qboro: Arts, Culture & Living

Trying to pin down Queens native Andy Kaufman (1949-1984) as a comic, performer and entertainer can be tough.

Just ask artist Brian Hubble, who has been delving into Kaufman’s life and work for 13 years.

Certain things improve with age, others not so much.

Among the less fortunate are some of the plays by the most successful American playwright of all time, Neil Simon, whose early work “Barefoot In the Park” has just opened a run at Queens Theatre, where it plays through Nov. 24.

Douglaston Community Theatre kicks off its 70th season as a mainstay on the local scene with a sturdy — and still shocking — rendering of Ira Levin’s classic comic thriller “Deathtrap,” with three performances remaining through Nov. 23.

The play arrived on Broadway in 1978 and would run for a solid four years, setting the record as the longest-running show of its kind. Its popularity is understandable.

Winter has not arrived yet, but Wintercon is coming soon. The yearly con has become a staple of the borough, where fans of comics, video games, sci-fi shows and other forms of geekdom gather to celebrate their communal interests. Every year the con usually presents a headlined cast reunion from a sci-fi TV show or movie — and this year might be the biggest one yet.

The 2019 con will headlined by a “Farscape” cast reunion. It’s the 20th anniversary of the famed sci-fi show, and the entire cast will be on hand to do a panel and a meet and greet. Claudia Black, Ben Browder, Virginia Hey, Anthony Simcoe, Lani Tupu, Kent McCord, Gigi Edgley and creator Rockne S. O’Bannon will be all present. “Farscape” was a show on the Sci-Fi channel (later SyFy) that had one of the first internet campaigns to bring it back when it got canceled.

Nine-year-old Mark Lord was excited when his parents took him to the Tapia Theater in Puerto Rico’s Old San Juan to see a production of “The King and I” in 1963.

“The tickets were for a weeknight and, to tell the truth, to this day I cannot believe that my mother would have agreed to let my older brother, Steven, and me stay out late when we had school the next day,”he writes. He saved the program, particularly entranced by the performance of actress Catherine Jacoby as Anna.

There’s energy to spare, some of the cutest youngsters you’re likely to see on stage this theatrical season, several impressive dance routines and a breakout performance by a local favorite, all combining for a satisfying evening (or matinee) at Royal Star Theatre’s production of “Newsies,” running one more weekend at Immaculate Conception Church in Jamaica.

The show, written by Alan Menken (music), Jack Feldman (lyrics) and Harvey Fierstein (book), is a Disney favorite, particularly among young audiences who can most easily identify with the title characters as they struggle for a fair shake against the publishing titans who threaten their welfare. Last Saturday’s opening night audience was filled with obvious fans.

Variety is the spice of life — a phrase that dates to the 1700s and is apropos of the upcoming fall community theater season, which kicks into high gear this weekend.

With no fewer than half a dozen shows raising their curtains by early December, among them musicals both classic and modern, a mystery play and a British comedy, the diversity is nearly as wide-ranging as the borough’s residents.

Artistic inspiration often comes from the most unexpected places.

Such is the case with two exhibitions running at the LIC Arts Open Gallery at The Factory in Long Island City. One remains on display only through Nov. 2, while the other will be on view until Nov. 14.

In the supernatural community, Queens is sometimes referred to as the “Borough of the Dead” because of the many cemeteries that call it home. The “cemetery belt” that lines the Brooklyn-Queens border has more than a dozen, and more people are buried in Maspeth’s Calvary Cemetery than are living in Chicago.

Although many souls call Queens their final resting place, there are some that, according to urban legends, are not so restful and continue to walk among the living. That is, if you believe in that kind of stuff.

Picture an artistic rendering of a woman in space. Did you see a goddess or an astronaut?

Curator Julie Wosk gives you both, and more, at the New York Hall of Science in Corona now through Jan. 26 in the exhibit “Imaging Women in the Space Age,” dominated by photography but also including toys in the form of “Astronaut Barbie” dolls and vignette toys depicting the late Margaret Hamilton, who directed the development of Apollo on-board software, and the late NASA executive “Mother of Hubble” Nancy G. Roman.