Shows 1960-2022

From Caffé Lena Historian Brett Bydairk “I have been a fan of The Caffé since 1971, when I saw my first performance there by Michael Cooney. A few years ago I wondered if there were a list of all the performers and when they performed. I found out there is a list of performers, but no dates, so I set out to fix that. Here is the result of my research.”

Brett passed away in 2021. His project was taken over by volunteer Eric Rosenberg, who has maintained a complete record of all  shows, classes and events in 2021 to today. Volunteer Toula Ousouljoglou has organized the data into a master spreadsheet that can be accessed by the public.

• The format for this list is: yyyy/mm/dd performer appearance number (if any) notes/info about the performer.
• The cases where there is a name in the notes section means that that person/band was the opener.
• Entries highlighted in green mean that I have guessed that this is the correct date based on internal and other evidence.
• Entries highlighted in yellow mean that I have conflicting information on just who appeared on that date.
• Entries highlighted in orange mean that I have a question about full name, spelling, or whether this even happened.
• Entries in quotation marks are, generally, the titles of plays performed at the theater in one of its several versions, followed by the name of the author in parentheses.
• Letters in parentheses after a date indicate days of the week: (M)onday, (T)uesday, (W)ednesday, T(H)ursday, (F)riday, (S)aturday, S(U)nday.
• wsg means “with special guest”.

I have done considerable research on this list, and a quick glance over it will show that there are still many dates left blank. If you have information on any of these dates, please send it (with verification) to me at time-ghost(at)outlook.com, and put Performer Update in the subject line.

If I have misspelled any names, please let me know so that I can correct them. Additions and corrections will be credited.*

Many and immense thanks to Sarah Craig and the staff at the Caffé for their help and support with what started off as a personal project, but soon grew into something larger.

Thanks to the website FultonHistory.com, my first source for many of these dates.

Thanks also to the Saratoga Springs Public Library for allowing me to raid and plunder their microfilm library of The Saratogian newspaper files.

And thanks to Field Horne and the Saratoga Springs History Museum for access to Lena Spencer’s papers, which proved invaluable.

Brett Bydairk

*Update log:

2017-05-20 1st posting

2017-05-26 Michael Jerling supplies a couple of new dates for himself and HC&H

2017-05-26 Don Armstrong provides several new dates

2017-05-26 Sandy McKnight informs me of the misspelling of Liv Cummins name

2017-05-28 2^nd posting

2017-06-29 3^d posting

2017-07-29 4^th posting

2017-09-19 5^th posting – spelling and format fixes

2018-01-13 6^th posting – minor tweaks

2018-07-23 Chuck Vosganian supplied 2017 dates for Rochmon Record Club at the Caffé

2018-11 Dennis Cox supplied some new dates for him and Lori

2019-01-04 7^th posting – major update

2019-03-20 Valerie Magee notified me Gillette was misspelled several times