qboro: Arts, Culture & Living

Summer has always been a time for the kids, a notion that is reflected in many of the productions slated to hit the community theater boards during the upcoming warm weather days.

No fewer than five popular Broadway musicals are on their way, along with a rarely seen century-old comedy.

Eight years after President John F. Kennedy challenged the nation to put a man on the moon, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins sat atop a Saturn V rocket at Cape Canaveral, Fla., carrying, as Walter Cronkite put it, “the hopes and burdens for all mankind.”

The trick was not just to get them to the moon, but to bring them home.

When was the last time you saw anyone playing hopscotch or jumping rope or tossing around some bean bags?

Those days are pretty much gone and all-but-forgotten, but now, thanks to a special event set for June 15 at the landmark Vander Ende-Onderdonk House in Ridgewood, it’s time to relive those childhood moments — and introduce the youngsters in your life to the joys of far simpler times.

Kaia Kater promises that the audience at her upcoming concert at Flushing Town Hall on June 7 can expect an immersive show.

Kater said she will be telling the story of her father’s immigration to Canada from Grenada as a teenager. She said she will be interweaving excerpts of her interview with her father into her songs.

All over Queens this weekend, there will be parades to honor the fallen servicemembers who gave their lives serving our nation.

Memorial Day used to be observed on May 30 before being changed to the final Monday in May in the early 1970s to create the three-day weekend we’re used to now.

Born out of tragedy, a new exhibition at a Forest Hills cafe — a collaboration between a group of artists from Rhode Island and two local entrepreneurs — attempts to help restore peace and harmony in the universe.

If you are looking for the latest art rooted in African-American history, then the “Alexandria Smith: Monuments to an Effigy” exhibit at the Queens Museum is for you.

Smith’s works take the history of the Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground and the Macedonia AME Church in Flushing as a departure point to explore the lost narratives of African-American women.

Just because it’s contemporary doesn’t mean it can’t be classical.

And with the Queens New Music Festival entering its eighth year, it appears the public — and the artists — agree.

Things are seldom what they seem in “Catch Me If You Can,” the comical mystery (or should that be the mysterious comedy?) running at Douglaston Community Theatre through May 11. And that’s exactly how it should be in plays of this sort.

Though they share a title, this work has nothing else in common with the famous motion picture that stars Leonardo DiCaprio. It was written by Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert, based on a French play by Robert Thomas, and made its Broadway debut in 1965. It ran only three months at the time, but it has continued to attract audiences in community theaters ever since. This production was directed by Bernard Bosio with an eye on keeping the audience off balance.

Tony Pecora knows Italian cuisine like the back of his hand.

Growing up in Sicily, he was always working with food. And when he moved to New York City in 1970, Pecora started out washing dishes and worked his way up in the industry until he owned multiple successful restaurants specializing in his home country’s cuisine.