Tag: The True

The new play “The True”, written by Sharr White, “examines — and hypothesizes about — the affections shared” between long-time Albany, NY mayor Erastus Corning 2nd (d. 1983) and his confidant Dorothea (Polly) Noonan (d. 2003).

There was an article in the local paper, the Times Union, with some relatives and/or friends of the pair complaining that no one had approached them about whether all the facts were correct. As with most movies about famous people and events, I’ve never felt it necessary for the story to be I-dotted, T-crossed factual.

BTW, I didn’t move to Albany in 1979, and Corning who was first elected in 1941, was STILL mayor. The Democratic machine, which still exists in a modified form to this day. Trivia fact: the tallest building between Montreal and New York City is the Corning Tower, the 43-story building on the Empire State Plaza.

“Edie Falco and Michael McKean star in The New Group production of “the True”, which opens September. 20 at the Pershing Square Signature Center in New York City. Falco, for one, didn’t know there really WAS a Polly Noonan.

Noonan’s granddaughter — Kirsten E. Gillibrand, “once a little-known congresswoman from the Capital District — was selected to fill the United States Senate seat held by Hillary Clinton, who had been named Secretary of State.”
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I watched a LOT of Burt Reynolds. I remember him first as the “half-breed” Quint on about four dozen episodes of the TV series Gunsmoke (1962-1965), the detective show Dan August (1970-1972), then a whole bunch of movies when he was box-office champ, usually prompted by Susan, my first significant girlfriend after I first moved to the area in 1978.

We saw Smokey and the Bandit I and II, Rough Cut, Starting Over, Hooper, and the underrated The End. Later, I watched the series Evening Shade (1990-1994) and the movie Boogie Nights (1997), plus a variety of guest appearances. Sally Field, who was in at least four of those films, said that Burt “never leaves my mind.”