Next season, more customers at the Hippodrome Theatre may be wearing mittens clipped to their coat sleeves.
The France-Merrick Performing Arts Center (which houses the Hippodrome) always makes sure that a certain number of the shows it books each year is suitable for middle-school students and teens. But for the first time, its subscription series will include two musicals geared specifically toward elementary-school children.
The 2008-2009 season is scheduled to be unveiled at a news conference this morning.
In November, the Grinch - with his green skin and a heart that is "two sizes too small" - moves into the Hippodrome to star in Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical.
The holidays will barely be over when Chitty Chitty Bang Bang rattles onto the stage Jan. 6. The musical is based on the beloved children's book-turned-film about a flying car.
"Every market is a little bit different, and the Baltimore audience wants a product that they can enjoy with their families," says Stella Benkler, the Hippodrome's new executive director. "Getting younger audiences interested in and involved in the theater is where our future lies as an art form."
Benkler expects both shows to have broad appeal, not just for children, but for their Generation X parents, who may fondly remember these stories from their own childhoods. In addition, she says, Baltimore will inaugurate the national tour of Grinch.
"We want to position Baltimore as a market for bringing in new product," she says.
"This will be the second national tour that we've launched in the five years that we have been at the Hippodrome. In 2006, our audience was the first group of theatergoers to see The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee after it left New York."
The 2008-2009 season will consist of six musicals and one drama. Though the lineup lacks such blockbusters of previous years as The Producers, The Lion King or Wicked, all seven shows are proven performers with strong production values (sets, costumes, lights).
The Kennedy Center's 2008-2009 theater season, which was announced last week, is also filled with reliable audience draws but no megahits.
The two cities' Broadway seasons will overlap. Baltimore and Washington will each present Legally Blonde and Spring Awakening - and both will appear first in Charm City.
"Producers realize that Baltimore is more centralized than D.C.," Benkler says. "We draw audiences from a wider area."
