SARATOGA SPRINGS — “Pull Up!”—an event featuring light bites, cocktails, live performances, and an art auction—will take place on Feb. 27 at the Embassy Suites.

The speakeasy-style cabaret will aim to raise awareness and mobilize resources to support Black artists in the Capital Region as they interpret and preserve their local history. Attendees can celebrate the cultural legacy of Saratoga’s West Side while raising funds to support Black creators.

The neighborhood around Congress Street was once considered the “Little Harlem of Upstate New York.” Legendary performers such as Duke Ellington’s Band, Cab Calloway, and Billie Holiday once graced the stage at Jack’s Harlem Club at 76 Congress Street. Today, the Embassy Suites hotel stands near where Jack’s Harlem Club once welcomed audiences. “Pull Up!” seeks to re-embody the artistry and communal spirit of that lost neighborhood.

Featured filmmaker Careina Yard will screen portions of her documentary film about this slice of Saratoga’s history. Additional artists such as Garland Nelson, Donald Hyman, and Tops of Trees will also perform, along with dancers and spoken-word artists from the Capital Region.

For more information about the event, visit www.createcommunitystudios.org/projects/erasing-spaces—faces.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Mostly Modern Festival (MMF) will return this June for its 7th season, bringing a concentrated run of concerts that celebrate modern classical music in Saratoga Springs. Performances take place at Arthur Zankel Music Center at Skidmore College (with the exception of the festival kickoff at Caffè Lena), featuring festival artists and guest ensembles in programs built around contemporary composers and brand-new world premieres. 

MMF’s programming is designed to feel inviting, even for listeners who are curious about contemporary music but not sure what to expect. Concerts often move quickly across styles, with shorter works and a wide range of musical voices. Mostly Modern encourages patrons to think of it as a “tapas” approach to modern classical programming, where discovery is part of the fun.

“You are literally experiencing music hot off the press, fresh ink coming your way,” said Robert Paterson, MMF’s artistic director and composer. “When I’m curating this festival, I’m always thinking about the listener, not just the repertoire. I want the concerts to feel welcoming and energized, even if you don’t listen to new music every day. So, we mix styles, we keep things moving, and we build programs where each piece opens a different door. Mostly Modern is about discovery. It’s about hearing what composers are saying now, in our own time, and realizing modern music can be surprising, beautiful, playful, and deeply human.” 

The festival opens with a kickoff at Caffè Lena, where the MMF opener has sold out in recent seasons, before moving into its full run at the Arthur Zankel Music Center. 

• June 4 — Caffè Lena Kickoff, 7:30 p.m. (Caffè Lena)

• June 5 — MMOrchestra (with special guest collaboration with Albany Pro Musica), 7:30 p.m.

• June 6 — MMEnsemble, 7:30 p.m.

• June 7 — FAB5, 4:00 p.m. (Family/Seniors Matinee)

• June 11 — Mostly Modern Brass, 7:30 p.m. (“Beer & Brass” working title)

• June 12 — MMEnsemble, 7:30 p.m.

• June 13 — The Bell and Peter & the Wolf, 4:00 p.m. (Family/Seniors Matinee)

• June 14 — MMOrchestra: Harp Concerto, 4:00 p.m. (Family/Seniors Matinee)

• June 18 — Euclid String Quartet, 7:30 p.m.

• June 20 — Season Finale: MMOrchestra “Cocktail Concerto”, 7:30 p.m.

Tickets, subscription options, and additional festival details will be announced at mostlymodernprojects.org/calendar/.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — In 1953, Arthur Miller’s play “The Crucible” dramatized the Salem witch trials and delivered a broadside against McCarthyism. 

Today, in a time of heightened political polarization and vitriol, Miller’s drama about mass hysteria eroding a community feels especially pertinent. 

“Everywhere we turn, fear is driving our country,” Toni Anderson-Sommo, the director of Home Made Theater’s upcoming production of “The Crucible,” told Saratoga TODAY. “Fear, greed, the desire for power, revenge—these kinds of things are still the motivation that drive mankind to act in unconscionable ways.”

Home Made Theater has been staging plays and musicals in the Spa City since 1985, yet this is the first time it’s performing “The Crucible.”

“I’m a retired English teacher—both college and junior and senior high school—and I have taught this now for 38 years,” Anderson-Sommo said. “I think from the very first year that I taught it, I realized it was going to be the very first thing I taught my students every single academic year, and that has been the case. It’s never lost its relevancy.”

Anderson-Sommo opted for a more traditional adaptation of the play, in part because she hopes audiences will leave the Saratoga Music Hall with their own interpretation of Miller’s original work.

“I want the audience to walk out really thinking about what they’ve just seen and trying to analyze it,” she said. “When you read a book, you come to the book with all of your life experiences behind you. No two readers are going to have the same reaction or imaginings of what the book is like. It’s very individual. I think that process of watching that is what fascinates me and keeps me coming back.”

The production will feature some faces familiar to those in the local theater world. Dianne O’Neill, who serves on Home Made Theater’s board of directors, will play Rebecca Nurse.  Bridget Dunigan, who works at the Lake George Dinner Theater, will take on the role of Elizabeth Proctor. Matthew Crowley, a Home Made Theater veteran, will inhabit the character of John Proctor.

“Between Bridget Dunigan and Matt Crowley, these two actors bring us to tears every single rehearsal,” Anderson-Sommo said. “They just keep layering their characters and adding more depth to them.”

One fresh face on the stage will be Paul Angelo, playing Reverend Samuel Parris.

“I always feel like [Samuel Parris] is played one dimensionally,” Anderson-Sommo said. “Looking at the historical documents, you realize that there were many things happening in that community that made these characters react as they did. Paul is able to be arrogant, vulnerable, angry. He runs the gamut of emotions as he’s doing Parris.”

On Feb. 14, Anderson-Sommo and her troupe will move into the Saratoga Music Hall, which serves as Home Made Theater’s performance space. The company rehearses inside a former storefront at the Wilton Mall.

Home Made used to be housed in the Spa Little Theater, but that venue was taken over by the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) in 2022. Spa Little Theater is currently undergoing a $12 million renovation.

Performances of “The Crucible” will run from Feb. 20 to March 1, on Fridays and Saturdays at 7 p.m. and on Sundays at 2 p.m. For tickets or more information, visit homemadetheater.org/.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Musicians of Ma’alwyck and Excelsior Vocal Ensemble recently announced a collaboration to present “Dido and Aeneas,” an opera by Henry Purcell that is rarely performed in the Capital Region.

The opera will be presented in conjunction with John Blow’s “Ode on the Death of Mr. Henry Purcell.”

“Dido and Aeneas,” based on The Aeneid, is one the earliest English operas. This semi-staged performance directed by Sharon Greene will feature acclaimed soloists and premiere dance interludes. John Blow’s ode, scored for chamber orchestra and two tenors, was written as a tribute to Blow’s student after his death.

There will be two performances: Feb. 20 at 7 p.m. at Bethesda Episcopal Church in Saratoga Springs, and Feb. 22 at 3 p.m. at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall. For tickets, visit secure.qgiv.com/for/concertticketing/event/dido/.

BALLSTON SPA — Two concerts are coming up for the Sounds in Winter chamber music series at Ballston Spa’s Brookside Museum. Both concerts start at 3 p.m. and are free to attend. Tea and cookies will be served. Registration is requested at www.brooksidemuseum.org.

On Feb. 14: The “A Touch of Woodwinds” quintet of flute, clarinet, oboe, horn, and bassoon will perform. The group is composed of performing members of the Schenectady-Saratoga Symphony Orchestra. The quintet’s repertoire utilizes music from the renaissance (ie. Morley), baroque (ie. Bach), classical (ie. Mozart), romantic (ie. Grieg), impressionistic (ie. Debussy), contemporary (ie. Hindemith), and pops era (ie. Mancini).

On Feb. 21: The Eribeth Trio—made up of local musicians Elizabeth Silver on violin, Erica Pickhardt on cello, and Kristen Tuttman on the piano—will perform. Founding members Silver and Pickhardt are members of the Albany Symphony and have performed chamber music together for more than 30 years.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Is social media more terrifying than a monster?

In “Trad Wife,” the latest horror novel from author Saratoga Schaefer, that question lurks beneath the story’s surface. 

Camille, the novel’s main character, incessantly seeks validation from social media as she tries to manifest the “perfect” homemaker lifestyle. But when she struggles to get pregnant, she calls upon sinister forces for aid.

“I think one of the fun things about this book is that there’s the obvious horror,” Schaefer told Saratoga TODAY, “But the real horror is the social horror that comes through the relationship and the power imbalance [Camille] has with her husband, and then also the obsession she has with social media and needing to present a certain way online and needing people to like her. That, I think, is more frightening than the overt horror.”

A traditional wife or “trad” wife is a recent phenomenon that has seen young women reject much of the modern world to revert back to a simpler and, they contend, happier existence. Instead of spending all day in an office hunched over a keyboard, they spend the day cooking, taking care of kids, and maintaining an impeccably designed home—all for the benefit of their social media followers.

A number of studies have been conducted in an effort to better understand this trend. According to researchers at King’s College London, “the glamorization of domesticated roles for women is less a genuine embrace of tradition and more a plea from younger generations, reflecting what they describe as the impossible balance demanded by modern work and family life.” Two researchers at the University of Pennsylvania posit that mainstream feminists and trad wives are both “responding to the same broken system, but in very different ways. While each is rooted in women’s rage, the direction and consequences of that rage diverge sharply.”

Schaefer’s portrayal of Camille is complex. In some ways, Camille is sympathetic. In other ways, she’s profoundly unlikeable. But for much of the story, she seems to be under the spell of social media, which results in Camille doing things she knows are wrong.

“She is actively deluding herself for a good portion of the book,” Schaefer said. “I really wanted to get into the mindset of somebody who is a younger person who is attracted to this lifestyle.”

Camille chooses to discard facts and critical thinking in favor of agreeing with social media personalities who can bestow upon her more followers and fame. Camille’s obsession with portraying herself as the perfect influencer leads to horrendous consequences, some real and others supernatural. Trapped in a “Rosemary’s Baby” scenario in which she is pregnant with a creature that is less than human, Camille continues to post through the pain, pretending that her life is perfect when, in fact, it’s spiraling towards disaster.

To reveal more of the plot would spoil the fun. Though “Trad Wife” explores real issues, it’s also a spooky story with elements reminiscent of “Midsommar,” “The Witch,” and, of course, “Rosemary’s Baby.”

Schaefer’s new novel will be released on Feb. 10. Two days later, they’ll be in person at the Northshire Bookstore for a conversation with fellow author Dennis Mahoney. It’ll be an event in Saratoga featuring a person named Saratoga. Yes, it’s a bit unusual, and yes, Schaefer was named after the Spa City.

“I love my name,” Schaefer said. “I understand that people do a little bit of a double take when I say it.”

They’ll be doing a double take when they read the shocking yet thoughtful “Trad Wife” too. 

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Ensemble Connect—a group of young professional classical musicians from Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute— will return to Skidmore College for a February residency.

The public is invited to attend a culminating concert on Friday, Feb. 13 at 7:30 p.m. at the Arthur Zankel Music Center that highlights notable American composers and includes the world premiere of “Broke” by George Lewis, composer-in-residence with Ensemble Connect.

The program also features Valerie Coleman’s “Portraits of Langston”; Barber’s “Adagio for Strings,” performed with Skidmore student musicians; two works by Joplin, including “The Entertainer,” arranged by Franz Beyer, and “Paragon Rag,” arranged by William Zinn; and Ives’ “String Quartet No. 1, From the Salvation Army.” 

The performance on Feb. 13 is free and open to the public, but tickets are required. For more information, visit www.skidmore.edu/zankel.