New Testament. As a matter of fact, the Godspell currently…

I am often conflicted as to how to treat theatrical productions that are student productions. Do you say nice, encouraging things not to discourage the…

The Savannah has once again planted itself firmly on the stage and somewhat in the audience at Proctors. Grasses blow lazily in the hot African sun, animals…

Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music is about as transfixed in the minds of theater and moviegoers as you can get. The somewhat fictionalized story…

Popcorn Falls, a small American town whose one claim to fame is the waterfall for whom it is named has dried up. The town is bankrupt. Its only chance for…

TheRep has put together a joyous summer hit with Honky Tonk Angels. Ted Swindley's jukebox show is an homage to country music and, in particular, the women of…

Shear Madness has returned to its roots, so to speak. The show was co-written by area thespians Brian Jordan and Marilyn Abrams as a performance vehicle for…

Footloose is back! This time, it's dancing its way into our hearts at the Mac-Haydn Theatre in Chatham. If you follow any of what I write online here, you…

A Bard of some note once said all the world's a stage. After seeing the hilarious production of Something Rotten on the Playhouse Stage in Washington Park, you…

Theater, by its very nature, is a collaborative event. The playwright, director, actors, technical crew, and, of course, the audience all come together to…

What happens when you get four of the greatest, and soon-to-be-greatest, stars in the history of Rockabilly, Rock and Roll, and Country Music together for a…

Imagine living in a town where dancing is against the law. Imagine it's the late 1980s-1990s, and the senior class of Bomont High wants upset that apple cart…

Originally produced in 1980, 42nd Street, the smash Broadway hit, is a play within a play.  The story of chorus girl Peggy Sawyer who lands her first Broadway…

Berlin, just before The War. The Kit Kat Club is a seedy nightclub that is the setting for all types of debauchery: sexual experimentation, ambiguity,…

Harbinger Theatre starts its summer season with Stephen Adly Guirgis' Capital Region premiere of  The Motherf**cker With The Hat—an attention-getting title and…

The play begins in silence. Nancy is preparing dinner for her husband, Bill, and herself. He sets the table; she resets the table. Their actions are…

Barrington Stage Co, under the leadership of Artistic Director Alan Paul, has begun his freshman year at the helm and the 2023 season opener with the world…

The jukebox musical has become a mainstay on the Broadway stage over the past ten or so years. We have witnessed shows that deal with the history of Cher,…

Do we really ever know what goes on behind the closed doors of even our closest friends? Outward appearances can be very deceiving. We do, after all, live to a…

It Shoulda Been You, currently at SLOC, with book and lyrics by Brian Hargrove and music and concept by Barbara Anselmi, presents an interesting dilemma. It is…

TheREP's A Midsummer Night's Dream is a perfect night of fun, laughter and frivolity. Whoever says Shakespeare is hard to follow, high brow, or just plain over…

What happens when you combine a very funny play, an excellent cast, superb direction, a great set, and a trip back to the 1970s that every person of a certain…

Based on the 1982 Dustin Hoffman film, Tootsie follows 40-year-old Michael Dorsey an arrogant opinionated obnoxious actor who is unable to get cast because of…

What's one of the best keep theatrical secrets in the Capital Region? Capital Repertory Theatre's On the Go! Program. For the past 20ish years, this…

What happens when you combine a very mediocre play with a stage filled with some wonderful talent? The production of The Wedding Singer, the musical comedy now…

Every so often, a play is written and produced that changes the landscape of the musical theatre world. Showboat, Oklahoma, Hair, Les Miz, and in 2015, Lin…

Based on Annette Sanford's novel Eleanor and Abel, a story of the romance of a couple of a “certain age,” has been adapted into Fireflies by playwright Matthew…

Hadestown is the modern retelling of the ancient Greek myth of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice and their journey into the descent to Hell. In its most…

AVERILL PARK - When is a play considered a classic? The works of Shakespeare, Arthur Miller, Eugene O'Neill, Ibsen - certainly no one would dispute they belong…

SCHENECTADY - The Book of Mormon is a satirical look at the missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Known for their white shirts,…

ALBANY - According to Maggie Mancinelli-Cahill, Producing Artistic Director at theRep, her opening night curtain speech talked about the purpose of theRep. Its…

COHOES - Wikipedia tells us that is a one-act musical, with music and lyrics by Jeff Bowen and a book by Hunter Bell. The show chronicles its own creation as…

It's always interesting when a show begins to turn up on the schedules of several companies in the same general geographic area within a relatively short…

LATHAM - Curtain Call Theatre kicks off 2023 with a shudder, a chill, some spine-tingling screams, and a gunshot. Currently on the stage is William Goldman's…

SCHENECTADY - It is rare when lightning strikes in the theatre world. That joyful amalgamation of script, performers, set, costume, and theatrical location all…

SCHENECTADY - Hairspray, the musical based on the 1988 John Waters film of the same name, is about an overweight teenage Tracy Turnblad living in Baltimore in…

ALBANY - Capital Rep has chosen to usher in the holiday season with a 1987 rendition of The Wizard of Oz written for the Royal Shakespeare Company. This…

LOUDONVILLE - I recently had the opportunity to chat with some of the cast and crew from Siena College's production of Company. It was an entertaining and…

LATHAM - Sharyn Rothstein's All the Days currently at Curtain Call Theatre in Latham is an interesting, sometimes quite humorous, often times sad look at the…

SCHENECTADY - At some point, we have all gone on that dreaded “first date.” Some, perhaps, the even more scary “blind date.” Austin Winsberg's book, with music…

ALBANY - Albany Civic Theater has a long, storied history in the Capital Region. Stepping back inside the venerable grand dame of the area's community theaters…

LATHAM - When you speak with Carol Max about Curtain Call Theatre, you can see the passion light up in her eyes.  She's more than happy to tell you about the…

SCHENECTADY - When Disney gets behind a project, you can rest assured that nothing is spared. Such is the case with Aladdin, which began its second national…

The 1990 Stephen Sondheim musical, Assassins, is a horror story for our times. The play certainly could be produced as a comedy, played for laughs and high…

Bright Star, the Tony-nominated musical by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell has once again found its way to shine brightly on a Capital Region stage. Currently…

Harbinger Theatre, under the direction of founder Patrick White, continues its inaugural season with the production of Lindsey Ferrentino's Andy and the…

Chelsea Marcantel's Tiny Houses is a one-act comedy with a big heart. Bohdi is a life coach. Jevne is a YouTube artist. Ollie sells haunted dolls online. Cath…

It's very unusual when a summer of theater is bookmarked by the same show. Two productions of the same musical; one by an incredibly respected professional…

Get your high-waisted jeans, shoulder pads, leg warmers, and short shorts out of the back of your closet. Big hair is back again, along with the disco ball,…

The Plaids are killed in a car accident on their way to see the Beatles' first live performance on the Ed Sullivan Show when their car is broadsided by a bus…

Every season, as summer drew to a close, Mac-Haydn Theatre gave their performers one more chance to shine in a cabaret setting. This year, The Mac has extended…

Mac-Haydn Theatre in Chatham has ushered in its Fall season with a series of specials and special packages. The Full Monty winds up its run this holiday…

It is gratifying to watch a theatre company encourage and reward their “own”. Mac-Haydn Theatre has made it a habit to do that in recent years. They provide an…

A Buffalo, New York steel mill has been closed and the workers are getting desperate. They see their wives enjoying a night out watching the Chippendales and…

It seems like Halloween has swept into the Colonial Theatre this week, where Dracula has taken up his latest residence. Based on the novel by Bram Stoker, the…

What do you say when it appears that all of the superlatives you can come up with are not enough to adequately express what you have seen? A Little Night…

Playhouse Stage Company has turned the Washington Park amphitheater into 1985 Ridgefield New Jersey with their current production of The Wedding Singer. With…

Mac-Haydn's newest production is so perfectly named for this venue. Next To Normal revolves around Diana, a woman diagnosed with bipolar disorder, her…

Every generation produces a few performers so iconic they are immediately recognizable by one name: Groucho, Harpo, Elvis, Marilyn, Madonna, Cher, Ringo. For…

It is always very exciting when a theater company of any repute presents its audience with something out of the ordinary for them. If they are a company that…

Neil Simon was an incredibly prolific playwright, screenwriter, and author. Most everyone can come up with the name of at least one or two of his nearly thirty…

The heatwave we have been dealing outside isn't the only thing that's hot in the Capital Region. Cole Porter's musical classic  Kiss Me Kate has set up shop at…

The perfect jukebox musical combines a fantastic score, singable songs and an engagingstory. The story should stand on its own without the musical…

Williamstown Theatre Festival's main stage season opener Most Happy in Concert offers quite a bit to unpack, so let's open the package and explore what's…

What happens when you put together a dystopian society where the issue is water or thelack thereof with twisted minds of Mark Hollmann and Greg Kotis? You get…

As the summer season continues to move along, we are presented with yet another wonderful production of a show rarely seen in this area. Once, music and lyrics…

I am not certain whether it is the fact that performers, producers, directors, and backstage crew are so excited to return to the stage, or audiences have just…

Mean Girls, based on the 2004 film, has danced and sung its way onto the Proctors Theatre stage in Schenectady. The coming of age show was written by Tina Fey,…

It's 1959 at Rydell High School and the Greasers are running through the halls of the venerable old high school. The whole gang is there, getting ready to take…

It began as a series of taped workshops in 1974; a group of chorus line dancers just talking into a tape recorder (anyone remember those?) and telling their…

Barrington Stage has blown the doors down on their Boyd-Quinson main stage seasonopener with Ain't Misbehavin' The Fats Waller Musical Show. Fats Waller was…

Harbinger Theatre continues its inaugural season of presenting the Capital Region withthought provoking, out of the box rarely seen in this area, stage…

Aaron Sorkin, best known for many of his television series, like The West Wing and The Newsroom, has also developed quite an award-winning resume on the stage…

If one is exceptionally lucky, one can capture lightning in a bottle. Rarely does that happen twice. Playwright David Lindsay-Abaire is one of those…

 Have you ever enjoyed a quiet evening with friends, sitting around the living room, someone slides over to the piano and begins to play. Soon someone else…

Anyone who has any knowledge of theater has to be familiar with Lerner and Lowe's My Fair Lady. This show has become an icon on the Broadway stage and in film.…

Robert Harling's “Steel Magnolias” is a tender uproariously funny look at the lives of five women who gather weekly at Truvy's Beauty Salon in Chinquapin…

Life is messy. Things are rarely tied up with a neat little bow at the end of a relationship or the end of life. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Donald…

It's not too often that one has the opportunity to feel as if you are actually immersed in a theatrical production as an audience member. Such is the case with…

We are all accustomed to seeing people of note portrayed on the stage and in film. When the characters on the stage are people we knew or knew of on a personal…

“Dear Evan Hansen”, currently in residence at  Proctors Theatre in Schenectady is disturbing, thought-provoking, depressing, problematic, and totally…

The Stephen Sondheim and George Furth musical, “Merrily We Roll Along” has a storied past. It opened inauspiciously in November 1981 to widely negative reviews…

“Little Shop of Horrors” has become a perennial favorite of community theaters and small professional companies around the country. It is almost always a…

When one goes to review a student production of a play, one's tendency is to go with a gentler ear... and pen. After all, how can you criticize these young…

The Prom is billed as a musical comedy about big Broadway stars on a mission to change the world and the love they discover that unites them all. True enough.…

Admissionsa statement acknowledging the truth of somethingthe process or fact of entering or being allowed to enter a place, organization or…