A Historic Showcase for Black Playwrights and Performers

The Arena Playhouse at 801 McCulloh Street has been occupied by the Arena Players, an African American theater troupe, since December 1961. Established in 1953 as an outgrowth of the “The Negro Little Theater”, the Arena Players spent a decade performing at varied locations including Coppin State University, the Druid Hill YMCA, the Great Hall Theater of St. Mary’s Church in Walbrook, and the Carl J. Murphy Auditorium at Morgan State University.

When the theater moved to McCulloh Street at the end of 1961 they took over a building with a long history. Originally known by the address of 406 Orchard Street, the three-story building was erected in the mid to late nineteenth century. By 1890, the building operated as a livery attached to the Hartman & Moore Carriage Factory near the northern end of a row of seventeen buildings between McCulloh Alley and Little Monument Street. Around 1892, Patrick Gaierty acquired the livery and continued to operate it as "University Stables" up until his death in August 1911. Shortly after Gaierty's death, St. Mary's Protestant Episcopal Church acquired the building and turned it into a church hall.

In 1918, during World War I, the church hall was converted into the War Camp Community Service Club for Colored Soldiers with a dance hall, food, bath facilities, and accommodations for two hundred sailors or soldiers. In the 1940s, the building hosted the St. Mary's Hall Nursery School and offered low-cost childcare for local Black families.

By the early 1950s, the city had extended McCulloh Street through the middle of the block leaving two short rows of houses and commercial buildings. The adjoining carriage factory had been turned into a factory for the Baltimore Chair Company. And, by 1960, the church hall had been turned into a 13,500-square-foot warehouse and S.J. Stackhouse & Son, Inc. advertised the building for lease (noting the building's "new hearing plant" and "very good condition").

The Arena Players moved in at the end of 1961 and, by November 14, 1969, managed to purchase the building in a deal financed solely by ticket sales. In 1974, Arena Players met with the Neighborhood Design Center (NDC) to seek the group's assistance in planning the expansion of their 200-seat theater. NDC recruited Leon Bridges, a Black architect who had opened an office in Baltimore in 1970, and Bridges drafted a plan for the redevelopment of the building at an estimated cost of $755,000. Between August 1975 and October 1976, the group undertook a major renovation to add a new large theater to the building. The work was supported by a $50,000 mortgage from the Ideal Building and Loan Association, $120,000 in gifts from community groups and individuals, a $3,000 grant from the Maryland Arts Council, and a $321,000 federal grant administered by the city's Department of Housing and Community Development. The new 300-seat theater was commemorated on October 22, 1976 with a performance of Langston Hughes' Little Ham.

For many years, the Arena Playhouse was one of the only venues dedicated to showcasing the works of Black playwrights and performers. While Black performers now have more opportunities, the theater on McCulloh Street continues to be a treasured institution today.

801 McCulloh Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

Theatrical and Civil Rights History

Baltimore activists have a long history of fighting discrimination and segregation in the city’s public establishments. In the years after World War II, the NAACP and their allies worked to end segregated seating at Ford’s Theatre on Fayette Street and drew national attention to the fight for equal rights in Baltimore.

Ford's Theatre opened in 1871. It was built by John T. Ford, a Baltimore native, and the owner of the Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. infamous as the site of President Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Like many other theatres in downtown Baltimore, Ford's enforced a strict policy of racially segregated seating. As early as 1947, Baltimore’s branch of the NAACP began picketing the theatre. At that time, NAACP executive secretary Addison Pinkney stated that the protest had gone on for ”the entire season” and “reduced the average attendance to less than one-half capacity of [the] building.” Unfortunately, theatre management was resistant to changing their discriminatory policies. Protests continued for five years with national and international stars joining the fight. In 1948, celebrated singer and Civil Rights activist Paul Robeson walked a picket line in front of the theatre. In 1951, Basil Rathbone, the British actor famous for playing Sherlock Holmes, declared: “You may depend on my taking a firm stand of disapproval of the segregated theatre in Baltimore and to inform any management to whom I may in future contract myself and the case of any play in which I play.”

By 1950, the protests were hurting the theatre’s bottom line. The theatre, which was operated by United Booking Office Inc. of New York, leased the building from Baltimore theatre mogul Morris Mechanic. By 1950, United Booking Office reported that Ford’s, once one of the most prosperous theatres in the nation, had its box office receipts cut almost in half, attributing the decline to the NAACP protest and to the poor selection of plays.

In 1952, the protest gained another strong ally: Maryland Governor Theodore R. McKeldin. Speaking in early 1952 at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, McKeldin declared that he wanted Ford’s opened to African Americans because they had been “needlessly affronted” by its policies. “We are going to walk together,” he said. “I am an optimist, and we must win. We are going to stop this evil thing.” On February 1, 1952, Ford’s dropped its segregation policies and was finally open to all.

In 1964, the Sun recalled, "Almost every theatrical star from the last century has played there, from James W. Wallack and Maude Adams to Katharine Cornell, and the building has gained a reputation for everything from cats on stage to deer in the balcony and bats in the dressing rooms." Unfortunately, neither theatrical or Civil Rights history could save the three-story theatre from the wrecking ball. The building was torn down in 1964 to make way for the parking garage that stands on the site today.

320 W. Fayette Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

The first Patterson Theater to occupy 3136 Eastern Avenue opened in 1910. In 1918, Harry Reddish purchased the building to renovate and redecorate it. He reopened it two years later and renamed it the “New Patterson”. The Patterson Theater housed a large second floor dancehall with a wide stage and organ that could only be turned on by climbing under the stage. In 1929, the “New Patterson” closed.

The next year saw a larger Patterson Theater, referred to as a playhouse, built in place of the old building. It opened September 26, 1930, showing Queen High with Charles Ruggles. Built by the Durkee Organization, John J. Zink designed the 85x150 ft building. He used a plain brick exterior (one of the plainest Zink ever designed). But the ornate, vertical sign appealed to the public. The interior color scheme consisted of red, orange, and gold with matching draperies and indirect lighting from crystal chandeliers. The theater’s low back chairs and spring-cushioned seats held between 900 to 1,500 people at a time. During its construction, designers took great care to ensure crisp  acoustics for the showing of talking pictures. The Grand Theater Company, an affiliate of Durkee Enterprises, operated the Patterson Theater.

In November 1958 an usher accidentally started a fire that caused considerable damage to the auditorium. By the spring of 1975 the owners twinned the theater into two 500 seat spaces, but the  machinery remained untouched. In 1986, the old machinery proved deadly when a refrigeration company’s employee asphyxiated on Freon gas in the basement cooling system. The theater filled with firefighters who had to remove the maintenance man and set up large fans to push the colorless, odorless gas from the building. The Patterson Theater continued to operate until 1995, but by then the theater only showed discount films. It would be the last theater operated by the Durkee Organization.

Creative Alliance, a community organization geared toward bringing audiences and artists together, undertook an extensive multi-million dollar renovation of the old Patterson Theater. Renovations began in 2000 when Cho Benn Holback & Associates gutted and rebuilt the building’s interior. Creative Alliance kept the fireproof concrete projection booth but turned the remainder of the space into a multi-purpose art center with galleries, artist studios, a marquee lounge and a flexible theater. While the historic vertical sign was one of the last originals in the city, extensive deterioration meant it could not be salvaged. Instead, Creative Alliance had it duplicated and replaced just before their reopening in May 2003.

Work continued a few years later with the addition of a café. The original concrete fireproof projection booth remained and became the focal point of the dining room. Gabriel Kroiz, Chair of Undergraduate Design for the School of Architecture and Planning at Morgan State University, recalls when the building showed movies:

“I have been going to the building since I was a kid. I saw Star Wars there when it came out. I remember when it split in two and started showing the films two weeks after they had been released for less money and then when they closed.”

Since the opening of the new building, Creative Alliance has hosted hundreds of new events, including live performances, exhibitions, films and workshops.

3134 Eastern Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21224

Christ Temple Church on Pennsylvania Avenue

In December 1919, the Rainbow Theatre first opened on Pennsylvania Avenue entertaining an African American audience with vaudeville performances and films. The theatre continued in operation until 1925 and then spent a decade as a garage.

The building was then remodelled to the plans of architect David Harrison, and, on December 25, 1936, reopened as the Lenox Theatre. The theatre continued in operation up until 1964 when the property became home to Christ Temple Church.

2115 Pennsylvania Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217

Designed by prolific theater architect Frederick E. Beall, the Astor Theatre originally began in 1913 as the Astor Theater. The fast-growing around Poplar Grove Street evidently packed the 200-seat theater and, by December 1921, the owners decided to expand the building. After a major renovation converting the building to a Spanish design by architect J.F. Dusman, the theater reopened as the Astor Theater on November 14, 1927.

The movie house was equipped with a Kimball organ and, in 1929, the owners added Vitaphone & Movietone sound systems. Plans in 1930 to enlarge the theater to a grand 2,000 seats never moved forward. Unfortunately, the years after World War II proved difficult for many small Baltimore movie theaters. The Astor Theatre closed in the fall of 1953 just a few months after the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education sparked a rapid transition in the formerly segregated white neighborhoods surrounding the establishment. In April 1954, the theater reopened under new management seeking to cater to Black audiences but closed the next year.

The former theater was eventually converted to a market. Today, only a careful observer can still find clues showing the building's origins. On Poplar Grove Street, where the original theater entrance is bricked in, there is a small white stone where the word "Astor" is still engraved. On the back is a faded sign with an even older name—Poplar Theatre—reminding today's shoppers of the theater-goers from a century in the past.

613 Poplar Grove Street, Baltimore, MD 21216

A Venerable Keystone of "The Block"

Built in the aftermath of the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904, the Gayety Theatre opened on February 5, 1906—making this building the oldest remaining burlesque theater in Baltimore. While the theatre interior was subdivided into three separate spaces in 1985, the Gayety still boasts an elaborate, eye-catching, and fanciful façade (designed by architect John Bailey McElfatrick) that is a wonderful example of the exuberance of theater design in the period.

The Gayety is the venerable keystone of “The Block” on Baltimore Street long known as a destination for adult entertainment. “The Block” is somewhat of a misnomer, as the area of arcades, bars, burlesque houses and adult bookshops extended east along Baltimore Street from Calvert Street for approximately eight blocks in the middle third of the 20th century. Due to various cultural forces, and particularly to a concerted “anti-smut” campaign during the mayoral tenure of William Donald Schaefer in the early 1980s, most of this extensive commercial sub-cultural landscape no longer exists, and “the Block” is, in fact, a small representative of a once-thriving red-light district.

The Gayety began after the Great Baltimore Fire destroyed the offices of The German Correspondent. While some downtown theatres moved to Howard Street after the fire, The Gayety, Lubin’s Nickelodeon and Vaudeville “duplex” directly across the street, The Victoria (later known as The Embassy) and The Rivoli all remained in the area and defined this stretch of Baltimore Street as a “popular entertainment” center, with an emphasis on burlesque and vaudeville. Despite the connotations acquired later, burlesque and vaudeville were mainstream forms of entertainment aimed at the working and middle classes.

By World War I, the Gayety’s neighbors had made the switch to showing movies. In the 1920s and 1930s, cinema began to supplant burlesque and, especially, vaudeville as the chief form of low-cost popular entertainment across the United States. Burlesque houses, such as The Gayety, promoted more risqué acts in the effort to give the public something that they couldn’t get in movies, especially after the adoption of the Hayes production code in 1932, which not only banned nudity but placed Draconian restrictions on sexual content and references in film.

From its heyday in the 1910s and 1920s—when The Gayety’s bill included nationally prominent comedians such as Abbott and Costello, Phil Silvers, Jackie Gleason and Red Skelton—the Gayety was a “top-of-the-line” burlesque house. In this period (just before and after World War II) iconic strippers such as Gypsy Rose Lee, Blaze Starr, Sally Rand, Valerie Parks and Ann Corio performed there. Following the Second World War, more arcades, as well as adult bookshops, peep shows and show bars cropped up to fill in the vacant spaces and gradually redefined East Baltimore Street as a “red light district,” analogous to New York’s Times Square, Washington, DC’s 14th Street and New Orleans’s legendary Bourbon Street. By the 1960s, The Gayety no longer hosted headline performers, and local news features surrounding the cataclysmic fire in 1969 tended to emphasize nostalgia for its decline. In this sense, The Gayety Theater Building encapsulates the history of burlesque as an entertainment form and its interaction with civic form in the 20th century United States.

Nostalgic descriptions of performances at The Gayety and its peers indicate that, by today’s standards, the performances were quite modest. However, the aura of taboo was a large part of what sustained burlesque in general, and The Gayety in particular, through the mid-twentieth century.

Historic American Building Survey

This story is adapted from published by the Historic American Building Survey.

405 E. Baltimore Street, Baltimore, MD 21202