by Jess Hoffman It’s hard to know what to make of The Sound Inside. The two-person show, currently playing at Cohoes Music Hall, is a bold and questionable choice for Creative License Theater Collective. The Sound Inside is a simple story about a lonely professor with cancer who forms a…
by Jessica Hoffman Bridge Street Theater takes audiences to 1990s San Francisco with its production ofSympathetic Magic: a play about very smart people making very questionable decisions. Twoastrophysicists, a university chair, a sculptor, a choirmaster, an elderly anthropologist, herassistant, and a gay priest make up the cast of enigmatic characters…
by Jessica Hoffman I must admit I’m a sucker for a comedy–a Neil Simon comedy all the moreso. Schenectady Civic Players’ current production, Chapter Two, is neither Neil Simon’s funniest comedy nor his most profound drama, but it is nevertheless chock full of Simon’s witty repartee and true-to-life, laugh-out-loud humor.…
by Jessica Hoffman There are a handful of things in this world that seem to be universally hilarious. Small children swearing, for one thing, always make me giggle inappropriately. And no matter who you are or what your morals are, a well timed fart can be the funniest thing in…
by Jess Hoffman Harbinger Theatre has brought many regional premiers to the Albany Capital District, 10 in arow, to be precise. But right now, Harbinger is showing a world premier of a play written bySchenectady local and regional theater personality Brian Sheldon. Staged at The Albany Barn,Custom Cuts is an…
by Jess Hoffman If you, like me, were a child of the 90s, you may have grown up on the 1996 film Matilda. And if, like me, you were an avid reader with tastes leaning toward the sarcastic and subversive, you may have grown up with a deep love for…
by Jess Hoffman So far this year I have reviewed plays about such heavy topics as drug addiction, incest, revolution, and pedophilia. And yet none of those shows left me quite as disturbed as Schenectady Civic Player’s production of The Goat (or Who is Sylvia). This show put me in…
by Jess Hoffman Albany Civic Theater–a theater with a special place in my heart that has been central to my love of theater–is currently the space for Harbinger Theatre’s production of The Motherf**ker with the Hat. The Motherf**ker with the Hat is a gritty, no-holds-barred examination of life and love.…
