Creative License Announces 2023/24 Season at Cohoes Music Hall

The Creative License Theater Collective, the resident non-musical theater company at the historic Cohoes Music Hall announces its 2023/24 season, which will mark the beginning of the company’s 10 year anniversary celebration. The season, including the company’s first summer show since taking residence at the Music Hall, consists of three regional premieres: a recent Broadway hit, a powerfully haunting drama, and a thought-provoking romantic comedy.

This November, the collective presents the recent Williamstown and Broadway hit The Sound Inside by Adam Rapp. When an isolated creative writing professor at Yale begins to mentor a brilliant but enigmatic student, the two form an unexpectedly intense bond. As their lives and the stories they tell about themselves become intertwined in unpredictable ways, one makes a surprising request of the other. Brimming with suspense, Rapp’s riveting play explores the limits of what one person can ask of another. The Sound Inside, directed by company co-founder Aaron Holbritter, runs at the Cohoes Music Hall November 17 through 26.

In March, last year’s delayed production finally takes the stage with Steven Yokey’s powerful drama about loss, afterlife: a ghost story. A ghost story in the most literal sense, afterlife follows a married couple as they prepare their beachfront home for an impending storm. But when the storm rolls in faster than expected, it may be too late for them to escape the haunting world of unsent letters, unexpected snow, unfinished sand castles, unrelenting birds, and unforgettable loss that threatens to swallow the pair forever. afterlife: a ghost story, which is co-directed by Holbritter and co-founder Casey Polomaine, arrives March 8 and runs through 17.

Creative License will present their first summer production with the poignant romantic comedy Apartment 3a by Jeff Daniels. Reeling from the loss of what she thought was the love of her life, Annie Wilson searches for a reason to hope again with a mysterious next-door neighbor who teaches her what it truly means to be in love forever. Apartment 3a will run July 26 through August 4 and will be directed by Polomaine.

“It’s hard to believe we’re on the cusp of our 10 year anniversary,” says Polomaine. Creative License was started by local theater stalwarts Holbritter and Polomaine in early 2014 with the goal of presenting smaller, lesser known works. By that November, they presented their first show, A Steady Rain, at the Albany Barn. In 2021, the company partnered with Playhouse Stages, the area’s oldest professional musical theater company and management company for the Music Hall, to become the resident company for non-musical plays. Tickets will be on sale through the Cohoes Music Hall box office, and all three shows will be part of Playhouse Stages season flex pass for discount tickets.

To find out more about Creative License, visit their website at www.creativelicenseonline.com.