Center Stage

Center Stage is the state theater of Maryland, and Baltimore's largest professional producing theater. Center Stage began in a converted gymnasium in 1963 as a full arena theatre that seated 240 people. Today, Center Stage houses two performing spaces, the 541-seat Pearlstone and the smaller Head Theater, both in its home in the Mount Vernon Cultural District of Baltimore. History Launched in 1963 by a group of local theater supporters, Center Stage soon became a leader in America's regional theater movement, with the goal of producing first-rate professional theater for local audiences, along with theaters such as The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Arena Stage in Washington, DC, and Alley Theatre in Houston. In 1931 the North Avenue building was previously occupied by a theatre called The Peabody that opened in the early 1900s; in 1931 Orioles Cafeteria a local food chain restaurant moved into the space at 11 East North Avenue and moved out in August 1965 to make space for the Center Stage theater. On January 10, 1974, the theater's North Avenue home was burned to the ground in an arson fire (reported to have been started by two men who accidentally set the Center Stage ablaze at the back after mistaking it for the next-door bar, Benny Goodmans Beef And Beer, from which they had been forcibly removed and were out to burn down in an act of revenge). After the 1974 fire, many decided that since the outer shell was not severely damaged, some hope remained for salvage use, but the interior was completely destroyed and unstable, was considered unsafe by city inspectors and construction crews and was later demolished. Although the majority of the building was demolished, both sides of the facade columns remain to remind passersby of what was once there. The site of the North Avenue building is currently a small parking lot for used cars and auto repairing. Additional stage hands quickly rebuilt the set for Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? for its performance the next night at the Baltimore Museum of Art and with help from local civic leaders the theater continued its season at the local College of Notre Dame (once a part of Loyola High School and College) and used the disaster to launch a major public relations and capital campaign to keep the organization alive.