A Well-Kept Secret

So the other day I felt like going to a play. No particular reason, just realized that I haven't seen any live theater in long time. So I fooled a perfectly nice girl into agreeing to see a play with me.

Now, obviously you have to have a date to a play. As a young, urban, male professional there are some fairly hard and fast rules about who you call when you want to go somewhere. For example, it can make sense to go out to dinner with a platonic female friend, but if I sat down in a restaurant with one of my male friends I would probably just feel like we should have ordered take-out and watched a sporting event instead. You may disagree, but this is my soapbox, so I get to interpret socially acceptable behavior.

So anyway, once you've decided to go to a play and acquired a date (or vice versa), you need a play to go to. I turned to the City Paper, because I assume that they'll know about all sorts of arty, not-profitable things. And that is how I found The Audrey Herman Spotlighter's Theater.

I was dubious at first, I've driven down St. Paul Street a couple thousand times and never noticed said theater. I've been to Mt. Vernon a lot, never heard of a theater besides Center Stage. Sure, I'm not really involved in the arts in Baltimore, but I've never heard of this place. It's not easy to find either, you have to walk around the side of an apartment build, to the sort of entrance that is affectionately referred to as "garden level" by landlords.

Once inside, though, you start to suspect this might actually be a well-kept secret. They sell wine, coffee, and candy in the lobby. $1 candy bars! The theater itself it awesome. It's so intimate, I've been in bigger conference rooms. Seats on all four sides of the stage, no more than 80 seats in the whole place. It's a small stage and you're right there, it's great. The actors were pretty fantastic. What more can you ask for in a theater?

It's absolutely a great experience, I can't believe that something this fun has been right here under my nose for so many years. So get out there and support your local theater! I would even be so bold as to suggest that you don't wait until you've got a date, get a friend or two and go check it out!