Mission Statement
Adirondack Theatre Festival (ATF) is a professional not-for-profit summer theatre located in Glens Falls, NY. ATF strives to challenge, entertain, and nourish its audience through the development and production of new and contemporary musicals and plays. This relationship engages the community as audience members and participants in workshops, discussions, and educational programming.
What We Do
Each year ATF produces a summer season of theatre using professional artists from New York City and across the country. ATF operates under a Small Professional Theatre Agreement with Actors’ Equity Association (the union of professional actors) casting top-level talent primarily out of NYC. The actors you see on our stage, as well as the designers and directors, have worked regularly on and off-Broadway, on television, and in movies. ATF is the leading professional theatre in the Capital Region dedicated to producing new plays and musicals.
ATF’s Founding and The Wood Theater
When a group of 20-something theatre professionals, spearheaded by David Turner, Martha Banta and David King, decided to found a summer theatre in 1994, they wanted to take “the road less traveled” and focus on new work. Theatre professionals advising the founders told them that such a concept would never fly since, to survive, summer theatres must produce big name musicals and lighter fare. The founders held true to their vision and now ATF has already surpassed 26 years of excellence, still holding true to its mission.
ATF’s first full season in 1995 was produced at the Lake George RV Park. The next summer, the company moved into an abandoned Woolworth’s five and dime on Glen Street. Eventually, in cooperation with the Partners for Progress, a campaign was launched to renovate that space into the Charles R. Wood Theater which opened in 2004 and changed the face of downtown Glens Falls. The Wood Theater is now a separate non-profit entity serving not only as ATF’s home, but also as home to a diverse group of community and professional productions year-round. Adirondack Theatre Festival, together with organizations like The Hyde Collection and the Glens Falls Symphony Orchestra, makes Glens Falls the cultural heart of the Southern Adirondacks and continues to enrich the quality of life for local residents year after year.
Research & Development for the American Theatre
Since its first season, ATF has produced over 30 world premieres. Many of ATF’s world premieres have gone onto receive productions in NYC, across the country and internationally. Most notably, Fully Committed by Becky Mode has received hundreds of productions across the country and received its Broadway premiere in 2016 starring Jesse Tyler Ferguson. Other plays and musicals that started with ATF and have received notable acclaim and productions at theaters across the country (and the globe) are: Murder for Two by Joe Kinosian and Kellen Blair (2010), Ordinary Days by Adam Gwon (2009), Loch Ness by Marshall Pailet & AD Penedo (2018), Mimi Le Duck by Diane Hansen-Young and Brian Feinstein (2004), Calling All Kates by Emily Goodson & Jeremy Schonfeld (2019), Barbara’s Blue Kitchen (2000) a musical by Lori Fischer (world premiere), and Filming O’Keeffe by Eric Lane (2000 world premiere) and Nikola Tesla Drops the Beat by Nikko Benson & Benjamin Halstead (2017) just to name a few.
In addition, ATF has provided an artistic home for early work by significant artists at a time when their work was only known in New York City. This has included: Lisa Kron’s 101 Humiliating Stories (1995) and 2.5 Minute Ride (2007), Andrew Lippa’s Jon & Jen (1996), David and Ain Gordon’s The Small Family Business (1998), Melissa James Gibson’s All is Not (2006), Adam Rapp’s Nocturne (2001), Anton Dudley’s The Lake’s End (2003), JT Rogers’ Madagascar (2005) and John Kolvenbach’s Love Song (2008).