ALBANY — The UAlbany Performing Arts Center and New York State Writers Institute are collaborating to present A Celebration of Hmong Culture Through the Arts, a multi-discipline project celebrating Hmong culture and history which revolves around Kao Kalia Yang’s memoir, The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir. The project spans the disciplines of literature, theatre, film and art and includes a display, a documentary screening and a stage performance. 

The schedule of events, all taking place at the UAlbany Performing Arts Center on the uptown University at Albany campus, is as follows:

• A display of Paj ntaub (also known as Hmong story cloths or flower cloths) is available for viewing on Monday, Oct. 24 through Friday, Nov. 4, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily on weekdays. Admission is free. No reservations are required.

• A screening of the documentary Being Hmong Means Being Free will take place at the UAlbany Performing Arts Center on Thursday, Oct. 27 at 4:30 p.m. Admission is free. No reservations are required.

•Performances of The Latehomecomer. Directed by Elise Thoron, this theatre work starts as author Kao Kalia Yang is born in the Ban Vinai Refugee camp in Thailand and eventually arrives in the United States. The book and stage presentation follow her journey from a quiet, reticent student struggling to speak English while facing racial discrimination to a self-empowered young woman claiming her voice to tell the untold story of her people. They tell a universal story of immigration through the specific lens of this ancient culture inextricably bound to the history of the war in Vietnam.

There will be a public performance at the UAlbany Performing Arts Center on Thursday, Nov. 3 at 7:30 p.m., preceded by a pre-show talk beginning at 7 p.m. A second performance will take place on Friday, Nov. 4 at 10 a.m. exclusively for high school student groups. 

Advance tickets for the public performance are $15 for the general public and $10 for students, seniors and UAlbany faculty-staff. Tickets purchased on the day of the show (pending availability) are $20 for the general public and $15 for students, seniors and UAlbany faculty-staff. Individual tickets can be purchased on the UAlbany Performing Arts Center’s site at www.albany.edu/pac.

Admission to the morning matinee is free for high school student groups. Reservations are required. Educators wishing to bring groups can contact the UAlbany Performing Arts Center office at 518-442-3995 or PAC@albany.edu. Home school students and parents are also welcome.

GLENS FALLS — The economy of the Glens Falls region is deeply rooted in its natural resources and the hard work of early settlers. The Chapman Museum casts a light on the generations that built the region in “Groundwork, Labor in a Burgeoning Community,” which recently opened. 

The exhibition, which will be unveiled in the Museum’s newly renovated Carriage House Gallery, runs through Jan. 15, 2023.

“Early settlers were eager to capitalize on the power generated by the mighty Hudson River and the region’s substantial assets,” said Nicole Herwig, director of The Chapman, in a statement. “This area became one of the wealthiest in the state, but what went unseen were the lives of the hard-working people whose labor generated those riches.”

Early Glens Falls icon Abraham Wing settled a homestead on the Hudson River in 1762, the first in a long history of entrepreneurs to break ground in area industry. Wing built the first of many sawmills to emerge from Glens Falls and north into the Adirondacks. Forty-foot falls on the Hudson River allowed laborers to move logs downstream from the Adirondacks to Glens Falls. The region’s fertile farmland, mineral deposits and waterways rounded out opportunities for settlers.

For more information about The Chapman Museum, and a full calendar of upcoming events and exhibitions, visit: www.ChapmanMuseum.org.

ALBANY — The Theatre Program of the University at Albany’s Department of Music and Theatre presents Sarah DeLappe’s The Wolves, a hit sensation in 2016 with its New York premiere and a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Six public performances will take place at the UAlbany Performing Arts Center on the uptown University at Albany campus from Oct. 19 to 23. The schedule includes performances on Wednesday and Thursday, Oct. 19 & 20 at 8 p.m.; Friday, Oct. 21 at 3 p.m.; Saturday, Oct. 22 at 2 p.m. & 8 p.m.; and Sunday, Oct. 23 at 2 p.m.

The play is DeLappe’s first professionally produced work and was written while she was still a graduate student getting her MFA in Playwriting at Brooklyn College. Its acclaimed Off-Broadway premiere production won an Obie Ensemble Award and a special Drama Desk Award for its acting ensemble. It was also nominated for Lucille Lortel and Drama League awards for Best Play. Currently in cinemas, DeLappe’s most recent work is as the screenwriter for the indie film Bodies, Bodies, Bodies.

Advance tickets are $17 for the general public and $12 for students, seniors and UAlbany faculty-staff. Tickets purchased on the day of the show (pending availability) are $22 for the general public and $17 for students, seniors and UAlbany faculty-staff. All tickets must be purchased on-line from the UAlbany Performing Arts Center’s site at www.albany.edu/pac. Information and assistance can be obtained by contacting the UAlbany Performing Arts Center’s main office at 518-442-3995 or PAC@albany.edu.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — On Oct. 23, Saratoga Springs music venue Caffe Lena will offer Musicians’ Health and Wellness Outreach, a free pop-up clinic for uninsured and under-insured musicians from the Capital District and Lower Adirondack region. Volunteer medical professionals will be on site in the venue’s historic performance space to provide testing, evaluation, health and wellness education, as well as assistance obtaining access to ongoing care.

According to recent surveys, 43% of professional musicians in the United States have no health insurance. Among full-time musicians with no other employment, the percentage without insurance is even higher. “I don’t know if these numbers hold true locally, but I know that lack of healthcare is a very big issue for regional artists,” said Jill Burnham, a full-time registered nurse at Malta Medical Emergency Care Center and a blues vocalist with duo Mark & Jill Sing the Blues.

“I knew nurses who would be happy to volunteer their time to do some basic health screenings for musicians. When I started talking about this with Caffe Lena, and connecting with other medical professionals, the idea just grew and grew,” Burnham said.

The pop-up event is receiving funding and staffing from Saratoga Hospital Community Health Center, Hudson Headwaters Health Network, and Caffe Lena. “Taking care of this community is what we do—and we are proud of it,” said Renee Rodriguez-Goodemote, MD, medical director of Saratoga Community Health Center. 

The clinic will include custom-fitted earplugs for onstage hearing protection, blood pressure screening, dietician consultation, HEP-C/HIV screening, insurance navigator consultation, Tai Chi meditative wellness, and kits for those aged 45-64 to self-administer a colorectal cancer screening.

The Musicians’ Health and Wellness Clinic will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Caffe Lena. 

Pre-registration is strongly recommended in order to receive the custom ear plugs, valued at $220, that will be available for free to the first forty registrants thanks to donations from Allerdice Building Supply, the Kate Cashel Fund of the Community Fund of the Great Capital Region and JEM Inc.

Online pre-registration is available by going to caffelena.org. Walk-ins are also welcome.