Local Theatre Outshines Bigger Venues with Intimate Space

On Saturday nights, the district around the University of Baltimore is as eager and festive as a crowd before a ticker-tape parade. Acts fill the Lyric Opera House, swirling strings emanate from the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, and tucked between these giants is a small art house in the shell of a town home, a venue with local flavor. It's called the Theatre Project.

A handmade sign on the sidewalk attracts the attention of those on Preston Street, but it's the tall staircase with white Christmas tree lights wrapped around its banisters that catches your eye. These stairs lead patrons into a wood set, two-story building, complete with wine and candles to capture the scene: an indie art museum nestled in a populace it doesn't particularly adore.

I've always appreciated the atmosphere at experimental art performances like Le Cabaret de Carmen, the show being put on the night I visited Theatre Project. I ascended those light-lined stairs and paid my admission. Pictures of the prospective performers are framed on every wall, and flyers for future shows cover just about every available surface.

On the far side from where you enter the Theatre Project is a collection of antique decorations, which arrange a replica of a classical backstage dressing room from the early 20th century. It's charming to see people appreciate the origin of their craft and cast it as the backdrop for the diverse array of shows that circulate through this non-profit organization.

The performance hall, which features a 20-foot acoustic dome and 150 seats, is a short venture from this decorative display. A cool mist hangs in the theatre; it's an intimate place of small light and long shadows. Tables for five surround the stage, drenched in a velvet red cloth to match the rouge-painted opera that was about to be played for 90 minutes at twilight.

Le Cabaret de Carmen is a dramatic French tale of lust and murder, entwined with a touch of wit and crowd interaction hard to portray in a greater arena or tighter space. The quality of this reinvented operatic Paris is second to the talent of the performers, who are with the American Opera Theatre. A scene-stealing Ryan de Ryke and a vocally dominant Sophie-Louise Roland keep your attention long enough to find your own meaning.

Their production cannot be duplicated. Its impact is impossible to copy. The actors rehearsed around the clock, the stagehands worked tirelessly, the choreographers and producers advertised whole-heartedly to acquire spectators—all accumulating to deliver such a story on this single, solitary night. This is what theatre is all about: the uncertainty that comes with every line and every scene; the energy that cycles between patrons and performers in a close space where actors weave in and out of the audience to blur the line between viewer and entertainer.

Patrons were not comprised of family and friends; they were faithful refugees that took shelter not in the melodic nostalgia at the Meyerhoff, (which on the night of Oct. 3, was putting on a showcase of Billy Joel's best), but instead in a congregation of artists using this intimate space to deliver their story straight into the hearts and minds of their audience, with no middlemen to fiddle with the message and the meaning. Television, film, radio, it all gets in the way, blocking the public's receptors from picking up the signal in its clearest and most concise rendition.

Tourists and residents alike might never grace its front doors with an admission ticket in hand, but maybe that should be redrawn and recalculated, first by editing the list of Baltimore's midtown "attractions"; dinner on North Charles Street and a short walk to a show at the Theatre Project would make any autumn night special.

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jack.combs@ubalt.edu

Theatre Project
45 W. Preston St.
phone–410.752.8558
web–www.theatreproject.org
tickets–$10 Students, $15 Seniors, $20 General

MISSION

"Theatre Project—through the presentation of a diverse array of original and experimental theatre, music, and dance—connects the artists and audiences of Baltimore with a global community of performers."

The theatre "offers a nurturing, professional outlet for local artists who are just testing their wings. It serves as a laboratory for new work and a crossroads for different cultural points of view."

UPCOMING PERFORMANCES

"Waiting for Godot" by Run of the Mill Theatre, through Nov. 2
The play "is noted for its linguistic beauty and provocative commentary on the human condition."

Music by Red Sammy and local poets, Nov. 15, 8 p.m.
Songwriter Adam Trice presents Red Sammy, a graveyard country rock band, in various musical arrangements including solo, duo and full-piece band performances. Life, work, hard work, disappointment, love and loss are all themes entwined in their songs.

"Above and Beyond" by Air Dance Bernasconi, Nov. 28 through Dec. 7
Using a number of different aerial techniques, Air Dance Bernasconi presents "a unique and spectacular dance form."