Life on the Fringe, still: Q from the BX

Qurrat Ann Kadwani
(bottom photo by Bolti Studios)

"60 minutes..13 characters..1 actress."

That's it. That's how the program notes sum up They Call Me Q!, a monologue about growing up in the Bronx as a child of a family from India, performed by award-winning playwright/actress Qurrat Ann Kadwani. I'd add "an hour well spent with a wicked smart and genuinely funny performer."

Directed by Obaid Kadwani and Claudia Gaspar, the piece manages to charm audiences and critics wherever it goes--from Chicago's Fringe fest to Maui's to Montreal's--and it did well here in New York in the Fringe edition just recently closed. As a result, Kadwani garnered a slot in the FringeNYC Encore series, and you can see her this afternoon at 1pm in the second and final performance of this production.

As a child of an immigrant family (Barbados), I must say Kadwani's anecdotes tickled me, partly because they're truly amusing and wonderfully delivered, but also because, even despite a wide difference in our ages, there may be almost no difference between some of the things her mother told her, what I heard from my folks out in Queens and what my Jewish wife recalls from her family life in the Bronx. This astounded me and reinforced my love of this city as I know it.

See They Call Me Q!, today at 1pm, at Baruch Performing Arts Center, 55 Lexington Avenue (entrance on East 25th Street between Lexington and 3rd Avenues). For program information and tickets, click here.

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