CAPITAL REGION, N.Y. — This weekend is the annual Dance Flurry in Saratoga Springs.
The event draws thousands of people to participate and learn more about every type of dance imaginable. The program will be held Friday to Sunday in City Center and spaces throughout the city.
They include Saratoga Music Hall, various Hilton Hotels, the Parting Glass and Caffe Lena. The types of music are as wide-ranging as Romantic Couple Dancing, Reels & Hornpipe, Square Dancing, Ragtime Tempo Dancing, Salsa, Zydeco, Swing, the ever-popular Old-Time English Sequence Dances and so much more.
For full details and tickets go to flurryfestival.org
There’s also a theater flurry going on throughout the region. There will be five productions available that not only offer quantity, but variety as well.
Albany Civic Theatre is presenting a regional premiere of “The Minutes” by Tracey Letts. It is a deceptive work that is brilliantly comic as it uses familiar political types at a local Town Board meeting. The conclusion of a moderately contentious meeting becomes a revealing moment about all of American politics.
It opens Friday and plays through March 3. For tickets and information go to albanycivictheatre.org
Neil Simon’s most honored play, “Lost in Yonkers,” is at the Sand Lake Center for the Arts, Averill Park. Presented by Circle Theatre, the play, set in the 1940s, has plenty of humor as two young boys are left for a year at their grandmother’s house while their father leaves town seeking war-effort employment.
Grandmother Kurnitz is stern; they are wisecracking young men. What good can come from this? Plenty, especially their getting to know their mentally-challenged adult aunt, Bella, and Louie, their maybe-gangster uncle. The growth to maturity and adulthood for everyone in the play is what makes “Lost in Yonkers” a heartwarming play.
It runs Fridays-Sundays through Feb. 25 For tickets and information go to slca-ctp.org
The best deal in town is Theatre Works presenting a staged reading of “The Hatmaker’s Wife” at Steamer Ten in Albany. The four performance run is free and likely the most charming event of the weekend. Combine the emotions of “Ghost” with those in “If These Walls Could Talk,” and you have a rough idea what to expect when a young wife learns about love by talking with the walls of the house.
A young couple move into a house and the young woman cannot get over the feeling that she is sharing the space. Through time hopping and magical intervention (a talking wall), she and the audience experience the life of an unhappy older couple who lived there before her. The situation is strangely humorous and deeply affecting as one can see history repeating itself.
An oddly romantic work, it is sure to be a post-Valentine’s Day bonus. For information and schedule go to theatrevoices.org
Wrapping up its run at Russell Sage College in Troy is “Number the Stars”. It’s a musical version of the popular children’s novel of the same title written by Lois Lowry. It’s about a Danish family, who, inspired by their teenage daughter, work to save Jews from being captured by the Nazi’s. It’s a tender and inspiring work.
The final performances are 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, at the Schacht Fine Arts Center of the school. For information and tickets go to sage.edu.
Another work addressing an important social issue, racism, is available for one public performance at Universal Preservation Hall in Saratoga Springs. “Henry Johnson: Ballad of a Forgotten Hero,” will be performed at 11 a.m. This is one of a handful of public performances for the work which was created for the On-the-Go program of Capital Repertory Theatre. The work is currently touring area schools.
This is a great opportunity to have any youngster whose schools are not participating in the tour see the play. It’s also a good opportunity for everyone to learn the story of Henry Johnson, an African-American soldier, from Albany, who in World War I was a person who performed heroic deeds.
Yet, because of his race was denied honor in his own country until 2015. The show runs 45 minutes and has a 15-minute audience Q&A afterwards. For tickets and information go to atuph.org
In Pittsfield, Massachusetts the only professional offering of the week is “10×10.” The short play program opens at Barrington Stage Company tonight and runs through March 10. It’s ten plays, each 10 minutes or less in length, strung together. They are charming, funny or sad. Basically, it’s a delightful theatrical experience.
For Information and tickets go to barringtonstageco.org.
