by Jessica Hoffman I’ve said many times and must say yet again: I love theater about theater. Confetti Stage’s current offering, a murder mystery about thespians, seemed like a promising production to me. The show concerns a bereft playwright who has gathered five former colleagues to read scenes of his…
by Jess Hoffman It was with high hopes that I braved Friday’s snowstorm to see Creative License Theater Collective’s production of A Few Good Men at the Cohoes Music Hall. I greatly enjoyed the iconic 1992 film based on this play–a gripping courtroom drama about two soldiers accused of murdering…
August: Osage County, Schenectady Civic PlayersMy absolute favorite show of 2024 was Schenectady Civic Players’ triumphant production ofAugust: Osage County. Before seeing the production at Schenectady Civic Playhouse, I hadread the play but had never seen it performed. August Osage County is an extremelychallenging play to produce and I was…
After opening its season with Maggie May in collaboration with Harbinger Theater, Albany Civic Theater’s 2024-2025 season continues with Ernest Thompson’s On Golden Pond. On Golden Pond tells the story of an aging couple at their summer home in Maine. At the beginning of the summer, the couple’s daughter comes…
by Jess Hoffman Eugene O’Neill is a love-him-or-hate-him sort of playwright. I have spoken to many local thespians who hate Eugene O’Neill, with his propensity toward long, verbose, depressing, and overly philosophical plays about the everyday lives of the downtrodden. I personally love Eugene O’Neill for his mastery of the…
by Jess Hoffman I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a sucker for theater about theater. When one has immersedoneself in stagecraft for as long as I have, it’s hard not to appreciate the way that theater cancomment on, and occasionally poke fun at, the purpose and process of…
by Jess Hoffman Harbinger Theater has made a splash in the area by producing Capital Region premiers of fresh, new, unexplored plays. Their latest production, Maggie May (currently playing at Albany Civic Theater) is no exception; it is the United States premier of a play about aging and dementia originally…
by Jess Hoffman I know I saw the 2001 film Legally Blonde as a teenager, but I don’t remember much about it, except that I was unimpressed. I was (and still am) much more of a Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality sardonic tomboy type than a peppy, charismatic fashionista a…
