NEWS
By Christina Bittner and Christina Bittner,SPECIAL TO THE SUN | January 14, 2001
LATELY, LIFE HAS been hectic at Chesapeake Center for the Creative Arts - its three full-time staff members are busy making sure the grand opening week that started yesterday runs smoothly. They've booked the performers, arranged for art to be displayed in the gallery, tested the lighting and sound systems, and made sure the studios are ready for the first day of classes. It's not as easy as having Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney say, "Hey, kids, let's put on a show!" And it takes more than the efforts of the full-timers, who have had a small army of volunteers behind the effort to get this show on the road.
NEWS
By Mary Johnson and Mary Johnson,SPECIAL TO THE SUN | January 13, 1998
The opening celebration of the Chesapeake Center for the Creative Arts on Saturday turned into north county's version of "Field of Dreams." "If you build it they will come," said the voice in the movie. And come they did.More than 1,000 people packed the old Brooklyn Park High School auditorium on Hammonds Lane for a lengthy -- the first half lasted two hours -- program of speeches, singing and dancing organized by Wayne Shipley.Democratic Del. Joan Cadden, whose district includes the high school, was joined by Republican County Executive John G. Gary, State Sen. Philip C. Jimeno, a Brooklyn Park Democrat; Del. Michael W. Burns, a Glen Burnie Republican, and Democratic state Comptroller Louis L. Goldstein.
NEWS
By Mary Johnson and Mary Johnson,SPECIAL TO THE SUN | July 26, 2001
For the first time, the Chesapeake Center for the Creative Arts will premiere a play in the Baltimore Playwrights Festival season. With the opening of Theodore Groll's Run Past the Sun at 8 p.m. tomorrow, the theater will join the festival's 20th season, during which six plays will be premiered. Other theaters in the festival are the Vagabond Players, Fells Point Corner, Arena Players, and Spotlighters theaters, all in Baltimore, and Kittamaqundi Center in Columbia. Groll's play was selected for a reading at the Baltimore Playwrights competition in Fells Point and was later sent to CCCA Executive Director Wayne Shipley.
NEWS
By Christina Bittner and Christina Bittner,SPECIAL TO THE SUN | April 30, 2000
A SNEAK preview of the offerings at Chesapeake Center for the Creative Arts will be available Tuesday at Baltimore- Washington International Airport. Chesapeake Center will sponsor a day of entertainment and the arts, celebrating the unveiling of an airport collage saluting "A Century of the Arts in Maryland." From 10: 45 a.m. to 3: 30 p.m., the center will present singing and dancing and an artisans' exhibit featuring members of the Maryland Poetry and Literary Society, painters and Clayworks artists.
NEWS
By Mary Johnson and Mary Johnson,SPECIAL TO THE SUN | October 26, 2000
Phones have been ringing constantly at the Chesapeake Center for the Creative Arts as the facility nears completion and schedules of coming shows and "mini-mester" course samplers were mailed, board member Joan Maynard said. Maynard, who is also chairwoman of the opening gala in January, anticipated that the center will be "a focal point of the community that will reach out to the whole county." She noted that with a staff of three, everything is being pulled together largely through the efforts of "a cadre of volunteers that is unequaled."
NEWS
By Mary Johnson and Mary Johnson,SPECIAL TO THE SUN | January 25, 2001
It all began on Jan. 8, 1998 - when lavender invitation leaflets blanketed Brooklyn Park and people who found makeshift parking along Hammonds Lane slogged through mud to reach the auditorium - the night when Del. Joan Cadden's dream of a performing arts center in the community was publicly announced. Supporters filled just about every seat in the old Brooklyn Park High School auditorium to hear words of greetings from an assortment of politicians, among them Maryland Comptroller Louis L. Goldstein, who pronounced the school site "a real gem - all you have to do is polish it."