Another opening, another church basement.
As Queens raises the curtain on its 2014-15 theater season with productions ranging from Shakespeare to Chekov to modern-day American farce, it becomes clear the performing arts remain low on our elected official’s to-do list.
It is time to renew our call for a bricks-and-mortar location — or more likely locations — complete with marquee, rehearsal space and 21st-century light and sound systems for the borough’s professional and amateur thespians.
More specifically, as the TimesLedger theater columnist Ron Hellman wrote earlier this year, “we need in Queens more theater buildings and venues with the look and feel of [and] state-of-the-art technology of real theaters.”
Now, many may argue it is not the government’s place to house a group of actors, who otherwise would be performing on the sidewalk.
And there are plenty of private and quasi-public entities paying attention and pulling out their checkbooks to keep theater alive in the borough.
We applaud the Queens Theatre’s move in adopting Titan Theatre Co. as its resident troupe, and are happy to see Richard Mazda’s Secret Theatre in Long Island City secure enough funding to carry on his work.
Queens is lucky to have Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer fighting toward this goal — he recently pushed through an extra $23 million for arts and education in the city budget — even if the trickle-down effect of the funding never makes it to Douglaston, Middle Village or Bayside theater groups.
So it is time to focus on the borough’s smaller community theater groups.
Although each of these theatrical companies remains grateful to the churches and synagogues that provide a place to create their art, anyone who has had to sit under a basketball net or been stuck in the last row of folding chairs all on the same level knows that has the makings of a so-so night at the theater even before the (non-existent) curtain goes up.
Without the support of these congregations, many of the groups would be hard-pressed to find a suitable or affordable location.
Hellman is correct in his assertion that Queens’ civic and artistic leaders need to take their cues from their Brooklyn and Manhattan counterparts and offer up naming rights to pay for these new theaters.
If it’s good enough for Lincoln Center and Theatre for a New Audience, it is perfectly reasonable to do it here.
Queens clearly has the talent to create high caliber theatrical productions, it just needs better suited places where these artists can show it.
