Live performances indoors and out

by Mark Lord

Chronicle Contributor

In venues large and small, indoors and under the skies, the borough’s professional theaters are slowly but steadily beginning to welcome back live audiences following 18 months of closure brought about by the Covid19 pandemic.

Over the next few weeks, a wide variety of performances — theater, dance, music and more, of both the mainstream and eclectic varieties, including some with free admission — will remind theatergoers, if, in fact, they need to be reminded, of the joys that can be had in the sharing of such experiences.

Tana Sirois, performing arts director of Culture Lab LIC at The Plaxall Gallery in Long Island City, which is off and running with a jam-packed lineup, appreciates the rebirth.

“Art, especially live performances, has always provided opportunities for people to get together and experience culture,” Sirois said. “We have been deprived of that so long.”

But no longer!

For the time being, Culture Lab’s shows take place outdoors in the gallery’s parking lot every Thursday and Friday beginning at 7 p.m. and every Saturday and Sunday beginning at 5 p.m. All are free.

New York-based soul/funk group Bombzr performs on Aug. 26. A jam session featuring tenor/soprano saxophonist Stacy Dillard happens on Aug. 27. City Billies, a band dedicated to reggae and bluegrass, takes center stage on Aug. 28, sharing the bill with Splash! Dance Performance, Shelley Nicole’s blaKbushe (a celebration of Black-on-Black love), and the Nice One Comedy Show. Aug. 29 belongs to Israeli musician/vocalist Roni and Jennah Vox, a homegrown singer/songwriter.

The festivities continue into September, with performances ranging from a sevenpiece hip-hop group and a jazz orchestra to a Bee Gees cover band and a contemporary ballet dance company.

At each performance, Rockaway Brewery beer, burgers, hot dogs and ice cream will be available for purchase from the Culture Lab’s food truck.

The Plaxall Gallery is located at 5-25 46 Ave., Long Island City. Just show up, grab a chair (provided) and enjoy! For further information, visit culturelablic.org or call (347) 848-0030.

The music plays on in another parking lot in another part of town, courtesy of the Queensborough Performing Arts Center, which is offering live concerts at the Bay Terrace Shopping Center in Bayside.

With a nod to the drive-in movies of a bygone era, attendees may enjoy the entertainment while remaining in the comfort of their cars — or they may bring along chairs to set up alongside them.

Beginning at 7 p.m. on Aug. 29, the crowd will be treated to the sounds of The Kings of Disco, a musical group featuring former members of the Village People, who will likely bring back plenty of memories with hits such as “YMCA” and “Macho Man.” And on Sept. 17, also at 7 p.m., a Beatles tribute group, Here Comes the Sun, performs the hits of John, Paul, George and Ringo.

Remaining tickets for both shows, which must be purchased in advance, are $100 per car for full-car occupancy. The shopping center is located at 212-45 26 Ave., Bayside. More: Visit qcc.cuny.edu/qpac or call (718) 631-6311.

The Alley Pond Environmental Center presents a “Welcome Autumn Concert,” featuring the family-friendly Long Island-based folk music band Gathering Time.

A fundraiser for the nonprofit APEC, the concert takes place on Sept. 18 at 5 p.m. Bring a lawn chair or blanket. Free parking is available. It takes place in the shady grove just north of the center’s home at 224-65 76 Ave. in Oakland Gardens.

Tickets: adults: $25 (concert only) or $35 (concert and box lunch); children 12 and under, $5 less. More: Visit alleypond.org or call (718) 229-4000.

While in-person performances have resumed at historic Flushing Town Hall, its current attraction is a watch-on-demand concert taped live at the venue in July: “Proud Mary — Rock and Roll Ladies,” featuring The Emilie Surtees Experience Band. It’s billed as a “highly energetic concert” that will “excite any music lover who’s ever been caught belting out songs like Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” or Stevie Nicks’ “Go Your Own Way.”

It is available to watch any time between ticket purchase ($7) and Aug. 30 at midnight. More: Visit flushingtownhall.org.

The Chocolate Factory Theater is up and running with several in-person events already on the schedule, including “The Nosebleed,” written and directed by Japanese-American Aya Ogawa, an autobiographical piece that explores Ogawa’s fractured relationship with the playwright’s long-deceased father.

Running Oct. 1 to 10, the play will be performed at Japan Society (333 E. 47 St., Manhattan). Tickets are $30.

The theater will be presenting the following attractions at its home base:

A free event, described as a “three-way collaborative performance adventure,” will take place on Oct. 3. “AUNTS — Triple Threat” features multiple performers in a work that is “multi-disciplinary, finished, unfinished, experimental, a dance party and more.”

Another piece, with a title that surely ranks among the longest in the English-speaking world, “The Securely Conferred, Vouchsafed Keepsakes of Maery S.,” is a hybrid experimental digital theatrical miniseries that, according to advance word, “reinvents as many versions of the ‘Frankenstein’ author Mary Shelley as there are definitions of the word ‘Gothic.’”

This event, described by the theater’s Executive Director Sheila Lewandowski as “an immersive video and sonic experience,” will be screened in front of a live audience at the theater on Halloween, Oct. 31, at 8 p.m. It will then be released online. Featuring intricate handcut collages, digital and analogue animation and illustration, dramatic presentations and songs, among other diversions, the piece was created by playwright Sibyl Kempson and is performed by her troupe, 7 Daughters of Eve Thtr & Perf. Co.

Running Nov. 10-13 is “Puro Teatro — a spell for utopia,” conceived and directed by luciana achugar, who is also part of the cast. The work is said to consider the possibility of the theater inherent in the intimacy of our own experience within the spaces of our bodies, our homes and our communities.

Lewandowski describes herself as being “incredibly emotional” about the idea of resuming live performances.

“Culture is life,” she said. “To be able to go back into a theatre and feel safe to me is going to help bring people back. It’s been a terrifying time for everybody. People are ready for it. We can start to have the experience of life again.”

The Chocolate Factory is located at 38-33 24 St., Long Island City. More: Visit chocolatefactorytheater.org or call (718) 482-7069.

Green Space, billed as the “Incubator of dance in Queens,” continues its monthly curated series “Take Root,” which supports dance makers by providing an opportunity to present a paired evening of works. Live performances resume in September. On offering includes the fifth phase of “Home,” an international collaboration between Valerie Green/ Dance Entropy and choreographers from diverse countries including Sweden, India and Colombia, marking the culmination of a residency with visiting choreographer Bassam Abou Diab, a Lebanese contemporary dance artist. In the piece, each artist examines the concept of home from his or her own unique perspective.

Diab has explained that “my view of ‘home’ as an artist coming to the United States is linked to accepting religious, ethnic and cultural differences to generate a feeling of safety and belonging.”

Also, Diab will present his solo work, “Eternal,” which raises questions about the role of the dancing body in facing the despotic political regimes in Arab countries. Live music will be provided by Richard Khuzami on percussion and Maurice Chedid on oud, the predecessor of the European lute. Performances are on Sept. 24 and 25 at 8 p.m.

Bassam Abou Diab, a Lebanese contemporary dance artist, will perform at Green Space as part of a collaboration with Valerie Green/ A Beatles tribute group, Here Comes the Sun, will play the hits of the Fab Four in a Queensborough Performing Arts Center show at the Bay Terrace Shopping Center. PHOTO COURTESY QPAC