Myq Kaplan performs a stand-up routine at Q.E.D. as part of the New York Comedy Festival 2024. Photo: Q.E.D. Astoria
Nov. 12, 2024 By Shane O’Brien
Q.E.D. Astoria is set to host four comedy events this week as part of the ongoing New York Comedy Festival.
Q.E.D., a performance venue located at 27-16 23rd Ave., already hosted its inaugural event of the festival, a stand-up performance by Myq Kaplan, on Sunday night. It will now host four more events over the coming week, including two stand-up shows, a storytelling hour, and a show fusing comedy with loss and grief.
The venue is one of just two Queens venues participating in the New York Comedy Festival, which runs from Nov. 7-17 and features more than 200 comedians performing more than 100 shows across the city. Astoria’s Grove 34, located at 31-83 34th St., hosted a solitary event on Monday night: a hybrid interview/stand-up performance by Lady Journey.
Q.E.D., which has taken part in the New York Comedy Festival for the last number of years, will host “Ashes: A Comedy Hour About Loss” by Yemi Afolabi at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 14, followed by a stand-up performance by Lauren Hope Krass at 9 p.m. on the same day.
“The Story Collider,” a storytelling event featuring personal stories about science hosted by Grant Bowen and Christine Williams, will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 15, while a stand-up performance by Christian Finnegan at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 16 will round off Q.E.D.’s involvement in the festival.
Kambri Crews, owner and creative director at Q.E.D., said Afolabi’s show provides balance to Q.E.D.’s festival line-up. It offers the audience an opportunity for introspection by exploring a serious and challenging subject through the medium of comedy.
“It’s very cliché, but laughter is the best medicine,” Crews said. “People need catharsis. It’s very cathartic to laugh about that stuff.”
Crews added that Finnegan and Hope Krass will perform stand-up routines as part of the comedy festival, while the storytelling event will feature a mixture of comedic and serious stories centered around science.
“The nice thing about storytelling shows is that you’re not required to laugh at everything,” Crews said. “It’s sometimes more introspective and thoughtful, but then somebody might tell a story that’s drop-dead funny.”
Q.E.D. has been at the forefront of the Queens comedy scene since it was founded 11 years ago, and Crews said she is perplexed that there are not more comedy venues or performances in the borough.
“It’s always been an attractive location for living,” Crews said. “But the comics that live here tend to be on the road more, so maybe that’s why there’s never really been a scene here. Astoria was always a working-class, affordable neighborhood, with people living here but working and hanging out in Manhattan.”
However, Crews has noted a gradual shift in New York’s comedy scene since the pandemic, with more shows taking place in the outer boroughs in recent years, reflected in two Queens venues now hosting New York Comedy Festival events. The festival was almost exclusively a Manhattan affair when it was founded by Caroline Hirsch 20 years ago.
She also believes that a nightlife and cultural scene has started “burgeoning” in Astoria and Long Island City over the past decade.
Crews said event spaces such as Q.E.D. can boost the local economy by encouraging people to spend money in local stores and restaurants.
She said she was part of a local coalition to save the arts during the pandemic, lobbying for spaces such as Q.E.D. to reopen after being forced to shutter for roughly 14 months.
Crews said she made a pitch to Senator Chuck Schumer and then-Governor Andrew Cuomo, highlighting the importance of cultural venues to the local economy.
“For every ticket sold, an additional $12 is spent in neighboring businesses,” Crews said. ” So if you’ve got 74 tickets being sold three times a night, you do the math. That’s an incredible impact on neighboring businesses. That’s people going to get drinks before or after a show or grabbing dinner before or after a show.
“Even the corner Bodega owner actually came by mid-pandemic to ask when we were going to be able to open up. His business was hurting because we weren’t sending him all of our comedians and customers who were going in to grab a pack of cigarettes or some gum before the show.”
Now fully operational once more, Q.E.D. is hosting four more comedy events as part of the ongoing comedy festival. Tickets are available here.
