Center Stage is the state theater of Maryland and Baltimore's largest professional producing theater. Center Stage was founded in 1963 as a regional playhouse.
Center Stage houses two performing spaces, the 541-seat Pearlstone and the smaller Head Theater, both in its home in the Mount Vernon Cultural District of Baltimore, Maryland.
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Launched in 1963 by a group of local theater supporters, CENTERSTAGE soon became a leader in America's regional theater movement, with the goal of producing first-rate professional theater for local audiences. Along with theaters like The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Arena Stage in Washington, and Alley Theatre in Houston, CENTERSTAGE helped Americans realize that it was no longer necessary to make a trip to New York City to see professional caliber productions. In 1974, CENTERSTAGE faced a potentially disastrous arson fire that burned its North Avenue home to the ground. With the help of local civic leaders, the theater continued its season at a local college, and used the disaster to launch a major public relations and capitol campaign to keep the organization alive. In retrospect, what could have been the tragic end of CENTERSTAGE ended up as a huge opportunity, when the theater moved into a brand new, award-winning space carved out of an abandoned Jesuit college. Since that time, it has become Baltimore's leading professional theater, welcoming more than 100,000 people each season to its historic home in Mount Vernon.
Under the Artistic Direction of Irene Lewis, who took over from Stan Wojewodski in the 1991–92 Season, CENTERSTAGE has presented a six-play Mainstage Season, as well as a new play development series called First Look, in two intimate auditoriums: the 541-seat Pearlstone Theater and the smaller, flexible-layout Head Theater. CENTERSTAGE attracts some of America's finest directors, designers, and actors, including many Tony Award winners. Time Magazine has called the theater "an unsung regional of the first rank", and the Wall Street Journal recently heralded CENTERSTAGE as "a model of what regional theater can and should be." CENTERSTAGE's 2006-07 season continued a 30-year record of break-even or better operating budgets.