Judy Collins Brings Her Farewell Tour to the State Theatre October 9

ITHACA, N.Y. — Judy Collins plays the State Theatre of Ithaca on Friday, October 9, a stop on the farewell tour she has titled “Sweet Judy Blue Eyes.”

Collins turned 87 on May 1. The run reaches into 2027 and is billed as her last, and it is being filmed for a documentary on her life, music and legacy.

The Ithaca date is an all-ages show presented by DSP Shows, with doors at 7 p.m. and music at 8. The Norwegian duo Oakland Rain opens.

A tour named for someone else’s song

The tour takes its name from “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” the Stephen Stills composition that opens Crosby, Stills & Nash’s 1969 debut album.

Stills wrote it about Collins, with whom he was romantically involved in the late 1960s. The two recorded an album together, Everybody Knows, in 2017.

Three New York dates

Ithaca is the first of three New York stops on the published itinerary. Collins plays the Suffolk Theater in Riverhead on Saturday, December 12, and The Town Hall in New York City on Saturday, March 20, 2027.

Guests change from date to date across the tour. The announced list includes Mary Chapin Carpenter, Rosanne Cash, Amanda Shires, Richard Thompson, Bruce Cockburn, Elles Bailey, Livingston Taylor, The High Kings and Oakland Rain, the duo booked for Ithaca.

The High Kings return to the same stage on their own account five months later, on Tuesday, March 9, 2027.

Six decades on record

Collins reached a national audience with “Both Sides, Now” in 1967, a Joni Mitchell song that rose to No. 8 on the Billboard pop singles chart and won the Grammy for Best Folk Recording in 1969.

Her largest commercial success was Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns,” which charted at No. 36 in 1975 and No. 19 on a return in 1977. Her 1970 recording of “Amazing Grace” reached No. 15 on the Hot 100.

She has released 36 studio albums, nine live albums and four holiday records. During the folk revival she recorded early versions of songs by Leonard Cohen and Mitchell, both then largely unknown as performers.

The theatre

The State Theatre opened on December 6, 1928 with Paul Tremaine and his Aristocrats of Modern Music, billed as “21 Peppy, Snappy Entertainers.” Admission was 50 cents.

The building is older than the theatre inside it. Local architect Henry N. Hinckley designed it in 1915 as an auto garage and Studebaker dealership. Cornell Theatres, Inc. bought it in 1926 and hired theatre architect Victor Rigaumont, who worked Moorish, Renaissance Revival and Collegiate Gothic elements into the conversion.

It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 14, 1996. By then the owner had considered demolition, and it was seed money from the Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance, along with community volunteering, that paid to remove a wall dividing the balcony and return the room to live programming.

Historic Ithaca acquired the condemned building on May 5, 1998. It reopened on December 5, 2001, and the present nonprofit, State Theatre of Ithaca, Inc., bought it from Historic Ithaca in the spring of 2009.

The theatre seats just over 1,600 and is the last remaining historic performing arts theatre in Tompkins County. It hosts more than 75 events a year and reports over 60,000 attendees each season.

Tickets

Tickets are sold through Tixr. The theatre’s events page did not publish advance prices for the October 9 show, or for any other date on its fall calendar, as of September 9.

The full tour routing is on Judy Collins’ Ticketmaster page.

Judy Collins, Sweet Judy Blue Eyes: Farewell Tour, with Oakland Rain, Friday, October 9, 2026, at the State Theatre of Ithaca, 107 West State Street, Ithaca, New York. Doors 7 p.m., show 8 p.m. All ages. Presented by DSP Shows. Photograph of the State Theatre by Andre Carrotflower.

Sources: Best Classic Bands, May 1, State Theatre of Ithaca events, State Theatre of Ithaca, about, Wikipedia, Judy Collins, Wikipedia, State Theater (Ithaca, New York), Photograph on Wikimedia Commons.