Theatre Project

As the Baltimore Theatre Project turns 39, it is changing course and shifting its focus. In the future, fewer experimental plays will appear at the venue. Instead, audiences can expect to find more chamber operas, musicals, dance, and multimedia theater pieces with a strong visual component. But the fans of the innovative and progressive have no cause for concern — "Annie Get Your Gun" appears nowhere on the 2010-2011 subscription season. The Theatre Project is as dedicated as ever to staging new, cutting-edge works.

It has been a big week for the historic theaters of North Avenue. First the city announced it is moving forward with the Maryland Film Festival's plan to restore the Parkway Theatre. Now comes news that the state is chipping in a substantial sum toward the restoration of the Centre Theatre. The group that plans to turn the 1939 theater at 10. E. North Ave. into a multi-purpose arts space has been allocated $3 million in tax credits by the Maryland Historical Trust, a division of the state's planning department.

Check it out. Baltimore's DNA Theatre (Daydreams + Nightmares Aerial Theatre) is presenting 1920s Vintage Cabaret, a weekend-long fundraiser at the Theatre Project featuring live music, artisan cocktails and food. The cabaret benefits DNA Theatre's 2013 season of performances. The Jan. 5 show at 7:45 p.m. will inlcude a "Prohibition-inspired haute cuisine menu" prepared by David Bersch. The four-course menu includes oysters Rockefeller, risotto Etouffee, braised short ribs and, for dessert, a mousse duo. The 10 p.m. show on Saturday will feature a late-night lounge atmosphere with Baltimore's "sassiest burlesque performers.

Check it out. Baltimore's DNA Theatre (Daydreams + Nightmares Aerial Theatre) is presenting 1920s Vintage Cabaret, a weekend-long fundraiser at the Theatre Project featuring live music, artisan cocktails and food. The cabaret benefits DNA Theatre's 2013 season of performances. The Jan. 5 show at 7:45 p.m. will inlcude a "Prohibition-inspired haute cuisine menu" prepared by David Bersch. The four-course menu includes oysters Rockefeller, risotto Etouffee, braised short ribs and, for dessert, a mousse duo. The 10 p.m. show on Saturday will feature a late-night lounge atmosphere with Baltimore's "sassiest burlesque performers.

The lowdown -- In Solo: A Two-Person Show, co-creators and performers Matt Chapman and Josh Matthews tell the tale of two brothers attempting to sort their way through the puzzling details of their last moments together and discover what may or may not have happened to each other. If you go -- Solo: A Two-Person Show will take place at 7 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday and at 3 p.m. Sunday at Theatre Project, 45 W. Preston St. The show is appropriate for ages 8 and older. Tickets are $10-$20.

'A Traveling Song'Where: Theatre Project, 45 W. Preston St.When: Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., matinees Sundays at 3 p.m. Through Oct. 10. Tickets: $14Call: (410) 752-8558** 1/25/8 Twenty-three years is a venerable age for a theater, particularly one that specializes in the avant-garde. So it seems fitting that the Theatre Project has launched its 23rd season with a show about the passing of time -- "A Traveling Song," created and performed by the Amsterdam-based Heriette Brouwers and Beppe Costa.

With few words, no dialogue or plot and lots of highly evocative movement, Naoko Maeshiba Performance Collective's The Voyage is more dance than theater. But this Theatre Project presentation is also the type of work that deliberately defies categorization. The style might be described as surrealistic, and the subject matter appears to be nothing less than the voyage of life, with an emphasis on the stresses of relationships and change. Along the way, director/choreographer Naoko Maeshiba (a member of the theater faculty at Towson University)

The Trust for Mutual Understanding has awarded the Theatre Project a grant of $15,000 to support a collaborative project with Theatre Buffo, the Leningrad cabaret company that opened the company's '90-'91 season.The grant will fund the return of Gennady Vetrov, Theatre Buffo's leading actor, to the Theatre Project where he will present a new version of a one-man show he has been performing in Russia, Eastern Europe and the Scandinavian countries for the past two years.Theatre Project founder and artistic director Philip Arnoult will work as dramaturg with Vetrov and Theatre Buffo's founder and director, Isaak Shtokbant, to adapt the show so that it will be appreciated by American audiences.

After decades as one of the country's leading importers of avant-garde theater, the Theatre Project is entering its 25th anniversary season with a major change in mission: It will now focus on local work.The local companies that will be involved belong to what Philip Arnoult, Theatre Project founder and artistic director, calls "the Baltimore independent theater movement."The Theatre Project introduced a local residency program three seasons ago. The big change this season, however, is that instead of a smattering of local companies mixed between the national and international troupes, the just-announced 1995-1996 season consists almost entirely of local productions.

The Theatre Project, which has been presenting experimental works in Baltimore for 20 years, faces eviction from its Preston Street home for falling about $20,000 behind in its rent.However, both the theater and the landlord said yesterday that they expect to resolve the matter and stave off eviction."The Theatre Project is an avant-garde theater. They're not in the business to make money, but we have a mortgage to be paid," said Dan Henson, senior development director for the landlord, Struever Brothers Eccles & Rouse.

Baltimore's cutting-edge theater scene just became a bit less razor-sharp. For the first time in more than 40 years, Spanish puppet troupes and headline-making performers who smear chocolate on their skin will have a hard time finding a stage where they can put on their shows. Primarily for economic reasons, Baltimore's venerable Theatre Project has quietly stopped bringing in experimental artists with global and national reputations. Instead, the 150-seat showhouse at 45 W. Preston St. is hosting local theater and regional dance companies.

William Donald Schaefer sang Baltimore's praises loudly, so it's only fitting that a new musical should be singing his. The title of "Do It Now!" — music by Baltimore Symphony Orchestra member Jonathan Jensen, book by Baltimore-born playwright Rich Espey — comes from Schaefer's signature phrase during his 1971-1987 tenure as mayor of the city. The musical, which gets a public reading Sunday at Theatre Project , remains a work in progress, but the focus on Schaefer's Baltimore career is firmly settled.

The Baltimore Development Corp. said Thursday it was reissuing a request for proposal to develop three properties, including the former Parkway Theatre, one of the most prominent landmarks in the city's Station North Arts and Entertainment District. The BDC in 2009 confirmed a proposal for the Parkway Theatre project by Cormony Development and Seawall Development Co. But due to "changing conditions" over "considerable periods of time," the city chose to renew the RFP process, according to M.J. "Jay" Brodie, president of the BDC. Samuel Polakoff, head of Cormony Development, said the BDC never told him and Seawall why it was no longer supporting them as developers.

Not long after 9/11, playwright and actress Rohina Malik attended her best friend's wedding wearing a hijab. "There was an American wedding going on in the same place as our Pakistani wedding," Malik said. "A guest from the American wedding saw me and had a really strong response to my veil. It got really ugly very fast. I knew afterward that I wanted to write about it. " What Malik ended up writing was "Unveiled," a provocative one-woman play that she will perform at Theatre Project . She portrays five Muslim women living in the West, post-9/11.

Theater audiences are typically faced with no-no's before the action starts — no recording devices of any kind, no picture-taking. Things are a little different at performances of "Bump," a dark comedy currently receiving its premiere production at the Theatre Project . "Flash photography will be encouraged," said playwright Robert Powers with a laugh. Intermittent bursts from cameras or flash-equipped cellphones, which could create something like a paparazzi barrage, fit right in with "Bump.

If life is a banquet, playwright and actor Al Letson doesn't let a crumb go to waste. "I do a lot of autobiographical work," said the author of "Crumbs," currently on the boards at Theatre Project . "I am concerned with the truth, if not the literal truth. I want to make things dramatically effective. " Billed as "a possibly true story," "Crumbs" is a 2009 piece based on an experience Letson had about eight years ago. "I worked for a private investigation agency in a bread company," he said.

Three troupes from the Netherlands and three from Baltimore will highlight the 1992-'93 season at the Theatre Project as the theater initiates two major programs.In the first, the Theatre Project will serve as manager for a project that will bring three Dutch companies to four U.S. cities annually for the next three years.The second is the previously announced program of residences of three local alternative theater companies: Splitting Image, New Century Theater and Impossible Industrial Action.

Phillip Arnoult and his Theatre Project have long been a haven for area dancers and dance fans. In keeping with that tradition, Kinetics, the Howard County-based troupe, opened its premiere-laden and well-conceived concert of dances Thursday night.All but one of the five works -- Jan Van Dyke's "Round Dance" -- were new. Created in 1985 to music of Peter Gabriel, "Round Dance" shimmered with imagery culled from tribal rituals. Eight dancers, crouched about a circle of light, rhythmically pounded their hands on the floor or stomped their feet.

Move over, Single Carrot Theatre — there's another edgy ensemble in town. The six-year-old Generous Company, previously based in New York and a few other places, recently relocated to Baltimore, where it is making its local debut with an intriguing production of a 2008 Russian play at Theatre Project . Yury Klavdiev's "I Am the Machine Gunner" (translated by John Freedman) takes the audience into the conflicted mind of a gang member, identified only as Young Man, the play's sole character.

As the Baltimore Theatre Project turns 39, it is changing course and shifting its focus. In the future, fewer experimental plays will appear at the venue. Instead, audiences can expect to find more chamber operas, musicals, dance, and multimedia theater pieces with a strong visual component. But the fans of the innovative and progressive have no cause for concern — "Annie Get Your Gun" appears nowhere on the 2010-2011 subscription season. The Theatre Project is as dedicated as ever to staging new, cutting-edge works.