-- In advance of the April 1 opening of the play “The True” at Capital Repertory Theatre, the NYS Writers Institute presents a discussion on Monday, March 21 on the makings of the play, its Albany roots, and its explorations of the bounds of love, loyalty, and female power in the historically male-dominated world of Albany machine politics.

The conversation will feature “The True” playwright Sharr White, Capital Rep Artistic Director Maggie Mancinelli-Cahill, and Writers Institute Director Paul Grondahl, who wrote the biography Mayor Corning: Albany Icon, Albany Enigma (1997).

The event will take place 7 p.m. Monday, March 21, 2022, at Capital Rep, 51 N Pearl Street, Albany NY 12207. The event is free, but registration is required. Visit www.nyswritersinstitute.org for more information.

The play “The True” is a fictional portrayal of real-life Albany icons, political operative Polly Noonan and Albany’s “mayor for life,” Erastus Corning 2nd – who served 42 years in office -- as they wage a battle for control of the city’s Democratic Party against upstarts and progressives in the 1970s. Other characters in the play include State Senator Howard Nolan, who waged a primary battle against Corning in 1977, Polly’s husband Peter, Corning’s wife Betty, and Albany machine lieutenants Charlie Ryan and Bill McCormick. NOTE TO PAUL: I looked their names up in your Corning book. Pretty sure it’s accurate for Charlie, but couldn’t find a reference for McCormick.

The 2018 off-Broadway premiere of "The True" starred Edie Falco as Polly Noonan and Michael McKean as the Mayor. In a New York Times review, Jesse Green wrote “It is, after all, Polly who has the gift — the gift we associate with certain leaders — of connecting to the emotion beneath the policy and the people behind the vote. (‘A machine doesn’t care,’ she says. ‘A machine doesn’t have heart.’) And it’s she who has the harder job, like Ginger Rogers, of doing everything the men do but backward and in heels."

The Albany production, which runs April 1-24 at Capital Rep, features Broadway and television veterans, Antoinette LaVecchia and Michael Pemberton as Polly Noonan and Erastus Corning 2nd.