#WeeklyColumn | April 12 to April 18 | It’s In Queens!
BY QEDC It's In Queens
The Spring Migration is here, and birds are flocking to Queens. Humans are heading to the borough, too, to enjoy cooking with a celebrity chef, a jazz festival, Chinese dance, a massive street festival, Broadway romance, Pete the Cat, and a lecture on bird songs.
April 12, Wartime Defection: Resistance & Rescue During Genocide, 5 pm. Prominent scholar and UCLA faculty member Aliza Luft discusses rescue behavior during mass atrocities and genocide. Kupferberg Holocaust Center, Queensborough Community College, 222-05 56th Ave., Bayside.
April 13, Celebrity Cooking, 6:30 pm. Pilipino Chicken Adobo and healthy Asian cuisine with Neil & Carson from Food Network’s Cooks Vs. Cons. $20, includes tasting. The Food Court at Queens Crossing, 136-17 39th Ave., Flushing.
April 14, Broadway Valentine, 3 pm & 8 pm. Romantic songs by real-life couples who regularly perform on Broadway: Tony nominee Erin Dilly (A Christmas Story) and Stephen Buntrock (Les Miserables); Two-time Tony nominee Brandon Uranowitz (Prince of Broadway) and Zachary Price (Baby, It’s You!) and Alysha Umphress (On The Town) and Cody Williams (Cinderella). This concert is rescheduled from a February postponement. $20-$30. Queens Theatre, 14 United Nations Ave. S., Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
April 14, QJOG Spring Jazz Fest, noon to 10 pm. The Queens Jazz OverGround, a collective that promotes jazz, presents its annual series of workshops and performances. Free. Flushing Town Hall, 137-35 Northern Blvd.
April 14, As Above, So Below: Scientific Inquiry, Activism, and the Environment, noon. The first in a series of four Saturday education events related to the ongoing exhibit Mel Chin: All Over the Place. Queens Museum, NYC Building, Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
April 14, Pete The Cat, 2 pm. In this musical, the groovy Pete and Jimmy, the world’s most organized second grader, travel to Paris and back in a bus. $10/$5 for children. Jamaica Performing Arts Center, 153-10 Jamaica Ave.
April 14, Come Compose, 3 pm. This interactive event for children and their families features performances of recent works highlighting ways composers find inspiration. Free. Maple Grove Cemetery, 127-15 Kew Gardens Rd., Kew Gardens.
April 14, The Working Woman (of Color): A Conference on Mobility and Opportunity for Women of Color, April 15. Conversations about self-actualization curated by women of color who strive to diversify industries, develop financial literacy, and nurture a collective cultural consciousness. Knockdown Center, 52-19 Flushing Ave., Maspeth.
April 15, Edmar Castañeda Quartet with Special Guest Gregoire Maret, 3 pm. This exciting duo provides the unusual combination of harp and harmonica. Castañeda has taken the world stage by storm with the sheer force of his virtuosic command of the harp. Maret is one of the world’s most sought after harmonica players. LeFrak Concert Hall, Queens College, vicinity of Reeves Avenue and Kissena Boulevard, Flushing.
April 15, Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company: CrossCurrent V, 2 pm. This live music-with-dance project showcases works being developed Nai-Ni Chen with guest artists from Taiwan and China. The New Asia Chamber Music Society accompanies with classical and contemporary music. $16. Flushing Town Hall, 137-35 Northern Blvd.
April 15, How We Create and How We Cope, 5 pm. An open and honest evening of multidisciplinary performance and presentations about mental illness, particularly in connection to creativity as an outlet, outcome, and survival mechanism. Free. LaGuardia Performing Arts Center’s Little Theatre, 31-10 Thomson Ave., LIC.
April 15, Look Out! Science is Coming!, 1 pm & 3 pm. Doktor Kaboom is an over-the-top German physicist with a boundless passion for science. Sporting chrome goggles, an orange lab coat, motorcycle boots, and wicked cool hair, he performs with an explosive comedic style and improvisational skill. (ASL interpretation at 3 pm show). $10-$14. Queens Theatre, 14 United Nations Ave. S., Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
April 15, Brian Stokes Mitchell: Simply Broadway, 3 pm. This two-time Tony Award-winner’s career spans Broadway, television, film and concert appearances with the country’s finest conductors and orchestras. Backed by a live band, he sings from a nearly three-decade career on Broadway, including selections filled with hope, humanity and joy from his upcoming album, Plays With Music. $40-$50. Queensborough Performing Arts Center, 222-05 56th Ave., Bayside.
April 15, Americans in Paris and Back Again, 2 pm. Quintet of the Americas, the borough’s renowned woodwind ensemble, plays music that explores French virtuoso Nadia Boulanger’s influence on American composers, such as Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, and Quincy Jones. Queens Flushing Library, 41-17 Main St.
April 15, Headwraps of African Women in America, 3 pm. Cheyney McKnight of Not Your Momma’s History! lectures on headwraps worn by free and enslaved African-American women in the 18th and 19th centuries. Free. King Manor Museum, Rufus King Park, vicinity of 153rd Street and Jamaica Avenue, Jamaica.
April 15, Myrtle Avenue Spring Street Festival, noon to 6 pm. More than 200 merchant and vendor displays, children’s rides, game booths, food, entertainment, health providers, and vintage buses. Myrtle Avenue between Wyckoff and Forest avenues, Ridgewood.
April 17, Works in Progress, 7 pm. Queens College’s MFA Program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation faculty members read works and discuss the creative process and the writer’s life. LeFrak Concert Hall, Queens College, vicinity of Reeves Avenue and Kissena Boulevard, Flushing.
April 18, Birding by Ear on Long Island: Spring Warbler Songs, 8 pm. Learn or review 30 warbler songs as the Spring Migration nears with Stephane Perreault, an ornithologist at the Seatuck Environmental Association. Free. Alley Pond Environmental Center, 228-06 Northern Blvd, Douglaston.
Continued from last week
Fashion in Film Festival, April 22. The program features some of the most visually stunning and stylistically adventurous films ever made. Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35th Ave., Astoria’s Kaufman Arts District.
Much Ado About Nothing, April 22. Titan Theatre Company, an artist-in-residence, presents this Shakespeare comedy about love and victory in an Italian town that is about to be rocked by a scandal. Queens Theatre, 14 United Nations Ave. S., Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
Top image: Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company; bottom image: Queens Theatre
#Flushing #ItsInQueens #WeeklyColumn #QueensTourismCouncil #Broadway