All Over Albany

Stuff to do this weekend

October is here!

No, really, check your calendar, it's October. This unseasonably warm autumn weekend is filled with fall festivals, food events, music, shows, and cider donuts.

Here's our list of stuff we thought you might like to try. Doing something you don't see here? Share it in the comments so we can all see. And whatever you're up to, have a fantastic weekend!

1st Friday
Friday: It's 1st Friday in Albany, which means a number of Albany galleries, museums, and shops will be open with art, music and other events. A few things going on:
+ There's a block party at North Swan Street Park to kick off the He(Art) of The Hill initiative. 4-8 pm free
+ Albany First Friday Swing Dance, Albany Elks Lodge, 25 South Allen St. $15
+ There's free admission at the Albany Institute of History & Art from 5-8 pm.

Food and drink

Drink Albany at the New York State Museum
Friday: Drink Albany is at the State Museum. It's organized by the Capital Craft Beverage Trail and features samples of craft beverages produced in the Capital Region and around the state. Friday 6-9 pm -- $30 ($5 designated driver)

Troy ChowderFest
Sunday: Sample chowders from over 30 Capital Region restaurants and vote for your favorites at Troy ChowderFest downtown. Music, a sidewalk sale, and kid's entertainment Sunday noon-4 pm -- free admission / samples $1 each

Wing Walk
Saturday: The Wing Walk is back in Schenectady. Stroll downtown and sample wings at participating restaurants, then vote for your favorite. Saturday, noon-5 pm -- $12 adults / $7 children and students (with student ID, not available online)

Saratoga International Flavorfeast
Saturday: The International Falvorfeast returns to downtown Saratoga Springs. Taste samples of ethnic foods from around the world at more than 20 Saratoga restaurants. Saturday 11 am-5 pm -- free admission / samples $1 each

Fall Festivals

Goold Orchard Apple Festival
Saturday-Sunday: Goold Orchard hosts its annual Apple Festival. Crafts, food, music, wagon rides, pumpkins, pick your own apples and more. Saturday-Sunday 9 am-5 pm -- $10 admission / under 12 free

Maple Ski Ridge Fall Festival
Saturday: Maple Ski Ridge hosts its annual Fall Festival. Vintage cars and tractors, pie eating contest, hay bail throwing contest, chair lift rides, kids events. Saturday 9 am-4 pm -- free admission

Harvest Fest & Art Show
Saturday: Schenectady's Upper Union Street BID host its annual Harvest Fest and Art Show. Kids events, farmers' market, gourmet market, food and more. Saturday 10 am-3 pm -- free admission

Boo!
It's the time of the year when some of us like to scare ourselves silly. Here are a few options:

Double M Haunted Hayride
The Double M Haunted Hayrides are back from now through Halloween. various times and prices

Haunted Corn Maze
Friday-Sunday: The haunted corn maze is back at Schuyler Farms. Friday 4-10 pm, Saturday 10 am-10 pm, Sunday 10 am-6 pm -- daytime $8 / haunted $14

Field of Horrors Sneak Peak Weekend
Friday-Saturday: The Field of Horrors haunted attractions in Brunswick is open for the season. Saturday-Sunday 6:30-11 pm -- various prices

Nightmares at Liberty Ridge Farm
Saturday: Liberty Ridge Farm's Nightmares is open for the season with six haunted attractions, including two haunted houses and a haunted corn maze. Saturday 7-10:30 pm -- $15-$26

Ghosts in the Yaddo Garden Tours
Friday and Sunday: Yaddo is offering ghost tours of its gardens featuring stories of Native Americans, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Trask Family. Friday and Sunday 5 pm -- $10

Ghosts of Albany Walking Tour
Friday: The Ghosts of Albany Walking Tours work their way through downtown Albany telling "stories of ghosts, antique sites, scandalous tales, haunted places, mysterious sightings of apparitions, strange and unusual accounts of centuries past, legendary stories, folklore and ghostly experiences stranger than reality." They meet at the Hilton at 40 Lodge Street. Fridays 7:30 pm -- $15 per person (make a reservation, space fills quickly)

Stage

The Color Purple
Saturday-Sunday: The tour of the Tony Award-winning production of The Color Purple starts a run at Proctors this weekend. (It's there through October 14.) Saturday 8 pm and Sunday at 2 pm -- $20 and up

Sex With Strangers
Friday-Sunday: Capital Rep's first production of the new season -- Sex With Strangers -- continues this weekend. It's about a snowbound blogger, his literary idol, and a tryst turned transformational experience. Friday-Sunday various times -- $20 and up

Love's Labour's Lost
Friday : The Adirondack Shakespeare Company is a Proctors with Love's Labour's Lost. Friday 7:30 pm -- $17-$20 ($10 for veterans)

This is Not a Test
Friday-Sunday: Marquis Productions presents This is Not a Test, a one-man clown performance at the Troy Arts Center. Blurbage:

In a war-torn era, inside a decrepit vaudeville theater, with nothing but a pile of shoes to sleep on, an isolated clown finds shelter. After having survived for a long period of time with only inanimate objects as friends, the clown is shocked to awake one morning to see an audience of people staring back at him. As if observing an animal in a zoo, the audience watches as he sings, dances, and celebrates parties. Comedic vignettes offer a balance for darker content throughout the show. All the while the clown conveys his own resilience to loss and his willingness to seek hope.

Friday-Sunday various times and prices

Confetti Fest 13
Friday-Sunday: Confetti Stage presents Confettifest XIII, its new play festival. Performances Friday and Saturday at 7:30 pm and Sunday at 2 pm -- $15, $10 for students

Lost in Yonkers
Friday-Sunday: Curtain Call Theater presents Neil Simon's Lost in Yonkers. Friday and Saturday 8 pm, Sunday 3 pm -- $20

In the Heat of the Night
Friday: Sand Lake Center for the Arts presents John Ball's, In the Heat of the Night, adapted from the Sidney Poitier film. Friday and Saturday 8 pm / Sunday 2:30 pm

Always, Patsy Klein
Friday -Sunday: Park Playhouse presents Always, Patsy Klein at Cohoes Music Hall. Friday -Sunday, various times -- $25, $15 for kids

Tolkien and Lewis: Wardrobes, Rings, and the Last Goodbye
Sunday: Actors explore the last encounter between writers JRR Tolkien and C.S. Lewis in Tolkien and Lewis: Wardrobes, Rings and the Last Goodbye at the Troy Music Hall. Sunday 2:30 pm -- $15 and up

Comedy

Demetri Martin
Friday: Demetri Martin brings his stand-up act to The Egg. Friday 8 pm -- $35 and up

Ron White
Saturday: Ron "Tater Salad" White brings his stand-up act to the The Palace. Saturday 8 pm -- $46.75 and up

History of the Burl' Part II: The Search for More Money
Friday: TwoPenny Nerdlesque presents History of the Burl' Part II: The Search for More Money. a burlesque tribute to Mel Brooks, at the MopCo Theater. Friday 8 pm -- $10 / $6 for students and seniors

Spontaneous Broadway
Saturday: MopCo Improv Theatre presentsSpontaneous Broadway. Act one is a mock backers audition, in which the company invents songs based on audience suggestions. The audience votes on a favorite, and in act two, the company makes up the full musical, including costumes, sets and a reprise of the first act song. Friday 8 pm -- $10 / $6 for students and seniors

Film

All the President's Men
Friday: The NYS Writers Institute Classic Film Series is showing All the President's Men at Page Hall on the downtown UAlbany campus. Following the screening, Harry Rosenfeld -- the metro editor at the Washington Post during that time -- will be there for a discussion with Paul Grondahl. Friday 7 pm -- free

The 36th Asbury Short Film Concert
Saturday: The Asbury Short Film Concert returns to The Linda. Saturday 8 pm -- $10

Rosemary's Baby / Beetlejuice
The Madison Theater is screening the 1968 horror film Pray for Rosemary's Baby, and the 1988 creepy comedy Beetlejuice.

Drive-ins
Drive-in season continues:
+ Malta:Screen 1: Blade Runner 2049, and It | Screen 2: Kingsman: The Golden Circle and American Assassin
+ Jericho: Blade Runner, and It
+ Hollywood: Ninjago, and It

Music

Friday: Black Uhuru at Helsinki Hudson
Reggae. 9 pm -- $25 and up

Friday: Todd Sheaffer at The Hollow
From Railroad Earth. With: Adam Brockway. 7 pm -- $20

Friday: Walter Salas-Humara at The Low Beat
From The Silos. With: Coal Palace Kings. 8 pm -- $10

Friday: Coco Montoya at The Upper Room
Blues guitarist. 8 pm -- $20 and up

Friday: Tessa Lark at Troy Music Hall
Violinist. 7:30 pm -- $25 and up

Friday: Alash Ensemble at Caffe Lena
Tuvan throat singers. 8 pm -- $22

Friday: Jez Lowe at Old Songs
Folk singer-songwriter from northern England. 7:30 pm -- $23

Saturday: Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis at Troy Music Hall
Jazz royalty. 8 pm -- $49.50 and up

Saturday: Upstate's Alright at Low Beat/Pauly's
13 bands, punk flea market, vegan hot wings eating contest. Saturday 3 pm -- $15

Saturday: Ani Cordero at MASS MoCA
Puerto Rican singer/songwriter. With: Jota Sete Duo. 8 pm -- $12 ahead / $18 day of

Sunday: The Psychedelic Furs at Upstate Concert Hall
A John Hughes movie might break out. 8 pm -

Sunday: Stephen Stills and Judy Collins at The Egg
Folk. 7 pm -- $59 and up

Sunday: Spafford at Lucky Strike
Jam. 8 pm -- $15 ahead / $18 day of

Adirondack Sports & Mohawk Hudson Marathon Expo
Saturday: The Albany Capital Center hosts the Adirondack Sports Expo. Health, fitness, and home exhibitors. Saturday 10 am-5 pm -- free admission

The Church
Friday-Saturday: The Church -- a new artists space and event venue in the former Saint Paul the Apostle Church in Troy -- will be open for tours of studios, a makers market, music, and food. Friday 6-9 pm, Saturday noon-6 pm -- free admission

Queen Size Swap
Sunday: The Queen Size Swap returns to The Hangar in Troy. It's a swap of plus-size clothing. "This is a body and size positive event! All genders welcome." Sunday 11 am-2 pm -- $10

Illustrating the brain
Friday: Neuroscientist/cartoonist Matteo Farinella will be at UAlbany as part of the NYS Writers Institute visiting writers series. "Matteo Farinella uses comics and illustrations to make the science of the brain accessible to the non-scientific audience." Friday 3 pm, Life Sciences Building -- free

Duck Derby
Saturday: Freedom Park in Scotia hosts a Duck Derby to fight autism. Saturday 11 am-2 pm -- adopt ducks from $5 to $100

Tour of Oakwood Cemetery: Family Mausoleums
Saturday: Historian Michael Barrett hosts a walking/driving tour of the family mausoleums at Oakwood Cemetery. Saturday at 9 am -- $15

Meet Elizabeth Schyuler Hamilton
Saturday: Re-enactor Sarah Blakeslee will be at the Albany Public Library's Pine Hills branch for a presentation about Elizabeth Schyuler Hamilton. " Listen to a 30 minute presentation from Blakeslee and then play games in groups that Schuyler and Hamilton probably used to play together!" Ages 5 and up. Saturday 2 pm -- free

Museums/galleries

Albany Institute
This weekend the Albany Institute opens Well-Dressed, an exhibit of high fashion from the 19th century. It also recently opened an exhibit about the the anti-suffrage movement in Albany. Also almost its entire collection of Hudson River School works is on display.

Hyde Collection
The Hyde Collection opens a touring exhibit of folk art on Sunday (on display through the end of 2017). And it recently opened its new Feibes & Schmitt Gallery. Also: Sunday is a free admission day.

State Museum
The State Museum recently opened the first phase of its new Enterprising Waters: New York's Erie Canal exhibit.

MASS MoCA
MASS MoCA has a bunch of exhibits on display that make use of its huge gallery expansion.
 
Other Side: Art, Object, Self
The Tang Museum at Skidmore College recently opened a new exhibit called Other Side: Art, Object, Self. This group show features contemporary art that examines ways in which artists use materials, found objects, or even their own bodies to explore questions of national, cultural, and self-identity. (Through December 30)

The Clark
This is the last weekend for The Clark's exhibit of work by Helen Frankenthaler (through October 9).

USS Slater
The USS Slater, the destroyer escort historical museum in Albany, is open for tours. Wednesday-Sunday 10 am-4 pm -- $9 / $8 for seniors / $7 for kids 6 to 14 / free for kids 5 and under

Berkshire Botanical Garden
The Berkshire Botanical Gardens in Stockbridge are open for the season. every day from 9 am-4 pm -- $15 / $14 seniors / $12 students / kids under 12 are admitted free

Cider donuts
It's cider donut season. Try one, or try a lot. Here are a few places to try.

Farmers' markets
+ Troy Waterfront Farmers Market is on River Street around Monument Square. Saturday 9 am-2 pm
+ The Delmar Farmers Market is Bethlehem Central Middle School (332 Kenwood Ave). Saturday 9 am-1 pm
+ The Saratoga Farmers' Market is outdoors at High Rock Park Saturday 9 am-1 pm
+ The Schenectady Greenmarket is at its outdoor location around city hall. Sunday 10 am-2 pm
+ The Spa City Farmers' Market is on the lawn of the the Lincoln Baths. Sunday 10 am-3 pm.

Troy Makers Market
Saturday: Local craft vendors will display and sell wares at the Troy Makers Market in conjunction with the Troy Waterfront Farmers Market. Saturday 9 am to noon

Day trips
Explore New Paltz, head for The Berkshires, the Catskills, or Columbia County.

The Albany Institute, Capital Rep, and the Mop & Bucket Company advertise on AOA. And AOA is a media sponsor for This is Not a Test and The Church.

photo: Matthew Murphy