What the Medici would remember today?
BUT FIRST: UPH’s first sold-out show! And Elody gets an opening date.
🎟️UPH kicks off 2026 with 2 sold-out shows
SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY — Broadway legends Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp hit UPH Jan. 9 — and have bragging rights to the first sold-out show of the year.
(If you can’t quite place the names, they were two of the original cast members of Rent.)
For performing arts nuts, living Upstate is sometimes an embarrassment of song-and-dance riches, as Broadway folks love to do little tours between their big headliners — and our theaters are just so darn close to their NYC stomping grounds. And these two performers are especially popular.
Pascal and Rapp super-fan Kathleen McGrath, who bought her tickets the day they went on sale, explains. “Their individual voices are beyond amazing, but their combined sound is sheer perfection,” she says. “Their shows weave together life lessons, funny anecdotes and pure joy through engaging storytelling and beautiful sound.”
And she would know.
“I have been fortunate enough to see both of them in Broadway productions, on national tours, at individual shows, and even through Cameo gifts,” she says. “In every show, it is readily apparent that they are genuine friends who have appreciated each other throughout the course of their lives and careers.”
“Bingo Lingo” — billed as the “most outrageous bingo party in the USA” — on Jan. 31 is also sold out. So if you’ve got holiday fatigue, it’s time to snap out of it and start planning the rest of your winter. You don’t want it to pass you by, just because you were “too tired” to do some online digging for shows ahead of time.
See what else catches your eye at atuph.org.
🍳Top 4 ways to make New Year’s Day count, too
Kathleen Willcox
You may have already resolved that in 2026 you’re going to eat healthier, move more, drink less. And while there are a few activities in here that will encourage you do do just that, in our books, the New Year — and all of its intentions and undertakings — do not have to commence until New Year’s DAY is over.
Which is midnight.
So…
🥂 If you’re dying for a boozy brunch
The First Meal of the Year is important. Set the stage for a festive 2026 at Saratoga Winery’s third annual New Year’s Day Recovery Brunch (10 a.m. to 3 p.m.) featuring bacon, eggs, French toast, and all of the usual breakfast staples. Want something savory? Pizza, tater tots, Mac n cheese and more are also available. At a festive $26, it’s a great first bite. Vino, mimosas and bloody are also available.
For a reservation, visit opentable.com.
🍺 If you’re more of a burger and beer stan
Make a beeline for Artisanal Brew Works for great burgers, and one of 20 craft beers on tap for $18.
🍕 If you want a (not-too-strenuous though) “sports” night
Get your sports on while also drinking beer and eating pizza. Yes, we’re talking bowling at the Saratoga Strike Zone. On Jan. 1 (and every Thursday), it’s $3 to bowl from 9 p.m. onwards, with $3 shoe rental, $3 domestic bottles, and $3 for two slices of pizza. Compelling discounts for bumper cars too.
🏃 If you’re feeling resolute
Join the Saratoga First Day 5K and show 2026 who’s in charge of your health. (You are, just in case you were wondering). Both runners and walkers are welcome, and the race course will take place on a USATF-certified 3.1 mile course. The run begins and ends downtown, so you can reward yourself with brunch after. The race kicks off at 11 a.m., and costs $38.04 with a small processing fee.
🏞️ If you want to be active…and out of town
Get moving with a view at Peebles Island State Park in Cohoes. Ring in 2026 with a picturesque hike, and two times to start from: 10 a.m. or 1 p.m. You’ll hike the two miles around the perimeter of the island after meeting in the parking lot of the Park Office. Hikes will discuss the island’s Native American history, its significance during the Revolutionary War, and other important tidbits from history. The program is free.
Keep reading…
🎨 Artist Profile: Rebecca Vickery: official NYE poster
✍️Calling all poets
Write, and write some more. Then go meet our new Poet Laureate.
Snuggled up at home writing poetry in this cozy winter weather but unsure what to do with it?
Saratoga Springs’ new Poet Laureate, Jay Rogoff, is here for you. His first initiative has him opening his doors the first Sunday of every month — starting Jan. 4 — from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. for what he’s calling his Poetry Repair Café.
Simply head over to Northshire and march upstairs to talk shop with one of the kindest men in Saratoga — who just happens to also be an award-winning author of eight books, including his most recent collection of poems, Loving in Truth.
“Sometimes,” Rogoff says, “a poet just needs a second pair of eyes — or ears — to realize what kinds of changes might help improve it.”
For the name of his open doors edit party (he promises “sotte voce” privacy for anyone who wants it), he was inspired by American poet William Carlos Williams, who “called a poem ‘a small (or large) machine made of words,’” he says. “In successful poems, every element assists the smooth operation of the whole work — you don’t have missing parts or pieces left over, as you might in self-assembled furniture.”
🎨Saratoga Arts is baaaack…
After staying front of mind via events all over town, Saratoga Arts is ready to reopen its downtown locale with major fanfare on Jan. 9.
They put on art exhibitions and show photography. They take chances on rising live music acts and throw themselves into experimenting with genres.
In other words, Saratoga Arts (on the corner of Broadway and Spring) is a crucial part of the “creative fabric” that our town is so famous for. And now they’re celebrating the completion of their newly-renovated digs.
“I want Saratoga Arts to be a place where people get used to walking by at night and going, ‘Let’s just walk in and see what they’ve got going on,’” says Spencer Sherry, the organization’s grants and community outreach guy. “We’ve put in new theater equipment, new lights, new sound, a new sound booth projector. We have a lot more utility out of the space now. There’s also now a door in our downstairs classroom space that leads out onto the patio, so we’ll be able to do programming out there and some classes and workshops.
Now we’re right in the park and can put a band there — let’s just do stuff!”
To celebrate, on Jan. 9 Saratoga Arts will host a 10 a.m. ribbon cutting ceremony and a 6 p.m. cocktail party featuring performances by the Curley Lamb Nu-Soul-Jaz Trio with Sam Zucchini.
Conveniently (for me), our new Poet Laureate, Jay Rogoff, was asked to read a poem at both events and said he was “delighted.”
“The arts are essential to our moral and psychological wellbeing,” he says. “They make a community worthy of memory. My wife is an art historian, and she likes to point out that we don’t remember the Medici because they were great bankers, but because they supported Donatello, Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo and dozens of other artists who created the Renaissance.”
Beautiful.
By the following day, Saratoga Arts will be in full swing, with drop-in workshops from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., tours (every 30 minutes) from 1 to 3 p.m., and an opening reception for its High School All Stars Exhibition at 5 p.m.
🎉Elody sets an opening date!
Downtown (hopping Phila Street, no less) is thisclose to having another new restaurant! Elody (from the owners of 13 North) has an official opening date — and it’s SOON.
Very soon.
As in, January 2 soon.
Congrats!
Hit up Resy.com to make a reservation today.
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