A quick turn down the hall from the Hippodrome Theatre’s Fayette Street side entrance reveals a strange sight for visitors to Baltimore’s base of operations for glitzy Broadway tours. Open double doors reveal two stories of windows pouring sunlight over long-hidden marble and steel beams, and pieces of the walls and floor seem to be missing. It’s hard to place what exactly what was there before. Were these doors always here? Did the building always go this far?

Take the time to look over a couple of project boards posted at the entrance and, if you’ve spent some time around the theater, it clicks. These walls were once a funny shade of tan, right? And those windows weren’t always so big, were they? No, they definitely weren’t. The space was once the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center’s ballroom, closed off to most and open only during special events (more than a few Best of Baltimore parties, for example).

The M&T Bank Pavilion, as the ballroom is officially known, was originally built as the Eutaw Savings Bank around 1881 and has been part of the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center since the adjacent buildings were acquired by the state of Maryland in the 1990s. But the building has sat mostly unused for the past 15 years, and now work is finally underway to follow through on the original plans for the space: to turn it into a new venue, one that could be a gateway for audiences of all ages and stripes to interact with the Hippodrome in a whole new way.

Once complete, this historic space will be home to a 25,000-plus-square-foot flexible performance space that will expand the nonprofit Hippodrome Foundation’s ability to present shows, events, and educational programs, in addition to hosting cultural institutions around the city and providing them with a place to perform without the struggle of lugging or renting technical equipment. The new space will also allow the foundation to run its free camps and workshops for Baltimore-area schoolchildren year-round instead of only during the summer when the Hippodrome stage is free.

The expansion is just one of the forward-thinking projects currently underway among Baltimore’s theaters. There’s something stirring behind the scenes in the local theater community—and in many ways, the Hippodrome and theaters like it are taking their cues from their smaller, more experimental brethren. To be clear, there are still plenty of chances to bring the family to a classic retelling of Romeo and Juliet or a Disney musical, but there’s a radical streak running through the rehearsal halls and stages across the city, one that’s hoping to bring people back into their dimmed halls by exploring new voices and lending power to those who need their voices amplified.

In some ways, that streak has been around for ages, inspiring storytelling in neighborhoods across the city. In Fells Point, The Vagabond Players, one of the oldest continuously operating community theaters in the country, has been sustained by actors volunteering time and energy beyond the responsibilities of their daily lives to bring drama to its audiences for more than 100 years. Downtown, the African-American community theater company Arena Players is nearing its seventh decade in Baltimore, having first sprung up at what was then Coppin State College a decade ahead of the Black Arts movement elsewhere in the country.

There’s something stirring behind the scenes in the local theater community.

Then there’s the wealth of independent theaters and companies throughout the city—groups like Baltimore Theatre Project and Charm City Fringe and Spotlighters and Iron Crow—that have consistently been exposing city audiences to diverse works and new types of performances. This year alone has brought artist-owned performance space Le Mondo to a long-awaited home on Howard Street, marked color-conscious theater troupe ArtsCentric’s move to a permanent home in Remington, and sent experimental troupe Single Carrot Theatre away from its marquee and into new corners of Baltimore in hopes of “activating different neighborhoods in different parts of the city that may be less seen,” according to artistic director Genevieve de Mahy.

But, now, as we roll toward a new decade, the city’s larger companies have caught up as well. The Bromo Arts District, home to Everyman Theatre, The Hippodrome, Le Mondo, Arena Players, and several other venues, is abuzz, and there’s talk among this tight-knit group of creative leaders of bringing new voices to new audiences. They want to engage with people in new ways, encourage a new generation of theater-goers, and sate current audiences’ appetites for more diverse and inclusive works.

Just how to tackle all those goals is the question of the hour for Baltimore’s theaters, and its creative community in general. How do these cultural stewards reach out to people and get them to engage with the art they’re producing? Part of the answer is producing stories that are more representative of the diverse world in which we live. At Center Stage, that means highlighting works by women, people of color, and LGBTQ playwrights and reexamining the way they work with artists. The same is true at Everyman, where founding artistic director Vincent Lancisi is using this new season to blend classics with highlights from the current “golden age of female playwrights.” The theater is gambling on the idea with its biggest season ever, eight total plays, four of which are written by women and three of which, including the premiere of the final play in Caleen Sinnette Jennings’ Queens Girl trilogy, are part of the first-ever New Voices Festival. The festival will also launch an intimate new upstairs space.

“There’s a renaissance of playwriting and women authors out there. How long have we been suppressing this? We just haven’t seen them because they haven’t had opportunities and see the light of day. . . Now the opportunity has presented itself,” Lancisi says. “Let’s take the best of the best famous plays, pay homage to those who came before us, but let’s create a lot of opportunity for some of these new voices to be heard. The world is changing faster than we care to recognize or are even able to keep up with, and the theaters have to catch up.”

With greater representation and dedication to wider populations, there’s hope that, like it has during so many eras before, the theater can become a gathering place and center of education and activism. It’s the reason why socially conscious Single Carrot left the stage and started scouting spots to bring their immersive performances to new neighborhoods. And it’s the idea that compelled the folks from Center Stage to bring a truck bearing an invitation to Miss You Like Hell, a “joyful musical about an undocumented mother and her U.S.-born daughter” to the September meeting of GOP leaders in Harbor East because, as they explained, they thought the House Republicans would find the play “illuminating.” Escapism, this is not. As Center Stage puts it, they want to meet audiences where they are.

When new director of artistic partnerships and innovation Annalisa Dias joined Center Stage this summer, she put that intention into action by meeting with both local independent theaters and social justice organizations with the aim to better understand the work already being done in the city to engage audiences and connect them to resources. One such meeting was an education event hosted by Guerrilla Theatre Front’s Dogs of Art that covered immigrant rights, ICE detentions in Baltimore, and how people can help. The event helped inspire programming for Miss You Like Hell, for which Center Stage created a lobby installation that offered information on direct service providers working with the local immigrant community.

“We’re going to start opening these doors and really trying to activate the space in a new way,” Dias says. “It’s trying to rethink the experience of walking through these doors and going to a show and what you do before and after. How do we make this a space where people want to hang out and interact in a different way?”

For many companies, that “meet people where they are” mentality extends to area schools. Giving students the opportunity to experience drama and see themselves reflected in it is a common thread among the leadership of the city’s theaters both big and small. Whether it’s introducing school groups to the Bard at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company or building and performing an in-class puppet show with Black Cherry Puppet Theater, these troupes are finding ways to connect kids to the performing arts and hopefully start a lifetime of participation in the city’s creative landscape. Partnerships between the Hippodrome Foundation and the Baltimore Design School have even opened up theater as a career path by offering older students interested in costuming opportunities to learn from area professionals and network with local costume warehouses that work with national productions.

Student matinees at theaters across the city feature talkbacks with casts and crews, and students often say these class visits are the first time they have ever seen a professional production, a trend Everyman’s Lancisi has seen grow over the past decades.

“Sadly we’ve lost entire generations [of theater-goers] to date, and we like to say it’s because of price, but I think it’s also because of theater-going traditions,” Lancisi says. “It always requires somebody or some place to provide the exposure. The first time that the students come and see a play can be a life-altering experience for them. They see themselves on stage, or represented in some way, or their point of view matters when they’re encouraged to talk to us about it and react out loud as a community together.”

“The world is changing faster than we care to recognize . . . and the theaters have to catch up.”

Making the younger generations a part of this community is one of the keys to Baltimore theaters’ broader vision for the future, but the hope is that new voices and experiences will be the siren songs that bring people both young and old back into the theaters, away from streaming at home and back downtown. And once those audiences are in the seats, that they’ll engage with all the little things that add to the experience —local art inspired by the shows on the walls, chances to discuss work with the cast, interactive elements of the performance itself —but also with one another.

“[Center Stage] could be activated as a space where people really want to gather and unpack and process, a fun, joyful space of healing, resistance, power-building, democratizing. . . all these things,” Dias says. “We have power to change the way things have always been done and uplift and amplify artists who are living in the city.”

And as these spaces expand and diversify, the whole community benefits. More so than some other industries, there’s a feeling of camaraderie and support among Baltimore’s creative class. The larger venues are inspired by experimentation and new ideas coming from the smaller companies, and smaller companies can be assisted by the resources of the large as each inspires its audiences to seek out more from the wealth of options around it. The Hippodrome Foundation has already been in talks with 56 groups, including local concert series, art spaces, and other theater companies, about using their new state-of-the-art location once the renovation is complete.

“There are 70 arts organizations that don’t have permanent homes. We want to be the incubator for the growth that’s happening,” says Ron Legler, president of the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center. “What we’re hoping to do is take some of the smaller things that are out there that are gems in the city and help them grow and help them find different revenue sources to stay competitive.”

That growth and support means bringing works and performers to new audiences, and giving those audiences what has always worked in the theater, stories that connect and contribute to the conversation. If successful, they have the power to change the way people think and feel. It’s a big ask, but Baltimore’s casts and crews and creative leaders are willing to do the work. They’re used to doing things the hard way.

“The best case scenario for me has never changed, which is that all the theaters of Baltimore are full of audiences hungry for the work they’re doing, that their marquees are bright, that they’re reaching a wider audience, a more diverse audience, that people are willing to try new things or go to a theater they’ve never heard of before,” says Lancisi. “Doing things live is the most labor-intensive and challenging thing to do, but we do it because it’s magic. There’s nothing like it. You’ll have a communal experience, and it’ll just blow you away.”

With the season of ghosts and ghouls upon us, it’s only fitting that a phantom is on its way to haunt the halls of the Hippodrome Theater at France-Merrick Performing Arts Center.

Beginning Oct. 9, the Hippodrome will play host to the national tour of Cameron Mackintosh’s production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera, featuring the much-lauded Derrick Davis as the title man in the mask. Davis has the distinction of being the first actor of color to take up the mantle of the Phantom on tour, and just the third to play the character in any production. After three years of portraying the iconic anti-hero, he’ll finally bring his rendition to a Baltimore stage for the first time.

We caught up with Davis ahead of the tour’s stop at the Hippodrome to talk taking on the mask, what’s new with the show, and the experiences he hopes to share with audiences both new and returning.

Tell me a bit about the tour so far. Obviously Phantom is a huge draw for theater crowds anywhere.
Yeah, it’s been absolutely amazing. I’ve had such a good time. First of all, the cast that I’m working with is really second to none, in my opinion. It’s such a close-knit family, and it definitely shows on the state. But being part of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s masterpiece has just been a game changer, not just because I can say I played The Phantom, but because being a part of something that is so strong in content just really changed my life completely.

What has it been like for you taking on the role of such an iconic character?
It was daunting at first, I’m not gonna lie. I mean, there’s only a certain amount of men who have gotten the privilege to don the mask. But once I met the creative team and got past the audition process, getting into an understanding of the character has been such a joy. The murdering and the seemingly womanizing behavior aside, he is so human that it’s frightening sometimes when I’m playing him. But it’s my pleasure to be able to give the audience a glimpse into themselves while looking at this creature of an individual. It’s been a roller coaster ride.

The Phantom is sort of what someone could become after a series of worst case scenarios. It must be an interesting headspace to get into.
That’s the fun part about it really, because if you just dial it down and dig deep enough to find the base level of who he is as a a human being, he’s not far different from any of us. He’s just experienced a lot of rejection, a lot of unrequited love, a passion for his craft—things like that everybody can relate to. But you couple that with a lifetime of people shunning him, ostracizing him, mocking him, jeering at him, and everything like that, then it pushes humanity to a place that really is just not human.

Why do you think this particular show persists and connects with people so much?
First it’s the brilliant music. The melodies are so simple and they’re almost like a lullaby in some places. But then the orchestration of the music is so lush and emotion-packed that it’s something that you would go back to over and over. But beyond that, the spectacle is unmatched. The beauty of the costumes by Maria Björnson and just the staging design and the lighting are so incredibly captivating that it just brings the audience back over and over and over. And, of course, who doesn’t love a good love triangle?

The Hippodrome Foundation brings Baltimore-area students in for matinees, and for many of them your production of Phantom will be their first Broadway show. What do you hope to bring to those audiences?
I would love for them to have the same experience with this production that I had with this production. This is the first show that my parents took me to see as a kid, and it locked in my love for musical theater. So I hope when they walk away, they are so dumbfounded that they can’t speak for a moment, and that they take the time to digest it. Much like all the great stories of our world, people come back to it again and again. You see it as a child and it’s one thing, you see it as a teenager and it’s another thing. So I hope that they take away a fresh perspective, but a perspective that will bring them back to see it again.

What can people expect from this particular version of the performance?
Technology has made incredible advances in the 30-plus years that the show has been around, so I want them to know that, while this is an older story, the technology is certainly advanced. We’ve advanced the lighting design and the sound design. We bring our own surround sound systems to every theater that we go to, and it takes a huge crew of men and women to set that up. And then this is a newer set design, so we’re taking a darker, more gritty approach to the show. It’s an action-adventure, it’s a love story. There’s literally something for everybody. So if anybody’s on the fence about coming to see it, I would say come see it for sure. And everybody who’s excited to come to see it, you prepare to be completely blown away.

This March, Baltimore band Beach House quietly announced a summer show—their first big hometown performance since the Windjammer music festival at Pier Six in 2015—and at none other than the hallowed Hippodrome Theatre at the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center in downtown Baltimore.

With the show set to start at 8 p.m. on Tuesday night, the dream-pop duo will be performing as part of the North American tour to promote their seventh and latest album, aptly titled 7, which was released last spring. The luminous record carries the trademark trappings that first put them on the national map more than 10 years ago—Victoria LeGrand’s haunting vocals and lush synth and Alex Scally’s searing guitar—as well as a fresh dose of newfound energy and urgency that marks a subtle but significant evolution in their decade-long perfection of the dream-pop genre.

A sort of Windjammer encore, the lineup also features other local music legends of the last decade who performed at the waterfront festival four years ago, with opening acts including electronic artist Dan Deacon, as well as a solo set by Future Islands bassist William Cashion, who also performs as a part of instrumental duo Peals.

In what will surely be an iconic Baltimore performance, Beach House will play a mix of new songs and greatest hits from over the course of their 15-year career. In a sneak peak of the set list, Scally shares some tidbits about a few of the band’s favorite tracks.

“Drunk in LA”
Released last spring on the band’s seventh record, 7, this hypnotic song stems out of the production of their previous full-length release. It’s a blossoming song that unfolds as if watching the world through a haze, which, it turns out, they were. “The lyrics to this song were written in Los Angeles while mixing our album, Depression Cherry, and during an inspiring afternoon in the studio,” says Scally. “We were drinking a lot of wine and feeling both alive and very dead.”

“Myth”
Off the band’s 2012 sophomore record, Bloom—dubbed one of the best records of the year by Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, and NPR—this classic Beach House song continues to be one of the band’s most-listened-to tracks. “We wrote this song in 2011, but it still vibrates in the ‘right’ way, so we keep its light burning,” says Scally.

“Lemon Glow”
The first single off of 7 captures the fresh energy and innovation found on the rest of the new record. It’s one of the many songs that speak to the beauty in contrast, as the glitchy beat climbs into a shimmering crescendo and then abruptly ends, leaving the listener wanting more. “This is a song about love, but we use the ugliest keyboard sound ever for it,” says Scally. “It’s really fun to make ugly sounds work in a song.”

“Dive”
The second single off of 7, this signature slow-burner builds before erupting in a newly potent moment of thunderous live drums and lustrous guitar. “This is the last song we wrote for 7, and to us, it feels like a runt from a litter of puppies that jumps in the backseat of a car and charms everyone,” says Scally.

“Levitation”
The opening of the band’s gorgeous 2015 Depression Cherry sets the stage for the entire fifth record—a lush, lilting collection of songs that are at once sparkling, nostalgic, sad, and hopeful. As we wrote all those years ago, it rises like the light at dawn, all slow and dewy and soft. “The end and the beginning often have a similar feeling,” says Scally, “and we feel this song captures that paradox.

A champagne-colored Jaguar pulls to the curb in front of the
Hippodrome Theatre on a snowy Sunday afternoon. Two middle-aged women
get out, duck under the marquee, and scurry inside as the car departs.
Other theatergoers—clustered in groups of two, three, and four—tramp
down North Eutaw Street, navigating icy sidewalks and the stream of
traffic. Not everyone heads to the Hippodrome’s White Christmas holiday show though—some folks are arriving early for a matinee of Red
at Everyman Theatre, around the corner. Adding to the bustle, flocks of
fans in purple jerseys walk toward M&T Bank Stadium for the Ravens
game, or duck into Alewife to watch it on one of the bar’s televisions.

It’s
a scene envisioned by developers and city planners when the Hippodrome
reopened 10 years ago after $70 million worth of renovations. The
renovation included two adjacent buildings, and the new complex was
rechristened the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center.

The
theater, seen mostly as a destination for touring Broadway musicals, was
trumpeted as the crown jewel in what figured to be a transformative
redevelopment of the surrounding area. The Hippodrome was “a project
considered crucial to reviving Baltimore’s faded Westside,” according to
The Sun and many others. The strategic plan proposed by the
Baltimore Development Corporation identified it as “the most significant
component of the Westside revitalization effort,” which would infuse
the area with “residential, retail, and restaurants to serve the needs
of theater patrons, visitors, workers, and residents.”

A decade
later, the theater has mostly fulfilled its promise, enduring some rough
stretches along the way, while the broader renaissance it was supposed
to kick-start never materialized. In fact, the larger Westside project,
as embodied by its so-called “Superblock” component, has become
synonymous with bureaucratic and legal gridlock. Observers rarely equate
the Westside with renaissance these days; instead, terms like “stalled”
and “in jeopardy” are more the norm.

“Since 90 percent of the
development plans didn’t happen, it leads people to say, ‘I told you
that wouldn’t work,’” says Jeff Daniel, president of the France-Merrick
Performing Arts Center. “And we get dragged into those negative
perceptions about the lack of development.”

So where does the
revamped theater, a community anchor in a sea of red tape, turn for
much-needed momentum and rebranding as it enters its second decade?

The
answer, says Daniel, is to downplay a dubious geographic designation
and more fully embrace its role as a local arts organization, which
makes sense considering recent developments.

Daniel notes the
theater isn’t actually located on the city’s west side—it’s a downtown
venue, like the arena, Convention Center, or sports stadiums. He also
believes the Hippodrome’s inclusion within the boundaries of the Bromo
Tower Arts & Entertainment District, designated in 2012 as the
city’s third arts district (after Station North and Highlandtown), is a
natural fit for branding and marketing purposes, especially with
Everyman in the mix. He feels the theaters can help establish the
district’s identity and transform once-blighted properties into
arts-centric incubators à la Station North.

“There’s something
happening here now, in the past 18 months,” says Daniel of the period
coinciding with the arts district designation. “I get information almost
daily that indicates we’re at a true tipping point.”

Everyman
artistic director Vincent Lancisi concurs. “We’re veteran pioneers, and
we know what it’s like to move into an underdeveloped neighborhood,”
says Lancisi, who moved his theater to the Bromo Tower Arts &
Entertainment District from Station North last year. “We have a ways to
go, but something is definitely going on here.”

Sitting in the
Hippodrome’s VIP lounge—surrounded by large-format photographs of
automobiles by Lexus, the lounge’s corporate sponsor—the 43-year-old
Daniel exudes measured, but unwavering, confidence in the overall
development process. It can be painfully slow, he points out, and he’s
seen it before, in cities like Boston, MA, and San Antonio, TX.

Daniel
began his arts administration career 20 years ago, when, as a business
major fresh out of Oklahoma State University, he worked with Theater
Management Group (TMG) to help restore a vaudeville-era theater in San
Antonio. Although he had no theater background, he was hooked. Daniel
became general manager at TMG and specialized in devising public-private
partnerships to finance the development of historic theaters. He
managed venues and promoted touring Broadway shows for Clear Channel
after the media behemoth bought TMG in 1998. He also worked on the deal
between Clear Channel, the Maryland Stadium Authority, and the nonprofit
Hippodrome Foundation that bankrolled the Hippodrome.

“I go way back with this project,” says Daniel. “I was there at the beginning, practically before the beginning.”

Key
Brand Entertainment, a company steeped in the development and
production of live theater, eventually acquired Clear Channel’s theater
assets and hired Daniel for the Hippodrome job in 2009. Upon arriving in
Baltimore, he was surprised to learn that Baltimoreans didn’t feel much
of a connection to the theater, which was known for productions of
blockbusters such as The Producers, The Lion King, and Wicked,
but little else. “It was like Clear Channel developed a theater,
dropped it downtown, and announced, ‘It’s open,’” recalls Daniel. “It
wasn’t presented as a longterm asset for the community, so there seemed
to be a disconnect.”

That belief was confirmed when he spoke with
Hippodrome staffers. “None of their priorities involved the community or
taking a leadership role in the city,” says Daniel. “No one was given
any credit for opening the doors and trying new things, which led to a
decrease in the amount of people who felt any attachment to the theater
and a decrease in the number of people who came here.”

The number
of Broadway shows decreased, as well. The revamped Hippodrome was
projected to host 26 weeks of theater by 2009, but, when Daniel arrived,
it was down to about half that, and the venue was losing money. Coupled
with the effects of the recession, it was a downward trend compounded
by costly expenditures such as a yearly utility bill of $1 million. The
average theater of the Hippodrome’s size pays $180,000.

That
figure resulted from an arrangement that allowed the theater to tap into
city utility systems instead of constructing its own heating and
cooling plant back in 2003. The deal reportedly saved $4 million up
front, but its escalating fees and interest were ill-advised for the
long-term.

Daniel knew things had to change.

Key Brand
renegotiated the utility arrangement, and, according to Daniel, the
current deal is significantly better, though still more costly than the
average Broadway theater. The Hippodrome retooled its subscription
series, giving patrons more flexibility in their choices, and the number
of subscribers ticked up to 9,000 this year. (It had dwindled to a low
of 8,000 for the 2008-2009 season, after peaking at 14,400 in
2004-2005.)

The theater also expanded its offerings by presenting events like the Foodie Experience and a touring MythBusters
show, as well as concerts by the likes of Neil Young and Styx. Daniel
mentions he’d like to see an outside arts presenter curate and book a
series of modern dance, ballet, and children’s shows to further expand
the Hippodrome’s programming.

The moves are apparently paying off.
As a private company, Key Brand doesn’t disclose figures, but Daniel
claims the venue is now profitable. “We were losing considerable sums
when we got here, and we stopped that,” he says. “We’re not making
considerable sums, but we have a lot to be proud of.”

With
finances under control, Daniel has worked on improving the Hippodrome’s
community standing. With help from the nonprofit Hippodrome Foundation,
the theater brought Soulful Symphony, the predominantly African-American
orchestra led by Darin Atwater, aboard for a residency and shows,
including an upcoming concert in May. The foundation also sponsors a
summer arts camp (Camp Hippodrome), a Young Critics Program (run by
Geoffrey Himes, an occasional Baltimore contributor), master classes for
local high-school students, and outreach programs at libraries, senior
centers, and hospitals.

“The development of the Hippodrome
Foundation has been important, because what we do can’t stop at the
theater walls,” says Daniel. “It should extend into the neighborhood,
where we can take a leadership role.”

With that in mind, the
Hippodrome figures to be a major player in the new arts district.
Bounded by Paca Street to the west and Park Avenue to the east, it
extends from Lombard Street into Mt. Vernon and includes a variety of
arts organizations—from the Maryland Historical Society and Eubie Blake
National Jazz Institute and Cultural Center to Arena Players and
galleries like Sub-Basement Artist Studios, Current Space, and Gallery
Four. The designation, says Bromo Tower Arts & Entertainment
District director Priya Bhayana, not only provides tax incentives for
arts-related development, it also “strengthens a critical sense of
community that creates a framework for [these organizations] to
recognize one another, collaborate, and participate in strategic and
thoughtful planning for the neighborhood.”

Everyone pretty much
agrees the district already has significant daytime foot traffic from
the nearby University of Maryland, Baltimore campus, the University of
Maryland Medical Center, and various government offices. Thanks to such
entities, it also has a highly educated base of local residents. What it
needs is more foot traffic at night, enhanced safety measures, and a
solid infrastructure of services for residents, who generally shop and
dine elsewhere.

The same goes for Hippodrome patrons. “They drop
in to see shows, get in their cars, and leave,” says Daniel, who
believes that initiatives like the arts district designation, the
proposed renovation of Lexington Market, and David S. Brown’s new
Baltimore Street high-rise—a mix of apartments, office space, and
retail—can help provide needed amenities for the Hippodrome’s coming
decade.

In the meantime, Daniel says it would be great if some of the folks coming to this month’s run of The Book of Mormon
drop in to see what’s on view at Current or check out what’s happening
at EMP Collective. “There’s actually a lot going on already,” he says.
“It’s not like we’re out here in the badlands by ourselves.”

John Lewis is arts and culture editor at Baltimore.