Performing Arts Center

Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts is always busy.Paint brushes flick at canvases, little girls in tights twirl in corners, potters crush clay on spinning wheels, a twanging guitar clashes with the click-click-click of heels in the hallways, and baking scones scent the entire basement.In a second life that began 20 years ago when the 68,000-square-foot edifice built as a high school was declared obsolete, Maryland Hall has become the heart of the capital's arts community.With an annual budget that has grown to $1.6 million, the creative arts center is the successful realization of a dream for the arts lovers who petitioned for it, and a place of wonder for thousands of students who have tried everything from painting to playing piano in its classrooms.

The University of Maryland, College Park had the most successful fund-raising day in its history yesterday, announcing two gifts totaling $21 million to benefit a new performing arts center and expand its business school.Clarice Smith's $15 million donation matches the two largest donations in the history of the school, including one from her husband, Robert H. Smith, given last year. The family's total of more than $30 million makes them the biggest donors to any public university in Maryland.

The cost of transforming Baltimore's Hippodrome Theater into a contemporary performing arts center is likely to be closer to $50 million than to the $35 million figure estimated two years ago, according to state officials working on the project.During a presentation yesterday to Baltimore's Design Advisory Panel, planners said the additional funds are needed to alter parts of the 1914 theater so it will be able to accommodate the large Broadway-style shows that now bypass Baltimore.If the funds can be raised from public and private sources, the planners said, they are confident the Hippodrome and adjacent buildings can attract patrons and help revitalize the west side of downtown.

In straw hats and stovepipes, knickers and shawls, McDonogh School students who will live most of their lives in the 21st century gathered yesterday to see how a band of poor boys helped establish their school in the 19th.The re-enactment of McDonogh's founding, played out on a multi-colored morning on the Owings Mills campus, gave the school's 1,233 students a look at what it might have been like on Nov. 21, 1873, when the first city youngsters came by train to the "school farm" provided for in the will of Baltimore native John McDonogh Jr.The students representing those first McDonogh boys ran and stumbled up a grassy hill from McDonogh Road, as a student portraying William Allan, the first principal, yelled from above, "Hurry up, you scrubs."

WHILE SOME ARTS organizations always seem to be struggling to survive, the arts in general are playing an increasingly important role in the rejuvenation of America's cities.As Baltimore moves to transform the old Hippodrome Theater at 12 N. Eutaw St. into a $35 million performing arts center, civic leaders can take lessons from many other cities that are capitalizing on the arts to revive their downtowns by building museums, performing arts centers, theaters, opera houses and concert halls.

It's the classic story of the understudy who gets a big break and becomes a star.For years, local theater lovers have talked about building a new performing arts center at some prestigious location near downtown -- the Inner Harbor shoreline, perhaps, or the Mount Royal cultural district. But the price tag was always too high. Now they've turned to a promising candidate waiting in the wings.The venerable Hippodrome Theater, a 1914 vaudeville house donated to the University of Maryland last year, isn't in the best part of town and doesn't have the same pizazz as some new showplace on the water.

EFFORTS TO transform the old Hippodrome vaudeville house into Baltimore's performing arts center received a critical boost this week with Gov. Parris N. Glendening's announcement that he will include a $1.7 million planning grant in his supplemental budget.The long-vacant Eutaw Street theater would be the centerpiece of the $35 million cultural complex in an area that has been declining steadily but with considerable redevelopment potential. The Hippodrome's main theater could easily be renovated into a 2,300-seat venue capable of handling touring Broadway shows, smaller stage productions, dance performances and concerts.

AT FIRST, the idea sounds preposterous. Who on earth would venture to the old Hippodrome if the once-famous Eutaw Street vaudeville house were renovated and reopened as a state-of-the-art theater for large-scale Broadway productions? Even in the daytime, the area is foreboding.Yet the embryonic plan has merit and promise. A first-rate performing arts center could easily -- and relatively cheaply -- be assembled at the Hippodrome, taking advantage of an adjoining garage, another nearby theater and access to mass transit and interstate highways.

Chinese performing artsSit back and watch the Hua Sha Chinese Dance Group at Montgomery College's Performing Arts Center tomorrow. The group performs dances of "In the Land of Hope," "Music on the Prairie" (Mongolian), "Dream of Deng Huang" (Tang Dynasty), "Zhu Ma" (Tibetan), "The Ribbon Dance" and "The Bow Dance," all choreographed by Xu Xiao Fang of Shanghai and Jing Yu of the Hua Sha Group.This cultural event includes children of the Hope Chinese School performing "Bai Nian" (Wishing a Happy New Year)

The 7-year-old dream of turning the closed Pikes movie theater in central Pikesville into a performing arts center has finally died.The Greater Baltimore County Cultural Arts Foundation Inc. formally threw in the towel yesterday, with only about $63,000 in cash left from its three-year fund-raising effort."