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In 2022, I reviewed about 30 theater productions, half as many as in 2019. This was due partially to the scene not but being absolutely recovered from the pandemic and likewise as a result of funds constraints dictated I attend fewer reveals.

However wanting again over the checklist of what I noticed this 12 months, I used to be startled by how good a lot of it was. My first present of 2022, in late January, was “Come From Away,” which arrived at Proctors in Schenectady two years after it was initially scheduled to go to. An uncommon premise for a musical, it thrillingly tells the outstanding story of seven,000 airline passengers who had been stranded in a distant Newfoundland village for 5 days after their U.S.-bound flights had been diverted by the terrorist assaults of Sept. 11, 2001.

E-book-ending the 12 months was an equally satisfying manufacturing that could not have been extra totally different: “A Christmas Reminiscence,” by the brand new Whale Theatre in Hudson. Whereas “Come From Away” was a giant, swirling musical with a big forged in a 2,600-seat theater, “A Christmas Reminiscence” was carried out because the staging of a radio play of the Truman Capote story of the identical title, with two actors and two musicians in entrance of maybe 25 individuals. And but every was, in its personal approach, consummately carried out and designed theater.

Highlights pop off the checklist, totaling virtually half of what I noticed this 12 months: “Expensive Evan Hansen,” My Truthful Woman” and “To Kill a Mockingbird,” all at Proctors; Barrington Stage founder Julianne Boyd saying goodbye after 27 seasons with a wowing “A Little Evening Music” in Pittsfield, Mass., and the corporate’s highly effective “Ready for Godot”; Samuel Beckett once more, this time a trio of shorts by Troy Foundry Theatre; MaConnia Chesser solo in “An Iliad” at Shakespeare & Firm in Lenox, Mass.; Bridge Road Theatre’s skilled hand with intimate dramas, together with “Clarkston” and the world premiere of “Shelley’s Shadow,” commissioned by the corporate from high Canadian playwright Brad Fraser; and naturally Capital Repertory Theatre’s manufacturing of “The True,” a bristling political drama about Albany Mayor Erastus Corning 2nd and his closest aide and confidant, Polly Noonan.

That will be a robust roster in any 12 months. Coming in 2022, as theater firms and audiences had been rebuilding towards what we as soon as took as regular, it is extraordinary.

Joseph Dalton

Scanning my recollections of the 2022 music season, new dramatic works of darkish and light-weight come to thoughts as signposts in a tumultuous 12 months.
         In late April, the Albany Symphony gave the long-delayed premiere of George Tsontakis’ Requiem at Troy Financial savings Financial institution Music Corridor. The Saugerties composer put apart his powerful man modernist persona and delivered a piece that was intimate and generally even mild. Dissonance and complexity had been nonetheless there aplenty, however so was sincere grief and touches of transcendence. Tsontakis didn’t attempt to compete in scale with Verdi and likewise ignored the normal passages of wrath and judgment. David Alan Miller led a caring and persuasive efficiency that included meticulous choral singing by Albany Professional Musica.   
  The Glimmerglass Pageant premiered a brand new comedian pastiche “Tenor Overboard” July 19 in Cooperstown. It mixed choices by Rossini and a script by Ken Ludwig that poked enjoyable at operatic conventions whereas nonetheless honoring its wealthy historical past. In her farewell season, director Francesca Zambello put collectively a inventive staff and a gifted forged who all shared in a single goal: to deliver some coloration, levity and enjoyable to everybody’s life.  We would have liked that.

William Jaeger

Because the gallery and museum scene opened up from its pandemic gloom, many spectacular reveals from reliable establishments just like the Tang, Opalka, and MASS MoCA lit up the calendar. However three explicit reveals at different venues from throughout the spectrum jumped out in 2022.
The exhibition with the most important influence was most likely additionally an important: “This Tender, Fragile Factor” at The College in Kinderhook. This enormous enterprise didn’t simply emphasize artists of coloration, it talked frankly about being Black in America, and about Black energy. Vivid and vital, it was invested in our modern second. No artwork for artwork’s sake in that one.
Probably the most formidable little present was simply “Repro Japan: Applied sciences of Fashionable Visible Tradition” at Williams School Museum of Artwork. The concepts and the artwork had been fantastically layered by way of time, over each type of creative medium, and crossing from low tradition to excessive. This present had extra to say about Japanese artwork than there was room for, and it was beautiful and shocking at each flip.
It’s no shock, nonetheless, that the Clark had a totally old-school, and totally researched standout, “Rodin in america: Confronting the Trendy.” The present was a reminder that Rodin was a protean pressure, and if his work was out of step with the creative Modernists round him, he made sculpture on his personal outstanding phrases. The present gave Rodin’s work new scholarly context, and was forceful for the most effective of all causes: the artwork, which was in abundance.

Katherine Kiessling

I’ll be sincere — after I began virtually six months in the past, the scale of the Capital Area and its arts scene was overwhelming. As I explored, I used to be drawn to the moments that conjured intimacy, maybe stemming from a have to floor myself on this new chapter.

First was seeing St. Vincent, one among my all-time favourite musicians, at an unexpectedly intimate venue for an artist of her standing. Standing within the equal of the fifth row at Empire Stay in Albany, I watched Annie Clark, whose rock spirit appears to be melded with the late David Bowie, sweat, shred and groove. I even helped gently crowd-surf her to the melancholic “New York,” an exercise I don’t advocate doing in 4-inch heels.

Then there may be Troy pianist Sophia Subbayya Vastek’s album “In Our Softening,” composed on and for an deserted 1902 piano she rescued from the previous constructing of a church that made headlines for its rifle raffles and alt-right pastor. The ensuing album is filled with creaks and hammer hits weaving with the piano’s notes to create a young soundscape. Listening looks like I’m on the bench with Vastek as she gently guides me by way of bittersweet grief (“Tatus,” Polish for “daddy” and impressed by her late father) and celestial hope (“After Stardust”).

Jim Shahen

For the chatter about how the present technology is simply too busy TikToking or no matter to care about dwell music and experiential moments, probably the most engaged live performance audiences in 2022 had been in the highschool and college-age vary.
Opening acts are sometimes handled like one thing to be endured or, at greatest, tolerated. However Greta Van Fleet’s Oct. 5 efficiency at MVP Enviornment and beabadoobee’s soldout cease Dec. 3 at Empire Stay reveals the place the followers had been predominantly youthful than 25, blew that trope out of the water.
The headliners had been handled like visiting heroes; that’s to be anticipated. However so had been the openers, which is significantly much less anticipated. Blind singer Robert Finley’s soul-blues sound and aesthetic is radically dissimilar from Greta Van Fleet’s enviornment bombast, who he opened for, however his sensible set was joyously acquired by the hundreds in attendance. Even second opener Houndmouth’s extra subdued set of folk-rock was vigorously appreciated. Lowertown’s set went over so nicely that the lead singer famous it was the most effective reception they acquired on their total run supporting beabadoobee.
This constant enthusiasm was positively life-affirming and confirmed the children are alright.

Tresca Weinstein

The gorgeous factor about dance in 2022 was that it regarded much more like dance in 2019 — however with an added layer of poignancy, connection and inspiration. For thus many performers and choreographers, this was a 12 months of collaborating in new methods and reaping the inventive harvest from seeds sown throughout fallow time. 
    Together with new work, two-year-old creations that had by no means been seen lastly discovered their method to audiences — like David Dorfman’s “(A) Method Out of My Physique,” in January on the College at Albany. The piece is all about partnering and sharing weight, which made it much more significant for each dancers and viewers after their enforced separation. Alongside loss throughout the dance neighborhood, of each people and corporations (together with Taylor 2, Rioult Dance NY and Aspen Santa Fe Ballet), there was a way of renewed dedication for individuals who remained — together with New York Metropolis Ballet dancer Unity Phelan, who carried out in July at SPAC. In the course of the firm’s pandemic shutdown, Phelan questioned whether or not she needed to maintain dancing. However as quickly as she took her bow after her first time again on stage, she recalled, “I simply knew instantly, indisputably, that is precisely what I wish to be doing and the place I wish to be doing it, and I’m going to be right here so long as I presumably can.”