Baltimore Center Stage history

The couple met in 1973 when they were dancing partners in a college production at Southern Connecticut State College.

In 1975, Stan Wojewodski, Jr. began his 16-year tenure as Artistic Director, a period of significant expansion for the theater.

They began their directing career with a production of The Music Man with the Shelton High School Drama Club in 1976 when Gary was a young English teacher and Francesca was a senior in college.

Baltimore Center Stage was named The State Theater of Maryland in 1978.

Besides directing at Center Stage Theatre, Gary and Francesca founded the highly acclaimed Youth CONNection in 1983, a theatre group for high school and college students.

The theater produced the first Young Playwrights Festival in 1985, featuring the work of school age writers and establishing an in-school residency program that still flourishes today.

After years of planning and preparation, the company was successfully launched on November 12, 1988, with an opening night performance of George Bernard Shaw’s Heartbreak House and a gala celebration.

Gary Scarpa has been recognized by Long Wharf Theatre as Outstanding Theatre Educator as well as the Shelton Jaycees who named him Educator of the Year in 1989.

In the fall of 1992, Pat Patton was named associate artistic director/Portland by OSF, and guided the company's growth for the next two seasons, its last as a branch of OSF.

In September 1993, OSF's Board of Directors approved a recommendation from its Portland advisory committee that the Portland branch become an independent theater company.

So after six successful seasons at OSF, Elizabeth Huddle was selected as producing artistic director in 1994 to oversee both the artistic and administrative sides of the newly independent company: Portland Center Stage.

In May, 2000, Chris Coleman, co-founder and artistic director of Actor’s Express in Atlanta, became the theater’s fourth artistic director.

The play had previously debuted at the National Theatre in London in 2003, making Kwei-Armah the first Black Briton to have a play produced on the West End.

Kwame Kwei-Armah began his relationship with Baltimore with his play Elmina’s Kitchen in 2004.

After nearly 30 years of directing, Gary and Francesca Scarpa opened Center Stage in February of 2005.

The Armory opened to the public as the new home of Portland Center Stage on October 1, 2006.

In 2010, the Scarpas were recognized by the Boys and Girls Club of the Lower Naugatuck Valley with the prestigious Raymond P. Lavietes Service to Youth Award.

In 2011, British playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah succeeded Irene Lewis as artistic director of Center Stage.

In 2017, the theater completed a $28 million building renovation that created more opportunities for art making and community building, with new public spaces to gather before and after shows and state-of-the-art performance spaces with the best in theater design and technology.

The 2018/19 Season welcomed Artistic Director Stephanie Ybarra, an artistic producer most recently at The Public Theater.

Clay received the NAACP 2020 Award for Best Actress in A Play for the role of “Faye” in Geffen Playhouse’s production of Dominique Morrisseau’s Skeleton Crew, also directed by Patricia McGregor.