by Jess Hoffman I feel I must start this review by making it clear how much I love all things medieval. I attend renaissance festivals in full costume, I’m fascinated by pre-modern weaponry and warfare, I read Medieval fantasy epics like it’s my job, and I absolutely love to watch…
by Jess Hoffman A play that opens on the image of an old photograph of an enslaved Black woman nursing a White infant promises a provocative, no-holds-barred meditation on racism and sexism. This is exactly how Confederates opens at the Rep, as one of our two lead characters speaks passionately…
10. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee – Sand Lake Center for the Arts Sand Lake Center for the Arts’s fall production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee was impossible not to love. The adult cast portrayed the adolescent characters with humor and sincerity. Allison McArdle Avery’s…
by Jess Hoffman The Black Theatre Troupe of Upstate New York is beginning its 2025-2026 season with I Just Stopped By to See the Man, a play about a supposedly dead blues musician and a young British rockstar. Set in the American South in the 1970s, the play is an…
by Dan Mayer Author Paula Hawkins’ novel The Girl on the Train became an international best-seller, as well as a 2016film starring Emily Blunt, before being adapted for the stage. Schenectady Civic Players‘ production takes off like a speeding locomotive, but audiences may be in for a bumpy ride. The…
by Dan Mayer The name Stephen Adly Guirgis may sound familiar to theatergoers in the capital region. He graduated from SUNY Albany, and Harbinger Theatre has recently produced two of his plays: the award-winning Between Riverside and Crazy this past July, and The Motherf**ker with the Hat in 2023. Albany…
by Sierra Pasquale In this smart, self-aware, and sharp-edged production of Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead at Albany Civic Theater, the audience is treated to an evening that is as thought-provoking as it is laugh-out-loud funny. Anchored by two outstanding lead performances and brought to life with inventive…
by Sierra Pasquale Schenectady Civic Players‘ production of A Perfect Ganesh aims for spiritual resonance but lands squarely in the realm of cultural insensitivity. Terrence McNally’s 1993 play, centered on two American women seeking healing in India, is inherently a product of its time; a period when Western narratives often…
