Musical’s folk-inspired score was composed by Capital Region native and Playhouse Stage youth theatre alum, Maria Isabella Andreoli.
Cohoes, N.Y. (May 30, 2025) – Playhouse Stage Company continues its 37th Season in June, with a new entry in what the company has dubbed “Playhouse Stage Premieres,” a program to develop new musical theatre works with a focus on Capital Region and Playhouse-affiliated authors. From June 12-15, the new folk musical The Waiting will receive a developmental premiere production. 7:30pm evening performances will be held on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, with 2:00pm matinee performances on Saturday and Sunday. The show was co-created by composer Maria Isabella Andreoli, an alumna of Playhouse Stage Academy youth programs, and her writing partner, book writer and lyricist EmmaLee Kidwell.
“We are honored to be bringing The Waiting to life on stage in a full production for the first time,” said Playhouse Stage Company Producing Artistic Director, Owen Smith. “To have the opportunity to premiere a musical that was co-created by one of our alums is an absolute thrill. Maria brought the piece to us eighteen months ago, after it had undergone several readings and workshops. She and EmmaLee have since done incredible work continuing to refine the piece, with our resident Musical Director Brian Axford writing original orchestrations for the piece. We think it’s going to captivate audiences, and that the musical and its creators will have a very bright future in the greater theatre industry,” Smith noted.
With a gorgeous folk-inspired score, The Waiting takes place in the woods of Vermont, in a mystical place where the veil thins between the living and dead. There, in the space between worlds, exists “The In-Between” — a timeless purgatory where souls wait, tethered to a lost life they can’t remember. This world is forever changed when a young girl, Willow, vanishes from Earth without a trace. Her mother, Chlo, embarks on a desperate search to find her that leads to this otherworldly realm. Drawn into The In-Between, Chlo stirs a storm that unearths long-buried grief and forces both the living and dead to forge a path through impossible loss. Woven through haunting folk melodies and earthly poetry, The Waiting asks: “What if death wasn’t the end?”
Composer Maria Isabella Andreoli grew up in Clifton Park, and participated in Playhouse Stage youth programs from 2010 through 2016. She studied Theatre Arts at Pace University in New York City, where, in an Intro to Playwriting she met her Waiting co-creator, Book Writer & Lyricist EmmaLee Kidwell. The two have been writing together since. The Playhouse Stage premiere of The Waiting is directed by Abigail Grubb, with choreography by Ryland J. Mar, both of whom have been involved with previous readings and workshops of The Waiting, making their Playhouse Stage Company debuts. In addition to writing original orchestrations for the musical, Brian Axford is musically directing the production and leading the seven-piece on-stage band.
The cast features another Playhouse Stage Academy alum, Ariana Papaleo, in the role of Margo. Papaleo, a graduate of The Tisch School at NYU, participated in Playhouse youth programs from 2013-2017, and has performed professionally frequently with the Playhouse, including in a Broadway World Award-winning performance as Nina in 2019’s In the Heights at Park Playhouse. All six of her fellow cast members, some of whom have been affiliated with The Waiting since it’s very first reading, are making their Playhouse Stage Company debut, including Dan Texiera, Gabriella Mancuso, Falan Nuhring, Ash Hudak, M-Jay He, and Sophie DeLange.
Tickets for The Waiting are on sale online at www.playhousestage.org, by phone at (518) 434-0776, an in person at the Cohoes Music Hall Box Office. Adult tickets are $40.00, with $30.00 tickets available for Seniors (65 and older), and $20 tickets for those under 18. Next up for Playhouse Stage Company is Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, playingat Albany’s Park Playhouse for the first time in a generation, with performances July 1-26. More information about Playhouse Stage Company and its productions can be found online at www.playhousestage.org.