The Tempest In Queens

Shakespeare's Last Solo Play To Run Another Week

LIC / April 26, 2010. This past weekend I saw The Tempest at the Secret Theatre in LIC. I found myself drawn into director Kelly Johnston's portrayal of the Shakespearean comedy, as well as the performances by the cast - which included the Queens Players and Secret Theatre founder Richard Mazda.

The Tempest is believed to have been the last play written in its entirety by Shakespeare alone. This rendition of the play appeared to emphasize the comedic themes of the work, in lieu of the romantic ones. And it seems this comedic focus was done to good effect, as many in the audience enjoyed the humor of a play written exactly 400 years ago [about 1610 - 1611 AD].

Click here for a brief review of The Tempest at Secret Theatre in LIC which includes a slide show of one of the spirit dancers twirling around in the background.

Three Sisters Vanishing

Queens Director Updates A Chekhov Classic

April 18, 2010 / Long Island City LIC / Queens Buzz. Three Sisters Vanishing is an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s play entitled Three Sisters by Queens playwright / director Handan Ozbilgin Bromley of the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center.

Adaptation Of Chekhov's Three Sisters - At LPAC

The story is about three sisters living in the Russian countryside who, following their father’s death, long to return to the bright lights and sophistication of Moscow. Moscow, in the Chekhov story, is analogous to the sisters’ dreams and aspirations. The play progresses through four acts, with the sisters’ hope of returning to Moscow fading along with their dreams, as they come to grips with the realities of their lives. Click here to view the rest of the review of Three Sisters Vanishing at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center in LIC.

Famous Photographers Convene

April 14, 2010 / Long Island City LIC / Queens Buzz. Yesterday at Manducatis Rustica on Vernon Blvd, I had occasion to bump into two well known photographers. Tony Vaccaro [left], who photographed for the Sunday edition of the Stars & Stripes, and Life and Look magazines and is well known for WWII photos and photographic sketches of famous people. Standing next to him is Mauro Presutti [right], who is an Italian photographer who currently photographs a variety of Italian subjects on black and white film. I found them sitting at 'Tony's Table' chatting with each other while a number of friends and acquaintances casually came and left. Both men have fairly recent published works which they are holding in the photograph on your left. Tony's book is entitled 'La Mia Italia' which translated means 'My Italy' and Mario's in entitled 'Il Teatro Involuntario' which loosely translated is 'Involuntary Theater'.

Performance Art - The Geometry

Melange of Music, Sound, Light & Theater @ The Chocolate Factory

March 25, 2010 / LIC / Queens Buzz. Last night at the Chocolate Factory Theater in LIC, I watched the dress rehearsal of Object Collection's production entitled The Geometry. It was a fun and very interesting mind stimulator. A sort of sensory overload, of different actors engaged in their own worlds, but somehow operating as an organic whole.

But the acting was just one layer of the production, as music and sound were woven into the performance fabric. The music a medley of instruments and objects, with an overlay of voices and vocals by the actors and musicians. The costumes and lighting complemented the mental food feast - feting the senses beyond their capacity. And the words were a sort of subconscious philosophical chaos which washed the daily mental garbage right out of my mind.

Click here to read a full review of The Geometry at the Chocolate Factory Theater in LIC.

LIC Jazz Festival Finds Its Rhythm

March 28, 2010 / LIC / Queens Buzz. I just returned from the first LIC Jazz Festival. It was a cold, dreary, drizzly day as I arrived at the Secret Theatre's entrance.

Outside the theater, atop the loading dock, there was a smoking barbeque. People were milling around, engaged in casual conversations about music and musicians: Miles Davis, Jimmy Hendrix, Bix. Many were musicians themselves, and there were also artists, actors, actresses, and of course quite a number of people like the rest of us who were there to take in some good music.

This was the first LIC Jazz Festival, and the first jazz festival in Queens in the 21st century. The Long Island City event producers and promoters had signed up talent from around the borough to play througout the entire day. Click here to read more about the LIC Jazz Festival, including numerous photos.

Act V - The Secret Theatre LIC Long Island City

Act V - The Secret Theatre In LIC

January 9, 2010 / Long Island City LIC. The Secret Theatre just opened a three week series of one act plays in Long Island City. The program includes one week of the first series of five one act plays, the second week includes another series of five one act plays and in the third week the five best plays as selected by the audiences in the first two weeks, will be shown.

The one act plays are all original work and mostly done by local writers, producers, directors, actors and actresses. Our general view of the performances is that they are well worth seeing and provide great entertainment value for the money. Click here to view our review of Act V at The Secret Theatre in LIC Long Island City Queens.

24 Hours @ LPAC

Long Island City / November 7 & 8, 2009. I visited LaGuardia Community College last night to see for myself, exactly what the 24 Hours event was all about. It's essentially a worldwide sharing of original theatre, dance and music via the internet. The international piece [inbound from other parts of the world] was due to resume at 2 am, so I decided to forgo it in favor of sleep, but I did get a chance to talk to the people responsible for the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center as well as their collaborators, the Internationalists, and a few of the students to begin to piece together what the program is all about. Click this link to view the full report about the events of last night at the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center in Long Island City.

NYC Marathon Photos 2009

LIC Long Island City Queens / November 1, 2009. We have some great photos of the NYC Marathon that we've just uploaded into a photo album on the site, all of which were taken in Queens. There are approximately one hundred of them, including photos of the runners, the crowds, the water stand workers and a few policemen.

Long Island City is about the fifteen mile mark. We started taking photos of the NYC Marathon 2009 in Queens around 10.30 am, which is about two and a half hours after the handicapped participants had begun and about an hour and a half after the runners had begun. Generally, as you can see by the photos, things were pretty quiet in LIC. We then jumped into the Queens Buzz Sky cam and around 11.30 am took photos of the 2009 NYC Marathon runners crossing the Queens Boro Bridge [click title link above]. Then a bit after 12 noon, we returned to LIC to photograph hordes of nyc marathon runners making the 2009 event theirs in Long Island City Queens. The rest, as they say, is history, although we have one more page of photos of the nyc marathon runners 2009 crossing through Queens.

Click this link to a report we published earlier on the NYC Marathon 2009 event. Have a good day.

Queens Arts Express Festival Begins

Queens / June 1, 2009. The Queens Art Express began this weekend in Long Island City. Queens Art Express is an Arts Festival that celebrates many of the artistic endeavors currently underway along the number 7 subway line in the patchwork of communities we affectionately call home [aka Queens].

Queens Council On The Arts

The Queens Council Of The Arts collaborated with participating arts organizations to organize this three weekend Queens Art Express extravaganza and the photo to the left shows the press conference I attended on Friday, May 29th at the Dean Project Art Gallery in Long Island City. Click here to see more photos, maps, the schedule of events and additional information about the Queens Art Express Festival which is being sponsored by the Queens Council On The Arts. While we missed the first weekend of this event, we do have related stories about participating organizations such as the Flushing Town Hall and the Queens Museum Of Art in Flushing Queens. While this is an unrelated aside, the Rufus King Manor Museum in Jamaica Queens NY is also worth a visit.

Christmas Traditions In LIC

December 12, 2009. I visited LaGuardia Community College to check out their performance of an old holiday classic, the Nutcracker. The ballet was performed by the LIC School of Ballet. Following the show, Santa had set up a workshop in the Little Theatre and hosted a sell out crowd of kids and their parents in what turned out to be a fun family afternoon.

Halloween In Queens 2009

LIC Long Island City / November 2, 2009. On Halloween Saturday night we toured a few neighborhoods of the borough to check out what people were wearing for costumes on Halloween. There were pirates, sailors, devils and pussycats. Sheik women, cleaning women, ogres and some hard-to-define originals. To see a few photos, click this link to photos of Halloween in Queens 2009.

The night was busy, as we noticed kids and their moms out trick or treating before dusk. They were soon followed by the adults who seemed to have embraced the holiday a bit more enthusiastically than I've seen in a while. I suppose Halloween falling on a Saturday night had something to do with it, followed by a long - extra hour - Sunday morning. The night was interrupted with rain, which almost always seems to happen, but it abated after a good warm half hour shower. Boo.

Queens Bridge Events - Centennial Celebration

Rioult Dazzles Audience

World Class Dance At LPAC

Long Island City / February 7, 2009. The Rioult Dance Company gave an outstanding performance at the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center [LPAC] in Long Island City last Saturday night. The production provided a collage of theater, dance and music which brought to mind the latest vogue in the art world ... I felt like I was witnessing performance art.

There were three dances to be performed for the evening in the Big Theater. The auditorium was relatively full of people aging in range from college students to folks possibly in their sixties. None left disappointed. I overheard one woman talking to her friend, who had invited her to go with her to see the performance. She remarked, "This was sooo much better than I thought." I got the impression that she initially wasn't very interested in attending at all. To the right are two dancers performing one of Rioult's choreographed works.

Click here to read / view the rest of the story about the Rioult Dance Company at the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center in Long Island City.

Kayaking On The East River

LIC Space - In Memoriam: AGhost

Walter Carpenter Honored In Art Exhibit

May 8, 2010 / LIC Long Island City / Queens Buzz. Last night I attended the LIC Space first Friday reception entitled AGhost. This month they paid tribute to Walter Carpenter who passed away unexpectedly late last year. Walter was a Baltimore artist who oftentimes visited Queens and lived for a short spell in Astoria. Walter was an accomplished artitst, commissioned by the city of Baltimore to beautify the city with his creativity and art. He also was deeply involved in the artistic community of Baltimore. Today his work still enhances and helps beautify some of the public spaces in Baltimore.

Click here to view the rest of the story including a slide show of Walter Carpenter's AGhost art exhibit at LIC Space in LIC.

Art Exhibits At PS1

In Long Island City

On Sunday, October 19th, with perfect fall weather, PS1 opened four new exhibits at their spacious art museum in Long Island City. The image to the left is from one of the exhibits wherein the artist, Leandro Erlich, set up a swimming pool in the museum that plays with one's perceptions of three dimensional space. Gino De Dominicis, the artist of one of the other exhibits, spent much of his life cloistered away from modern media. Neo Hoo Doo, the third exhibit, takes a cross cultural, time warped look at mundane things in our lives. And Yael Bartana uses video to explore her relation to the state. Click here for the rest of the review of the four new exhibits [as well as a couple of extras] at PS1 in Long Island City LIC Queens NYC

PS1 Warm Up Party

PS1 Warm Up Parties - LIC Long Island City Queens

Long Island City / LIC / Queens. PS1, a modern art museum in the Long Island City LIC neighborhood of Queens NY hosts Warm Up Parties during the summer season. The PS1 Warm Up parties are thrown Saturday evenings starting in the mid to late afternoon and run until sundown.

Click here to read our full report on PS1 Warm Up Parties.

LIC / Long Island City Events

Things To Do / Events In Long Island City LIC

LIC / Long Island City / Queens Buzz. Long Island City LIC has grown to become a bit of a cultural mecca for Queens and surrounding boroughs.  Many Brooklyn musicians and artists have migrated to Queens seeking less expensive rents while joining a rapidly emerging cultural movement.

Click here to view the LIC / Long Island City Events section of this site.

LIC / Long Island City Neighborhood

Long Island City Neighborhood On The Rise

LIC / Long Island City Queens. This is the front page to the LIC / Long Island City neighborhood section of QueensBuzz.com. This section contains news and information about events, attractions, restaurants and shopping in Long Island City / LIC. Long Island City is emerging as a hotbed for artistic endeavors although rising rents have put increasing pressure on the artistic community. There's also a growing array of community services and shops to service the upcoming neighborhood.

Click here to view the LIC / Long Island City Neighborhood section of this site.