All Over Albany

Stuff to do this weekend

There's a gorgeous fall weekend ahead. Don't waste it all raking leaves. Pick something from our list of stuff to do, grab a friend, and then go out and do it. Heck, pick a few things.

Got something planned that we're missing? Drop it in the comments for everyone to see.

And whatever you're up to, have a fantastic weekend.

Fusion
The Albany Barn's Fusion fundraiser is Friday night at the Washington Park Lakehouse and brings together chefs from around the Capital Region, preparing fusion-inspired dishes. Also signature cocktails from Albany Distilling, wine pairings, fashion and music. Friday night at 7pm. $60

Downtown Albany Restaurant Week
Restaurant Week returns to downtown Albany on Saturday. A number of restaurants in Albany are offering three-course menus for $20.13. Restaurant week runs through next Friday (October 25).

Cult classic
Friday: C. Amanda Boutahorse's Cult Classics returns to The Hangar in Troy with a burlesque tribute to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. 9 pm - $10

Fall stuff

Apples
Pick-your-own season is well underway at a number of orchards around the Capital Region. Check the website of your favorite (or give 'em a call). Don't forget the cider donuts. Here are the results of the latest Tour de Donut. Pick a pumpkin while you're out -- it's almost jack o'lantern time.

Maria College Fall Festival
Maria College in Albany is hosting a fall festival on Saturday with over 30 craft vendors, a haunted house, pony rides, a pet psychic and other fun stuff. Saturday 10 am to 5 pm - free admission.

Greater Loudonville Association Fall Festival
The Pruyn House in Latham hosts the Greater Loudonville Association Fall Festival this weekend with pony rides, a petting zoo, wagon rides, pumpkin decorating, face painting a scavenger hunt and more. Sunday from 2pm to 4pm - free admission

Liberty Ridge Farm's Fall Festival
Liberty Ridge Farm is hosting its ongoing fall festival with a corn maze, rides, animals, trolley rides and a pumpkin cannon. $12.50

Corn Mazes
The giant maze at Fort Ticonderoga is open every day from 10 am to 5 pm -- free with admission to the fort. And the corn maze at Samascott's Garden Market in Kinderhook is now open -- 11 am to 5 pm Saturday-Monday, $7 per person (kids under 4 free).

Oktoberfest
Brown's Brewery is hosting an Oktoberfest benefit for the Rensselaer Land Trust at Revolution Hall. German food, Oktoberfest Lager and Pumpkin Ale, music by Eastbound Jesus, Flood Road, and Chilly Nickels . Saturday 1:30 pm to 9:30pm - $8 donation requested at the door.

Spooky Stuff

Harvest Haunt
Five haunted attractions including a Farmer's Haunted House, Forest of Fear, and Field of Screams will be at at the Harvest Haunt at Liberty Ridge Farm Friday through Sunday. 6:30 pm-11 pm - $19

Albany Ghost Tour
Harmony House Tours is is running its Albany Ghost Tour again this weekend. Friday through Sunday night, 7 pm - $30

Dance

Sleeping Beauty
Friday - Sunday: A production of the ballet Sleeping Beauty, choreographed by Matthew Bourne, is on the Proctors main stage. Production blurbage:

Perrault's timeless fairy tale, about a young girl cursed to sleep for one hundred years, was turned into a legendary ballet by Tchaikovsky and choreographer, Marius Petipa, in 1890.

Bourne takes this date as his starting point, setting the Christening of Aurora, the story's heroine, in the year of the ballets first performance; the height of the Fin-de-Siecle period when fairies, vampires and decadent opulence fed the gothic imagination. As Aurora grows into a young woman, we move forwards in time to the more rigid, uptight Edwardian era; a mythical golden age of long Summer afternoons, croquet on the lawn and new dance crazes. Years later, awakening from her century long slumber, Aurora finds herself in the modern day; a world more mysterious and wonderful than any Fairy story!

performances Friday-Sunday, with matinees on Saturday and Sunday - $20 and up

Step Afrika
The modern African dance company Step Afrika has been described as "a tap dance without shoes, a band without instruments" and a "feast for both the eyes and the ears." Step Afrika performs this Saturday at Hudson Valley Community College. Noon to 2pm - general admission $10 / under 12 free

Theater

Venus in Fur
Capital Rep's production of the Tony-nominated play Venus in Fur closes this weekend. A "delicious, suspense-packed study of the erotics of power." (It's reported to be the most-performed play of the 2013-2014 season around the country.) Reviews: Times Union | Daily Gazette | Nippertown.

Guys and Dolls
Schenectady Light Opera closes its production of the musical theater classic Guys & Dolls this weekend. Reviews have been fantastic and tickets will be hard to get. Performances Friday and Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 2 pm - $18-$28

The Drowsy Chaperone
Home Made Theater presents the musical The Drowsy Chaperone. Metroland calls it a "prescription for happiness." and The Saratogian calls it "delightful musical comedy." Friday and Saturday at 8pm - $23-$29

Confetti Fest 9: A Short Play Festival
Confetti Stage's 9th annual short play festival is this weekend. Playwrights, actors, and technical artists from around the region collaborate on eight original short plays. Friday and Saturday 7:30 pm - $15 per show, four show punch card $50

Morning's at Seven
Schenectady Civic Players presents Morning's at Seven -- the story of four aging sisters in a small midwestern town. Friday and Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 2:30 pm - $17

Spank!
Spank!The Fifty Shades Parody returns to The Egg on Sunday. 7pm - $39.50

Comedy

Chortal Combat
Mop & Bucket Company continues its run of Chortal Combat at Proctors. Teams of improvisors compete by creating scenes and songs using audience suggestions. Friday at 8pm - $14 for adults, $6 students/seniors.

Coffee and Comedy
Comedian Vernon Payne hosts another Coffee and Comedy show with a line-up of local stand-up acts at the Hudson River Coffee House. Friday 8:30 pm - $5

Rain Pryor
Richard Pryor's daughter, Rain, is an actor, writer, producer and comedian. Pryor is headlining on Saturday night at Vapor Nightclub at the Saratoga Casino and Raceway. Saturday 7pm - $25

Film

Halloween triple feature
The Malta Drive-in is wrapping up its season this weekend with a Halloween triple features on both screens. You can see the horror classics Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Friday the 13th on one screen, and the comedy classics Ghostbusters, Young Frankenstein, and Beetlejuice on screen two.

Movies and Mimosa
The Bow Tie Cinema in Saratoga is now open and its its first Movies and Mimosa screenings -- classic movies with mimosas -- are this weekend. Up first: Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.Saturday and Sunday 11 am

Othello
By popular demand, The Spectrum has added an extra screening of The London National Theatre production of Othello. Sunday at noon.

The Great Confusion:The 1013 Armory Show
The Sage Colleges' Opalka Gallery is screening the New York State premiere of The Great Confusion: The 1913 Armory Show. The show goes along with Ken Ragsdale and Michael Oatman's An Armory Show exhibit, currently on display at the Opalka Gallery. Sunday at 1pm

Music

Friday: Over the Rhine, Tift Merritt at The Egg
Folk/Americana/alt-country. 8 pm - $24

Friday: Wolfgang Gartner + Tommy Trash at Upstate Concert Hall
Two house DJs from different continents. 9 pm - $35

Friday: J-Plus + Sin-City at Red Square
Album release party for two local hip hop albums, with a bunch of guests. 7 pm - $10 ahead / $13 dy of

Friday: Conehead Buddha at The Hollow
Still kicking. 8 pm - $10 ahead / $12 at door

Friday: Ensemble ACJW at the Zankel Center
Ensemble of rising classical professional musicians. 8 pm - $8 / $5 students and seniors

Saturday: Talib Kweli at MASS MoCA
Hip hop. With: Rebel Diaz. 8 pm - $22 ahead / $25 day of / $18 students

Saturday: Peter Wolf at The Egg
From the J. Geils Band. 8 pm - $38.50

Saturday: Albany Symphony at Troy Music Hall
"A charming selection of works from Ravel, Fauré, and the supremely talented composer Aaron Jay Kernis around the gorgeous melodies and picturesque scenery of Schumann's Third Symphony, inspired by the Rhenish countryside." Another performance on Sunday at 3 pm.. 7:30 pm - $19 and up

Saturday: Fred Eaglesmith's Traveling Steam Show at Helsinki Hudson
Canadian bluegrass/folk. 9 pm - $20 ahead / $25 day of

Saturday: Consider the Source at Valentine's
"SciFi Middle Eastern fusion." With: Fikus. 8 pm - $12

Saturday: Grandpa Jones' 100th Birthday Show at Caffe Lena
"Humor and banjos a-plenty," with the Ramblin Jug Stompers and Lost Radio Rounders. 8 pm - $18

Saturday: The Piano Guys show at The Egg is sold out. Blame PBS.

Sunday: Cory Chisel at Helsinki Hudson
Roots/soul. With: The Candles, INVISIBLEMAN, Adriel Denae, and guests. 8 pm - $15 ahead / $18 day of

The Angola Project
Saturday: Part of this three-part solo performance, which combines film and narrative, was produced as part of EMPAC residencies. "Having its roots in the tradition of travel lectures that emerged in the 19th century, CABULA6 invites the audience on a journey into Jeremy Xido's real-life attempts to finance a film and confront the truths of mortality in the 21st century." Part I begins at 4pm, Part II at 5:30 and Part III at 8pm

Talks

Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Friday: Ishmael Beah -- author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, about his childhood in Sierra Leone -- will be at Sage for a talk. Friday 7 pm, Kahl Center, Sage Albany campus - free

My Journey from the Barrio to Capitol Hill
Friday: US Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-Illinois) is scheduled to be at UAlbany as part of the NYS Writers Institute visiting writers series. Gutierrez will be talking about this autobio Still Dreaming: My Journey from the Barrio to Capitol Hill. Friday 7 pm, performing arts center - free

Edgar Allan Poe Returns
Historian and playwright Rob Velella presents a program on Edgar Allan Poe at Oakwood Cemetery. Saturday at 3 pm - $15.

Albany Institute Family Day
Sunday The Albany Institute hosts a family day. Try on Egyptian style clothing, experiment with fabric dying and jewelry making and more. Sunday 12:00 pm to 5:00 pm

The Hunt for Purple October
The ASAP Daisies host their annual Hunt for Purple October scavenger hunt on Saturday. Get a team together and meet at Cafe Hollywood on Lark Street. The hunt goes from 3-6:30 pm and each team needs a digital camera or phone to capture everything on the list. $10 per person to enter. Proceeds go to In Our Own Voices.

The Northeast Juried Craft Festival
Artists and designers will showcase original work in metal, fiber, clay, glass, paper, wood, leather and fine art this weekend at the annual Northeast Juried Craft Festival at Proctors. Friday through Sunday - admission $6/$7

Farmers' markets
In just a few weeks the farmers' markets move indoors. Markets are open in Troy (Saturday), Delmar (Saturday), Saratoga (Saturday), Schenectady (Sunday), and the new Spa City Farmers Market -- at the Lincoln Baths in Saratoga Springs (Sunday).

Take a walk
It's our favorite season for strolling. Here are some of our favorite autumn walks.

The Troy Music Hall, Proctors, and the downtown Albany BID advertises on AOA. And AOA is a media sponsor of the Albany Barn.