This July, ArtsCentric opens the season and welcomes audiences back into its home at 2600 N. Howard Street in Baltimore.
ArtsCentric is a color-conscious organization committed to reexamining traditional roles in the arts, advancing original stories of minority cultures, and fostering educational advancement to strengthen the community through the power of theatre.
It is the dynamic organization that brought Baltimore the nation's first African American cast production of Chicago, the Musical, closed out the 2021 Holiday Season at Baltimore Center Stage with Dreamgirls, and recently redefined traditional roles in a full feature presentation of Jason Robert Brown's musical, The Last Five Years. ArtsCentric is now back with more firsts and an extraordinary new season!
Artistic Director, Kevin S. McAllister, brings what audiences have come to know as his signature touch to ArtsCentric's 2022/2023 season mounting familiar and heartwarming productions - wildly reimagined - and steeped in purpose and community relatability. He is joined by Music Director Cedric D. Lyles, and Choreographer Shalyce Hemby who lead the company's production team.
This July, ArtsCentric opens the season and welcomes audiences back into its home at 2600 N. Howard Street in Baltimore with the Tony-Award and Pulitzer Prize winning, rock & roll musical Rent. Set to run July 29 - August 28, 2022, this reimagined production will serve as an amazing teaching tool to tackle the tough topics of physical and mental health, well-being, access, and disparity in a cutting-edge way on stage. ArtsCentric will use the work to unveil how race, gender, and sexuality intersect with socioeconomic status and affect access to care and opportunity. After looking at these things in the show, ArtsCentric's community conversations, workshops, and classes will help magnify realities for people living in the Greater Baltimore area and beyond.
"ArtsCentric's Rent will be highly immersive", says Kevin S. McAllister. "It will honor the shows beloved characters and their friendships and will also define how humanity can make the most of the here and now while also pausing to relish in our most glorious life's moments."
In 2022, ArtsCentric audiences will also experience a version of Cinderella unlike any other. The timeless tale, over two thousand years old, has origins rooted in African culture. ArtsCentric's winter staging of the production will seek to revive the story's original narrative, telling the tale through an African lens.
As part of Baltimore Center Stage's Mainstage Series, ArtsCentric will return to the venue this season with a racy revival production certain to agitate and invigorate! Stay tuned for a title and performance dates announcement.
The season then continues with ArtsCentric's Technicolor, an original work celebrating iconic musical scenes in Black cinema. Paying homage to the past, as well as embracing the future of Black musical moments in film, this show will feature reimagined music from such films as "Stormy Weather," "The Wiz," "The Color Purple," "School Daze," and many more! This is sure to delight the entire family with its high energy dancing, phenomenal singing, and breath-taking costumes and visuals and will be presented both in person and through live streaming.
Closing the season is a newly reimagined The World Goes 'Round co-produced with Everyman Theatre and Olney Theatre. The production pays tribute to the many iconic hits...New York, New York, Maybe This Time, Razzle Dazzle, brought to us by composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb, and performed memorably by legends. It will also pay homage to much more of the dynamic duo's considerable catalogue of lesser known, but not lesser loved, hits. Complete with all the romance, drama, laughs, and showstopping performances you'd expect, this theatre favorite is a thrilling celebration of the quest for love, hope, and survival that we all know so very well.
Single tickets for Rent and Cinderella can be purchased online at www.artscentric.org. Ticket links for the remaining offerings can be located via ArtsCentric's website.
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Founded by twelve aspiring young artists in 2003, ArtsCentric is an 501c(3) nonprofit theater company bringing quality artistic works and creative services to the community at large. Its members consist of talented artists, musicians, educators, composers, and playwrights.
For more information www.artscentric.org.
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