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Dear Madame President Katz: Let’s talk theater

By Ron Hellman

If I get the chance, I’d like to sit down with Borough President Melinda Katz to talk to her about theater in Queens. She should be interested, not only as our newly elected leader, but as someone with artistic genes — her mother, Jeanne Dale Katz, started up the Queens Council on the Arts in 1966, and her father, David Katz, was founder (in 1953) and maestro of the Queens Symphony Orchestra.

To establish some kind of connection, I’d point out to Ms. Katz that she and I are both natives of Queens, she growing up in Forest Hills and me in Jackson Heights. I was on the Board of the Queens Council for 24 years, three of which as president. We’re both attorneys – she’s in politics, I vote. I’m a local theater producer and actor, she sings.

With that out of the way, I’d ask the Beep if she has heard of any of these women: Claire Tow, Mitzi E. Newhouse and Vivian Beaumont. They are the names on the three theaters at Lincoln Center. How ‘bout Linda Gross? She’s got her name on the Atlantic Theatre on West 20th Street. A couple of guys come to mind: Leonard Polonsky (a Townsend Harris High School graduate) and Samuel H. Scripps. You’ll find their names behind the Polonsky Shakespeare Center, new home for Theatre for a New Audience, in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn.

The point being that there are a number of wealthy people who support the performing arts to such an extent that they get to perpetuate their names on theaters. Well, said a friend of mine, that’s Manhattan, that’s Brooklyn. Meaning, I guess, that that’s where the action is. I say, what’s wrong with Queens – we have nearly one-third the land area of New York City, more than 25 percent of its population, and we’re the fastest growing county in the state?

So what we need in Queens, I would urge the borough president, are more theater buildings, venues with the look and feel and state-of-the-art technology of real theaters, to equal or surpass what our more established neighbors already have. The Polonsky Center, where I recently saw a production of “King Lear,” is a good model, a high rise courtyard theater with 299 seats, all of them good, and a stage and seats that can be configured in various ways.

Where will the money come from is always a key question. With the 50th anniversary of the 1964-65 World’s Fair upon us, there’s been a lot of talk about saving and restoring the remnants of the New York State Pavillion, with a price tag in the tens of millions. Knowing that site quite well after my many years at Queens Theatre, I wonder why? The remaining structures are a decrepit mess, and what good use could possibly come from their restoration? Better a new theater or two. And don’t forget those wealthy donors who crave naming rights.

What do you say, Ms. Katz?

Making do with the Good Shepherd United Methodist Street on Crescent Street is the Astoria Performing Arts Center. If it’s spring then Artistic Director Tom Wojtunik — who announced this will be his last show at APAC — will have come up with another seldom produced musical. This one is “Allegro” by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein no less. When they first collaborated in the 1940s, R&H gave us four musicals: “Oklahoma!” “Carousel,” “South Pacific” and, yes, “Allegro.” APAC is known for its outstanding production values and talented performers, so this show is certainly worthy of your attendance. And maybe you’ll get a chance to say hello to its new executive director, Erin Moore.

Contact Ron Hellman at RBHOFC@gmail.com