Hall of Fame

Carolee Carmello, an Albany native and graduate of the Albany Public School System and UAlbany, has appeared in ten Broadway shows; “City of Angels,” “Falsettos,” “Parade” (for which she received a Tony nomination and a Drama Desk Award), “1776,” “The Scarlet Pimpernel,” “Kiss Me Kate,” “Unknown,” “Lestat” (Tony nomination and Drama Desk nomination), “Mamma Mia!” (Audience Favorite nomination), and “The Addams Family” (Drama Desk nomination and Outer Critics Circle nomination).

Her Off-Broadway credits include: “John & Jen,” “Das Barbecu,” “Hello Again” (Obie Award), “A Class Act,” “The Vagina Monologues,” and “Elegies.” Carmello has also appeared on television in “Law and Order,” “Frasier,” “Ed,” and “Remember W.E.N.N.” (SAG Award nomination).

She has toured the U.S. with productions of “Chess,” “Big River,” “Falsettos,” and “Les Misérables.” Her concert appearances have taken her across America and Europe, including engagements at Lincoln Center, Town Hall, and Carnegie Hall.

Kevin McGuire, born in Cambridge, and raised in Hoosick Falls, has played lead roles on Broadway and in national and international tours of “Les Misérables,” “The Phantom of the Opera,” and “Jane Eyre.” He starred as Uncle Archie in the critically acclaimed national company of “The Secret Garden.” So far, he’s acted in more than 69 cities worldwide and traveled 80,000 miles on tour.

McGuire has extensive New York credits including Horatio in “Hamlet” at the Classic Stage Company, Benvolio in “Romeo and Juliet” on tour for The New York Shakespeare Festival, and the original cast of “Forbidden Broadway.” Regional work, including 30 productions at the Williamstown Company at Hubbard Hall and touring with John Houseman’s The Acting Company. He’s had many TV and film appearances, as well as significant directing experience including playing Edna Turnblade in “Hairspray.” He also performed with the Columbus Jazz Orchestra and appeared in New York in “Treasure Island – A New Musical.”

Nationally famous and locally beloved, The Costumer has been a major force in the costume industry since 1917, serving vaudeville, Broadway, television, and films. It is one of the oldest costume shops in the country, started by Ms. Anna White – three years before she had the right to vote.

Since 1974, when Jack and Kathe Sheehan bought the business, The Costumer has outfitted stars including Chevy Chase, Kiss, and the cast of “Stepmom,” but its primary mission has been to support scholastic theater. The Sheehans, both former teachers and high school drama directors, developed their successful niche business based on extensive personal experience with producing school plays. During the past show season, the produced over 30,000 costumes for over 1,000 shows throughout the US, including scholastic, collegiate, civic, and professional.

Jack Sheehan died Oct. 2006. The Costumer continues to walk costumes across the street to Proctors, continuing the 93-year tradition.

In 1975, Chris Detmer and Tom Lloyd moved their tools from NYC to Warrensburg and founded Adirondack Scenic, Inc. It was a quality-of-life decision. They brought a small crew out of New York City and reached out to local craftspeople throughout the Adirondacks and Capital Region. Three-and-a-half decades later, children of the original employees are working along with their parents, designing and building a unique brand of visual magic.

With roots in performing arts technology and production, the company expanded its repertoire to include interactive exhibits, corporate events, amusement attractions, casinos, restaurants and theatre systems, and applies its talents anywhere visual storytelling enhances the guest experience. Adirondack Studios has been recognized with awards for its far-reaching contributions to the creative arts.

“Poodles” (1891-1967), from a circus family in Barnsley, England, became one of the world’s greatest trick horse riders. In 1915, John Ringling North brought the Hanneford family to the U.S. to join the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey circus.

“Poodles” was the first to do a back somersault from one running horse to another, and his method of stepping off a galloping horse has never been duplicated. He’s in the Guinness Book of World Records for performing a running leap onto a horse at full gallop, stepping off, and leaping up again – 26 times in succession.

There were more than 40 short films to his credit with memorable roles in “Our Little Girl” (with Shirley Temple) and “The Bells of Rosarita” (with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans).

After “Poodles” retired from trick riding he worked at Frontier Town amusement park in Lake George, New York until his death. He played the Old Prospector, his wife Grace ran the frontier store, and their daughter Gracie performed with her father. In 1995, he became the only comedy rider ever inducted into the Clown Hall of Fame.

Rachael Ray has parlayed her cooking birthright into a wildly successful career as a syndicated television star, an iconic Food Network television personality, bestselling cookbook author, and director of her own lifestyle magazine, “Every Day with Rachael Ray.”

Ray managed restaurants at the famed Sagamore resort on Lake George. From there, she created cooking classes at Cowan & Lobel in Albany. That’s how WRGB-TV discovered Ray and signed her on to do the weekly “30-Minute Meals” segment for the evening news. Nominated for two regional Emmys in the first year, the segment was a major success; a companion cookbook sold 10,000 copies locally during the holidays, and a franchise was born!

Ray’s television show “30-Minute Meals” earned a 2006 Daytime Emmy Award. Her daytime syndicated talk show, “Rachael Ray,” launched in the fall of 2006, and is credited with getting America back in the kitchen with her easy approach to cooking. Her nonprofit organization, Yum-o!, empowers kids and their families to develop healthy relationships with food and cooking.

Founded in 1990 by brothers Karthik and Guha Bala while they were still in high school, Menands-based Vicarious Visions has steadily grown into a world-renowned video game development studio. They employ over 200 developers, and over the years have sold over 40 million games, generating over $2 billion in retail sales.

Vicarious Visions’ innovative and entertaining games have won a number of prestigious awards, including wins at the Independent Games Festival, Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards, a BAFTA Award, and many others. In 2005, Vicarious Visions was acquired by leading game publisher Activision.

The company’s commitment to teamwork, innovation, and product quality is complemented by its involvement in the local community. In 2008 alone, Vicarious Vision reached over 50 Capital Region schools and colleges through its community engagement efforts.

“Shear Madness” is America’s longest-running non-musical play. Longtime theatrical partners Marilyn Abrams and Bruce Jordan adapted this popular comedy whodunit from a serious German play called “Scherenshnitt,” first appearing in their version of “Shear Madness” in Lake George in 1978. Set in a hair salon and revolving around the off-stage murder of a concert pianist, the play enlists the audience to help solve the crime.

In 1980, “Shear Madness” opened at the Charles Playhouse in Boston, and is in the Guinness World Records as America’s long-run chap. The 1987 production that opened at the John F. Kennedy Center is the second longest running play, and the 1982-1999 Chicago production is third. Abrams and Jordan adapted, produced and starred in each of these productions.

“Shear Madness” has played in 38 different US cities and 41 foreign cities. It has been translated into 15 languages, with over 50,000 performances worldwide.

Author Gregory Maguire, born in Albany in 1954, has written many acclaimed fantasy novels and short stories for adults and children. In his novel “Wicked,” he presents the Wicked Witch of the West as a complex and sympathetic character – not as the villain we know from “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum. A Broadway musical based on “Wicked” became a major hit that continues to break box office records around the world. The show was nominated for ten 2004 Tony Awards, winning those for Best Actress, Scenic Design, and Costume Design. It also won six Drama Desk Awards.

Maguire was a professor and co-director at the Simmons College Center for the Study of Children’s Literature from 1979-1985, founded Children’s Literature New England, and is a board member of the national Children’s Book and Literature Alliance, a national not-for-profit that advocated for literacy, literature, and libraries.

Troy, NY native Maureen Stapleton (1925-2006), a renowned actress, is perhaps best known for her Academy Award-winning role as anarchist writer Emma Goldman in the 1981 film “Reds.” A no-nonsense performer with a remarkable talent, Stapleton has a lifetime run on the stage, screen, and television, playing a wide range of characters with surprising depth and vulnerability.

In 1951, she won a Tony Award for her performance as Serafina in Tennessee Williams’ “The Rose Tattoo.” Five nominations later, she landed another Tony in 1971 for “The Gingerbread Lady.”

In 1958, she received an Academy Award nomination for her role in the film “Lonelyhearts,” and an Emmy Award in 1968 for her role in “Among the Paths to Eden.” She had popular and widely seen performances in “Airport” (for which she received another Oscar nomination) and “Cocoon.”

Never one to flaunt her celebrity, this actor’s actor said that the key to acting was to “keep the audience awake.”

Swedish-American electrical engineer Ernst F.W. Alexanderson (1878-1975) was a pioneer in early radio and television development. He emigrated to the US in 1902 and worked for the General Electric Company under Charles P. Steinmetz.

Alexanderson invented a high-frequency alternator that converted direct current into alternating current, making modulated (voice) radio broadcasts practical, and revolutionizing radio communications. It was used to broadcast the world’s first-ever radio program with voice, on Christmas Eve 1906.

Other ground-breaking experiments involved transmission of pictures by both radio and television. In 1927, the first experimental television broadcast in the United States was Alexanderson’s GE Plot home. He gave the first public demonstration of television on May 22, 1930 on the Proctors vaudeville theatre stage.

For his lifetime of engineering advances, Alexanderson was awarded 345 U.S. patents and an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Medal of Honor.

CBS6-WRGB is America’s pioneer television station – the oldest continually operating television station in the world. Its first public broadcast was on Jan. 13, 1928, at Dr. Ernst F.W. Alexanderson’s home in Schenectady’s GE Plot.

On May 22, 1930, the first public demonstration of large-screen television took place before a sellout crowd at Proctors Vaudeville Theatre – the first view of television in any theater in the world. A seven-foot picture was projected onto the stage, while the performance took place in GE Building 36, two miles away.

WRGB:

• Expanded live television to five nights a week in 1946
• Relocated to Niskayuna in 1957 – to the first studio designed for color television
• Began area’s first hour-long 6 p.m. newscast in 1973
• Over the years, WRGB has been a network affiliate of NBC, ABC, CBS, and Dumont
• Began on-site Doppler radar broadcast in Nov. 2001
• Broadcast the first high-definition news in Albany’s market on Jan. 13, 2008

Kirk Douglas, the quintessential Hollywood hard guy, was born in 1916 to Russian Jewish immigrant parents in Amsterdam, NY. Along with acting in countless films, Douglas has been a director and producer, and had a significant role in helping to end the infamous Hollywood blacklist.

His brash, powerful screen persona developed during the 50s in films like “The Bad and the Beautiful” (1952) and “Gunfight and the O.K. Corral” (1957). Douglas’ own film company, Bryna Productions, produced movies that offered him pivotal roles in films including Stanley Kubrick’s epics “Paths of Glory” (1957) and “Spartacus” (1960), winner of the Golden Globe Award for Best Picture.

While Douglas continued his work in films until the 80s, his role as Goodwill Ambassador for the State Department earned him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981. This “ragman’s son” (the title of Douglas’ best-selling autobiography) is both superstar and genuine humanitarian.

Frederick Freeman Proctor (1851-1929) was an early pioneer of continuous vaudeville – 12 hours of revolving performances that opened entertainment to wider audiences. He later incorporated movies into this concept. During his lifetime, Proctor managed a circuit of some 53 theaters in the Northeast, including Schenectady’s 1912 vaudeville hall near the Erie Canal.

On December 27, 1926, Proctor opened his first new state-of-the-art movie/vaudeville palace in Schenectady at its present site. He called it the “largest, handsomest, and most costly theater I have ever built.” Designed by famed theater architect Thomas Lamb in the neoclassical style that reflected illusions of grandeur and opulence. It cost $1.5 million, seated 2,700, and boasted a $50,000 Wurlitzer organ. Opening day drew over 7,100 to see top vaudeville acts and the silent film “Stranded in Paris.”

Proctor sold most of his theater chain to RKO for $16 million in 1929, just months prior to his death.

John Sayles, born in Schenectady (1950), is one of America’s original and most respected independent filmmakers. Beginning with “Return of the Secaucus Seven” in 1980, Sayles continues to define the independent movement with films including “Matewan” (1987), “The Secret of Roan Inish” (1994), “Sunshine State” (2002), and “Honeydripper” (2007). His films “Passion Fish” (1992) and “Lone Star” (1996) were both nominated for Oscars for Best Original Screenplay.

Sayles’ work consistently addresses issues of ethnicity, gender, and class, maintaining the sense that “people are connected, whether the realize it or not.” Truthful, complex explorations of both the personal and the political recur throughout his films.

“Silver City,” a satirical political drama/murder mystery, was premiered upstate at Proctors, Schenectady, Sept. 2004.

Maureen O’Sullivan (1911-1998), who at one time resided in Niskayuna, NY, was considered to be Ireland’s first film star. O’Sullivan’s career began when she was discovered by director Frank Borzage in Dublin filming “Song o’ My Heart” (1930), staring Irish tenor John McCormack. She left Ireland and traveled to the United States to complete the 20th Century Fox film in Hollywood.

She later signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and became Tarzan’s Jane, playing opposite Johnny Weissmuller from 1932 to 1942. O’Sullivan also starred in “The Thin Man” (1934) and played Kitty in “Anna Karenina” (1935).

In 1948, she appeared in “The Big Clock” directed by her husband John Farrow. She had her Broadway debut in the play “Never Too Late,” co-starring with Paul Ford. Shortly after it opened in 1963, John Farrow died. In 1983, O’Sullivan married James Cushing of Niskayuna.

A notable later role was her appearance with daughter Mia Farrow in Woody Allen’s “Hannah and Her Sisters,” as Farrow’s mother.

WGY is New York State’s first radio station and one of the nation’s oldest. Its 50,000-watt radio signal – one of the most powerful in North America – blankets much of the Northeast by day and can be heard in more than 30 states at night.

From its sign-on in February 1922 until 1983, WGY was the flagship station of General Electric’s legendary broadcasting group. The station successfully experimented with global signal relays and gained an international audience.

WGY’s technological pioneering placed the station in an influential position. Starting in 1929, Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt chose the high-powered WGY as the primary vehicle for delivering his earliest “fireside chats.” WGY was the first station to present a drama adapted specifically for radio and was first to broadcast a World Series baseball game.

As the golden age of radio ended, WGY evolved into a full-service station, before changing to News/Talk on Memorial Day weekend, 1994. It remains committed to local news, provocative talk, and public service.

Monty Woolley (1888-1963) was the son of a successful hotel magnate with grand hotels in New York City and Saratoga Springs. He prowled the streets of Saratoga during its golden age, hobnobbing with the stars of the day and emulating their theatrical lifestyle at Yale. Woolley went on to direct undergraduate dramatics at Yale and is credited as a pioneer in university and musical theater in America.

With classmate Cole Porter’s help, Woolley broke into professional theater as a stage director and actor in the 1930s. He is best remembered as the insufferable Sheridan Whiteside in “The Man Who Came to Dinner” (1939). Although repeatedly typecast in variations on this same role, Woolley could be an actor of great range, as evidenced by his Oscar-nominated performances in “The Pied Piper” (1942) and “Since You Went Away” (1946). He retired due to ill health after his last screen appearance in “Kismet” (1955).