by Sierra Pasquale Schenectady Civic Players’ production of In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play) approaches Sarah Ruhl’s quietly subversive comedy with clear affection for the text and a strong commitment to its period sensibilities. Set in the late nineteenth century at the dawn of modern gynecology, the play…
Home Made Theater is proud to bring the Tony Award-winning musical 1776, with music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards and a book by Peter Stone, to the stage this summer, with performances running July 18 through July 27 at the historic Anthony “Skip” Scirocco Music Hall, on the third floor of…
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…
by Dan Mayer In storytelling, insightful political commentary can sometimes come at the cost of fully realizing the characters as people. In Casa Valentina, playwright Harvey Fierstein manages to do both, delivering a cast of likable human characters with realistic ideological differences. Schenectady Civic Players bring the characters to life…
by Sierra Pasquale Toward the end of Lisa Kron’s “Well” she notes, “This avant garde, metatheatrical shit will really bite you in the ass”, and with that, I couldn’t agree more. “Well”, currently on the boards at the Schenectady Civic Players, is a semi-autobiographical play that explores themes of illness,…
by Dan Mayer Driving Miss Daisy is Alfred Uhry’s most successful play, which he adapted into the screenplay for the critically-acclaimed film of the same name. It paints a vivid picture of life in mid-20th-century Georgia where he grew up. Albany Civic Theater‘s production is a joy to watch, mainly…
by Jess Hoffman Until I saw Schenectady Civic Players’ current production, August: Osage County was my favorite play that I had never seen. That is to say, I had read the play and absolutely loved it, but I had never had the opportunity to see it produced. Although it won…
by Jess Hoffman The premise of Classic Theater Guild’s current production, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, is a simple but very intriguing one: an absurdist comedy about a chance encounter between a young Albert Einstein and a young Pablo Picasso at a French nightclub in 1904. If this absurdist piece…
