52 THE QUEENS COURIER • BUZZ • JANUARY 31, 2019 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
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Is this the ‘bee’ life, is this just fantasy?
New Astoria play ‘Queen’ a rhapsody on saving bees
BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELLDOMENECH
adomenech@qns.com
@AODNewz
Tonight (Jan. 31), the Astoria
Performing Arts Center will debut a new
play about two scientists, the bees they
need to save and the integrity they might
lose while doing so.
“Queen,” which will be performed 12
times through Feb. 16, is a creation of
Madhuri Shekar, one of the writers of
HBO’s “Th e Nevers,”a sci-fi series in
the same league as “Buff y the Vampire
Slayer,” “Angel” and “Firefl y.”
“Queen” tells the story of two female
Ph.D candidates, Sanam and Ariel, who
have spent the past seven years researching
vanishing bee populations across the
globe. Just as they are about to publish
a career-defi ning paper, Sanam stumbles
upon an error which could cause catastrophic
damage to their reputations,
careers, and friendship.
Sanam and Ariel must then choose
between publishing their fi ndings and
save the bees or tell the truth and face the
consequences.
When writing the play Shekar said that
she wanted audiences to leave the theatre
worried about climate change which
is threatening the world’s bee population.
But also with a sense of relief, as the play
centers around two very real female characters—
something hard to fi nd on the
screen or stage.
“Th ey are funny and their human and
their grown up and they are passionate,”-
said Shekar about Sanam and Ariel. “Th ey
are like my friends.”
As someone whose strengths have
always lied in more creative endeavors,
Shekar found the scientifi c world a bit
foreign. But that changed aft er Shekar
shared an apartment with a close friend
and organic chemist who became the
inspiration for “Queen’s” two Ph.D
yearning leads.
She learned that scientists who, like artists,
are passionate and under appreciated.
“Th e ways in which their work is
ignored is painful to them,” said Shekar,
about her now larger group of science
friends. “Queen” provides a platform for
the silenced female scientist working to
improve the world, by making people
“spend some time with the scientists who
are working their buts off .”
Hopefully so that others, like her, will
learn to fully appreciate the complexities,
anxieties, struggles, merit of all that
they do.
Tickets are $25 for adults and $20 for
students and senior citizens, and are
now available online at www.apacny.org.
Tickets may also be purchased at the theater,
beginning one hour prior to each
performance.
Museum of the Moving Image celebrates year’s best Latin American fi lms
BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELLDOMENECH
adomenech@qns.com
@AODNewz
Starting on Feb. 1, The Museum of
the Moving Image (MoMI) in Astoria
will be showcasing some of the best
of Latin American cinema with the
Cinema Tropical festival.
The festival will run until Feb. 3, featuring
the winners of the ninth annual
Cinema Tropical Awards, which honors
the artistic excellence of contemporary
Latin America cinema as it is
often overlooked in the mainstream
cinematic world of the United States.
This year’s program includes
Lucrecia Martel’s “Zama,” Juliana
Antunes’ “Baronesa,” Juliana Rojas
& Marco Dutra’s “Good Manners,”
and special Q&A screenings of Rudy
Valdez’ “The Sentence” and Jonathan
and Elan Bogarin’s “306 Hollywood.”
The program this year is trying to
highlight the opening night screening
of Rudy Valdez’ HBO documentary,
“The Sentence.” The film
explores the devastating consequences
of mass incarceration and mandatory
minimum drug sentencing through
the story of the director’s older sister,
Cindy Shank, a mother of three
young children serving a 15-year sentence
in federal prison for her tangential
involvement with a drug ring in
Michigan.
Along with the screening, Valdez will
host a Q&A session.
For more information about the
films, screenings and tickets click
here. If prospective viewers use the
promo code CT2019 than can get a
20 percent discount on tickets to any
Cinema Tropical Festival film.
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