ArtsQuest Shows Off SteelStacks to Regional Media

ArtsQuest welcomed the regional media to SteelStacks on Monday, giving reporters and editors from as far away as New Jersey and Philadelphia a feel for what the new can offer visitors and day-trippers to the new Southside landmark.

The primary focus was on performance spaces at the Musikfest Café and the Fowler Blast Furnace Room as well as the Frank Banko Alehouse Cinemas, where ArtsQuest premiered a new film produced for its use.

“Bethlehem: The Christmas City,” is a half-hour documentary that is meant to convey the city’s rich history, primarily by telling the stories of the original Moravian settlers and the Bethlehem Steel Corp. – its dynamic rise, pivotal role in architecture and world history and rapid decline as an industrial powerhouse.

The film is narrated by Bethlehem native Jonathan Frakes, an actor best known for playing Commander Riker on the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” television and film series. It was produced by Easton’s Lou Reda Studios, which made good use of its extensive library of newsreel footage, which was interspersed with some beautiful photography of Bethlehem’s well-known scenery.

ArtsQuest currently plans to show the film twice daily on weekdays at 11 a.m. and noon. Ultimately, the aim is to package the film with a walking tour of the historic Bethlehem Steel site, said ArtsQuest President Jeff Parks.

The Historic Bethlehem Partnership started offering walking tours of the Steel site this past weekend. Tours will be offered Saturdays and Sundays through May 1. On May 2, the partnership will offer one tour daily starting at 12:45 p.m.

The two-screen theater opened to the public over the weekend with showings of “Win Win,” starring Paul Giamatti, and “Super,” starring Rainn Wilson.

The theaters will be open 365 days a year, with an eclectic mix of independent and foreign films and documentaries and other unusual programming, such as late night horror films on Fridays and Saturdays and a monthly feature called “Soundtrack Comes Alive,” in which a band will play its own soundtrack in front of a film they’ve hand-picked.

The Fowler Blast Furnace Room will have live comedy shows twice a week – improvisational comedy on Sundays and standup on Wednesdays – beginning on May 1.

The Musikfest Café will open on May 1 with a performance by local favorite the Craig Thatcher Band. ArtsQuest plans to host some 200 shows at the venue every year, mostly music, but with a headlining comedy act as often as once a month, according to Patrick Brogan, ArtsQuest’s vice president for performing arts.