As 10-year-old Brett Orenstein walked alongside his grandmother on a VIP tour of Government House in Annapolis recently, he had a brainstorm.
He told first lady Katie Curran O'Malley that he found her home to be "very impressive" and that he'd like to hold his bar mitzvah there when he turns 13.
"She proceeded, of course, to politely explain why he would not be able to do that," recalled his grandmother, Toby Orenstein, who had been inducted that day into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame. "But I was amazed watching him. He knew what he wanted and he asked for it."
A profound interest in kids isn't something Orenstein reserves solely for her four grandchildren. As the owner of Toby's Dinner Theatre of Columbia since 1979 and the founder of the Columbia Center for Theatrical Arts in 1972, she long ago fashioned a passion for theater into a tool to help kids learn and to develop life skills.
"I'm feeling that it's becoming more and more important to work with children. Kids today are afraid of risks," she said, adding that was why she was so proud of her grandson for taking a chance and asking to rent out the governor's home.
Orenstein's induction March 12 at the Miller Senate Office Building -- along with five other women, including jazz singer Billie Holiday, who received a posthumous honor -- highlights her commitment to youth in a career spanning nearly 50 years.
"It was thrilling to be a part of that ceremony," said the 70-year-old New York native, who made an impromptu acceptance speech. Orenstein chose to quote one of her first mentors, former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, with whom she'd worked to teach youth in New York's Harlem community.
"I told them what Eleanor had told me: "A woman is like a teabag. You don't know how strong she is until you put her in hot water,'" she said. "Then I told all the `teabags' in the audience to never give up on their dreams, no matter what the hardships."
Orenstein, who opened Toby's of Baltimore in 2006, said she is considering following a dream and forming a new group along the lines of the Young Columbians, a singing group she organized in 1975 at the request of Columbia founder James W. Rouse, another early mentor.
"Toby meant so much to Jim," said Rouse's widow, Patricia Rouse, who lives in the same house on Wilde Lake that she and her husband bought in 1974. "She's a tremendously gifted individual who continues to mean so much to Columbia."
