NIGHTLIFE 38 | BOROMAG.COM | NOVEMBER 2014 Story by Michael Stahl Images by Bradley Hawks “The way I’m billing it is ‘after school for grown ups,’” Kambri Crews says of the new Q.E.D. performance space/community center hybrid she founded in Astoria. The venue on 23rd Avenue and 27th Street will house a mish mosh of standup shows, poetry readings, improv, storytelling, and other evening attractions, along with daytime classes that run the gamut from comedy writing to marketing to sign language. “I think unfair that kids get to have all the fun. They have all these great after-school programs: they paint, learn new languages, watch movies, they go on field trips, and I thought, ‘Why can’t adults have that?’” Verbose, blonde, and bubbly, Crews has spent fifteen years in comedy, primarily as a producer, publicist and marketer. Most notably, she managed Ochi’s Lounge in Comix Comedy Club in Chelsea, and then booked shows for the 92nd Street Y’s Tribeca location. She did all that after spending nearly a decade in banking, serving as vice president of an Ohio bank. During that time, Crews went to night school and earned a paralegal degree. She then moved to New York to work in a law firm before carving out her presence in the comedy scene, and has since written a memoir, done some acting and performed on stage herself numerous times as a revered storyteller. She also wed comedian Christian Finnegan in 2006. Following the closings of Comix and then, a year ago, 92YTribeca, Crews decided to seek out a spot where she could open a place of her own. “I wanted to be the crazy owner and say ‘Yes’ to everything,” Crews explains. She’d long hoped that Queens—the borough she’s called home for fifteen years—could support an establishment that would reflect her vision. “I didn’t want to commute to Brooklyn, and I couldn’t afford Manhattan,” she says. With the Q.E.D.’s opening approaching, she seems equal parts proud, excited, and anxious about the space’s potential and how it will be received in Astoria, a part of New York that has only just begun to foster a burgeoning artistic population the past handful for Adults of years. “I cashed in my 401k so don’t tell me this is a mistake!” Crews says, laughing over a perhaps much-needed glass of wine at Rocky McBride’s, just down the block from Q.E.D.’s front door. If anyone can handle the pressure, it’s Crews. She grew up the daughter of deaf parents in Montgomery, Texas where she lived in a tin shed that had no electricity or running water. “To keep myself productive, I wrote and directed puppet shows,” she says, recalling that she was already “a producer” as a nine-year-old. “I wrote up programs, had a concession stand, sold tickets on the bus and charged a quarter for admission.” But just after turning seventeen, Crews’ father brutally attacked her mother, a crime in which he was charged with aggravated assault and received a probationary sentence. In 2002, her father was sentenced to twenty years in prison for the attempted murder of another woman—all of this the subject of Crews’ 2012 memoir, Burn Down the Ground. With Q.E.D.—an abbreviation of the Latin phrase “quod erat demonstradum,” which translates to “that which was demonstrated”— Crews is composing a new chapter in her life. It’s one that has no clear ending, though it certainly appears as though it will get off to a good start. She says with a huge, infectious smile, “All the people who live and work in the neighborhood who’ve come to see the place say, ‘Oh! Something different for the neighborhood. Finally!’” Maybe Queens is finally ready. For event listings, tickets, and general information, visit www. QEDAstoria.com Q.E.D. 27-16 23rd Avenue, Astoria, NY 11105 (347) 451-3873 Kambri Crews
BM112014
To see the actual publication please follow the link above