‘Like afterschool for grownups’ — Inside Astoria’s cozy, comedic Q.E.D.

Kambri Crews outside of Q.E.D., her arts and performance space in Astoria. Photo courtesy of Crews.

By Victoria Merlino

When Kambri Crews was 8, living in a house with no electricity or plumbing in the deep woods of Texas, she put on her first puppet show.

She felt extremely isolated, and to keep herself company, she produced something. She sold tickets to the kids on her bus, popped popcorn, made a concession stand and performed the characters. Kids came out and, at the end of it, she turned a profit.

“A few people have said that if you look back on your life, what you were, who you were when you were about 8 years old is really who you are as an adult,” she told the Eagle. “And so I was trying to think, ‘Where was I when I was around that age?’ And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I was producing and promoting a puppet show for the neighborhood.’”

Now, as an adult living in Astoria, Crews is still producing — and popping popcorn — at a larger venue: her performance space and arts learning center, Q.E.D.

Now celebrating its fifth year operating in Astoria, Q.E.D., an abbreviation of a Latin phrase that translates to  "that which was demonstrated," offers everything from movie screenings to stand-up comedy routines to open mike nights. It offers meetups, swing dance classes, introductions to podcasting, storytelling sessions and crafting workshops. It has hosted comics like Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon, Michelle Wolf and Janeane Garofalo and speakers like U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“I used to say that it was like afterschool for grownups, where you did all the fun things you did as a kid in afterschool, but this is an adult space and we’ve got alcoholic beverages and stuff,” Crews said. 

Crews moved to New York City around 1999, doing promotional work for Broadway and Off-Broadway productions. She was soon immersed in the world of stand-up comedy, where she realized her skills as a promoter and producer were needed.

“In real life, the comedians were really terrible at self promotion and marketing and stuff. So I was like, ‘Ahhh interesting,’” she said. 

She subleased a basement space below another comedy club to produce her own shows, dubbing it Ochi's Lounge. After Ochi’s closed, she wrote a best-selling book in 2014, Crews was looking for a new direction.

Though she has been a lot of things — vice president of a bank, a paralegal, a marketer living on tequila brand Jose Cuervo’s private island in the Carribean — she liked running her own venue, with its own little community. And so Q.E.D. was born. 

To celebrate its fifth anniversary, Q.E.D. recently hosted a party where comics each told a joke that they had cultivated through testing new material on the Q.E.D. stage. 

“It sounds cheesy and cliche to reference ‘Cheers,’ but it is so much like what you see on television in older sitcoms,” Crews said. “When people walk in, somebody there knows them and says their name, or knows their drink, or what’s going on in their life.

The community has grown, but embraces new arrivals, she said.

“If it’s your first time walking in to QED, it doesn’t matter, because you already feel welcome just because everyone else there is greeting each other and happy to see each other,” she said.