Book Fest goes Hollywood. Moran launches reelection bid.
TogaNola has new snacks, and a SPAC singer's newest role.
Welcome to the Daily Dispatch, the future of Spa City news straight to your inbox.
In this edition:
Top: The Hollywood twist at this year’s Bookfest.
Mid: Positively Saratoga: TogaNola. SPAC singer’s latest role.
Bottom: Moran launches re-election bid on homelessness, small business economy and short-term rental regulations.
Saratoga Book Festival gets a Hollywood twist
A September collab with 518 Film invites cinephiles to the theater for a dazzling screening and special event.
By: Abby Tegnelia
A special Saratoga Book Festival preview event is bringing Hollywood glamour to the Scene One Cinemas movie theaters at the Wilton Mall.
The peek behind the curtain invites cinephiles to hit the theater (Sept. 20, 7 p.m.) for a screening of Merchant Ivory, a documentary about the famous movie-making partnership behind legendary films such as The Remains of the Day, Maurice, Howards End and A Room with a View. A Q&A with the movie’s director, Stephen Soucy — who’s originally from Saratoga — will follow.
“Merchant Ivory is considered the comprehensive documentary about their start, and their careers,” says Spencer Sherry, who will moderate the Q&A, of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory. “[Soucy]] interviewed a ton of really big A-list actors that have worked on their films, some of which were adapted from books and plays.”
Hugh Grant, Vanessa Redgrave, Emma Thompson and Helena Bonham Carter are some of the Hollywood heavyweights who appear in the film.
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The movie’s composer, Ryan Homsey, will join the Q&A to talk about the film’s composition and music. Homsey is also from Saratoga and still lives locally.
Ivory is now 97 and lives in the Hudson Valley. “He and Stephen are really good friends, so Stephen will pick him up and bring him up for the event if he if he's feeling up to it,” Sherry says. “So there's a chance.”
The evening — there’s also a VIP reception and meet-and-greet before the show — is a collab between Saratoga Book Festival (Oct. 2-5), 518 Film Network (of which Sherry is president) and Saratoga Arts (where Sherry has been Grants and Community Outreach Coordinator for the past two years).
“We'll have little cards for people to sign at the reception, and it's an opportunity to come and mingle with the filmmakers beforehand,” Sherry says. “Coming out to this event supports local filmmakers, the book festival, and Saratoga Arts.”
To purchase a ticket to the VIP reception and movie screening, visit Saratoga-arts.org.
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Keep reading about the Saratoga Book Festival and other upcoming fall activities!
New Book Festival party taps into fall’s buzziest new aesthetic
Book lovers add music to the 5th annual festival
Shh: Saratoga Arts spills big secret before surprise-packed gala
SPAC performer, Opera Saratoga alum stars in ‘Sound of Music’
Kelly Glyptis, who garnered rave reviews in Opera Saratoga’s ‘Man of La Mancha’ at SPAC, returns to the U.S. after two years in the West End.
After two years performing in Phantom of the Opera in the West End in London, Kelly Glyptis has landed in Northern Virginia, at the prestigious Riverside Center for the Performing Arts. She’s performing The Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music, according to a Thursday, September article in Inside Nova.
The lyric soprano — who also sang in Il tabarro with the Lithuania National Opera and in Unballo in maschera with London’s On Location Opera — was a festival artist with Opera Saratoga in 2021. She performed the stand-out role of down-on-her-luck Aldonza in Man of the La Mancha at SPAC, for which she got stellar reviews. “She sang with a vibrant, intense, edged tone and infused her acting with lots of drama and vitality,” wrote the Daily Gazette, while Spotlight News raved that she “captured the conflict, pain and struggle of Aldonza, all while belting out song after song. She provided one of the most moving scenes of the show with her performance.” (Click on the below embed for a clip of her performing at SPAC.)
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Two new products from TogaNola
The snack company will debut the options Sunday Sept. 14.
By: LaurenBehan, Saratoga Chamber
Positively Saratoga
This exciting Positively Saratoga news is brought to you by our friends at the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce.
Local business TogaNola Snack Company, known for its tasty granola, is launching two new product lines for hungry shoppers to savor. Granola bars and granola bombs are both making debuts as part of the TogaNola lineup this season.
Owner Jessica Schwartzman is proud to introduce the new products, while still offering the traditional granola mixes that her customers love.
TogaNola’s soft and chewy Apricot, Almond, and Dark Chocolate granola bars have just enough subtle sweetness from the real honey and bright fruit balanced perfectly with the dark chocolate and crunchy almonds. Schwartzman suggests taking it on the road (or the trail) for an easy snack. New flavors are coming soon.
A TogaNola Granola Bomb is an energy-packed explosion of flavor. It’s “not quite a granola bar, a cookie, or a PB cup, but reminiscent of all three, while being packed with powerhouse ingredients to help fuel your busiest days and most exciting adventures,” according to the company. Current flavors include Dark Chocolate and Quinoa stuffed with Sunflower Seed Butter and Cherry, Flax, & Chia stuffed with Almond Butter.
TogaNola Snack Company will highlight these new products at the Second Sunday Market on Sept. 14 in Congress Park as well as Skidtoberfest next month at Skidmore College.
The new products are available at TogaNola’s website for retail and wholesale customers. The company aims to have these products in retail shops shortly as well.
As always, a portion of all TogaNola sales will go back to local nonprofits through the company’s 1% For the Planet membership.
Learn more about TogaNola Snack Company and its products at toganolasnackcompany.com.
Moran launches campaign on homelessness, the economy and short-term rentals.
“The horses ran out of the barn. They are running around the track with reckless abandon." —Dillon Moran
By: Stephen Thurston
Commissioner of Accounts Dillon Moran’s reelection campaign will center around helping the homeless in the community, supporting small businesses, and regulating short-term rental properties, he told the two dozen or so who gathered to hear him at the Night Owl in downtown Saratoga Springs on Maple Avenue, Thursday evening, Sept. 11.
He was first elected to the city council in 2021 in a race that saw Democrats win three of the four council seats and the mayor’s chair. He and Commissioner of Finance Minita Sanghvi are the only two remaining from that time.
Moran, a Democrat, has been working against the city’s new “No camping” law since it was approved in July, and his speech to those gathered reflected that.
He touted the work that a Democrat-majority board did to move homeless people out of the city’s parking garages and into a low-barrier shelter on Adelphi Street.
Although the first attempt at creating the shelter at the former Saratoga Senior Center fell through, the city was able to work with RISE supportive services to create the shelter and get more people off the streets, but he said that with a new Republican-controlled board, the city has "backpedaled."
“I'm very concerned
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