![[photo, Center Stage at night, 700 North Calvert St., Baltimore, Maryland]](/msa/mdmanual/01glance/symbols/images/cstage2.jpg)
Maryland's two principal theaters are Center Stage (the State Theater) and Olney Theater (the State Summer Theater). In addition, Maryland is home to a variety of smaller professional and community theaters, ranging from classical to experimental.
Center Stage at night, 700 North Calvert St., Baltimore, Maryland. Photo courtesy of Center Stage.
![[photo, Old Colonial Theatre, 12-14 South Potomac St., Hagerstown, Maryland]](/msa/mdmanual/37mun/hagerstown/images/1198-1-778b.jpg)
Members of Baltimore's vibrant theater community, the Theatre Project, Everyman Theatre, the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, and the Black Cherry Puppet Theater produce everything from avant-garde puppetry to Shakespeare in the park. Community theater thrives in Annapolis, where the Colonial Players celebrate over half a century of education and entertainment in a city that is also home to the Summer Garden Theatre and the Bay Theatre Company. For those outside the metropolitan area, Rep Stage in Columbia and the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company in Ellicott City offer professional quality theater in intimate settings. In Charles County, the Port Tobacco Players entertain at La Plata.
For information on Annapolis theater history, see "The Progress of Refinement: A History of the Theatre in Annapolis" by Jane McWilliams (Annapolis: The Colonial Players Inc., 1976).
Old Colonial Theatre, 12-14 South Potomac St., Hagerstown, Maryland, June 2004. Photo by Diane F. Evartt.
? Copyright Maryland State Archives