Creative team behind the Playhouse’s record-breaking productions of A Christmas Story reunites for the high-energy ‘80s hit, featuring the company’s advanced teen students alongside Broadway and regional veterans
Cohoes, N.Y. (July 23, 2026) – Playhouse Stage Company’s 38th Summer Season continues next week, as the musical Footloose begins performances at the historic Cohoes Music Hall on Tuesday, July 28. The production will play through August 15, with evening performances on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, and matinee performances on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Continuing the Playhouse’s recent model, the production features Playhouse Stage Academy’s advanced teen students performing alongside Broadway, touring, and regional professionals, all in age-appropriate roles.
Based on the beloved 1984 film that made Kevin Bacon a star, Footloose tells the story of Ren McCormack, a city teen who moves from Chicago to the small town of Bomont, where rock music and dancing have been outlawed. As Ren clashes with the town’s influential minister, Reverend Shaw Moore, and falls for the Reverend’s daughter Ariel, he rallies Bomont’s teenagers to cut loose and bring dancing back. The stage adaptation, written by original screenwriter Dean Pitchford with Walter Bobbie and featuring music by Tom Snow, premiered on Broadway in 1998 and includes the film’s chart-topping hits “Footloose,” “Let’s Hear It for the Boy,” “Holding Out for a Hero,” and “Almost Paradise,” with additional songs by Eric Carmen, Sammy Hagar, Kenny Loggins, and Jim Steinman.
“Footloose is about two things our world badly needs right now: the freedom to express ourselves authentically, and the power of youthful enthusiasm to overcome grief and restore our communities,” said PSC Producing Artistic Director Owen Smith. “Audiences know these songs, and they may remember the movie, but our fantastic Capital Region teen students performing this piece is like a rebel yell of young optimism for the future. It’s a high energy piece of theatre that I think folks are just going to love this summer.”
Footloose reunites the creative team behind the Playhouse’s productions of A Christmas Story: The Musical, which broke company records in back-to-back holiday seasons. PSC’s most veteran Director Michael LoPorto helms the production, joined by Musical Director Brian Axford, with choreography and musical staging by Gabi Bazinet-Douglas.
The cast is led by Playhouse Stage Academy graduating senior Jackson Majewski as Ren McCormack, following his turn as Prince Eric in last summer’s Disney’s The Little Mermaid. In a bit of casting kismet, Broadway veteran Patrick Ryan Sullivan (Beauty & The Beast, Titanic, 42nd Street) and Academy standout senior, Molly Kirby, who played father and daughter King Triton and Ariel in The Little Mermaid, reunite as Reverend Shaw Moore and his daughter – a spirited teenager once again named Ariel. Sullivan, Kirby, and Majewski lead a cast of 28 (featuring 19 Playhouse students), and are supported by an eight-person offstage band of Albany Musician Association professionals, under Axford’s direction.
Tickets for Footloose are on sale online at www.playhousestage.org, by phone at (518) 434-0776, and in person at the Cohoes Music Hall box office at 58 Remsen Street in Cohoes. Youth tickets start at just $20, with $30 tickets for Seniors ages 65 & up, and $40 tickets for adults. The 38th Playhouse Stage Company season concludes in August with 13: The Musical at Cohoes Music Hall. More information about Playhouse Stage Company and its productions can be found online at www.playhousestage.org.
