Staying Alive

 

Your local story of the day comes from right over the county line in Laurel.

For owner of Venus Theatre in Laurel, every picture tells a story , Katie V. Jones, Baltimore Sun Media

There has been plenty of coverage about wholesale closures of performance venues all over the country. And certainly many local families have experienced personal heartache over student performances that will never be, due to the pandemic. But lost along the way are a patchwork of small arts institutions like Venus. 

Now in its twentieth year, Venus Theatre is kept alive through the relentless vision and persistence of its founder Deb Randall. Its mission has always been the empowerment of women. 

Playwrights from as far away as Australia and Greece submit plays to Laurel's Venus Theatre. Critics laud the theater's edgy and provocative vision. Audience members drive in from other states. ... Yet seating at this acclaimed venue on C Street maxes out at 30. It has 15 seats on either side of the stage. From your seat, you can almost touch an actor. (Dave Sturm, Howard County Times)

Randall hasn’t wasted any time while shut down due to coronavirus restrictions. She’s been cleaning out and organizing her space. She’s been applying for and receiving grants to make the ventilation systems safer for indoor performances when it begins to be safe to return. 

And, since November 11th, Randall has been posting one photograph per day of items from the theatre’s collection:

Plastic pink flamingos sitting on theater chairs. A pair of red and blue cowboy boots. A lamp without a shade. On Nov. 11, Deb Randall began posting an image a day as part of Venus Theatre’s new initiative, Objects of Survival: Plays of the Pandemic.

To recognize Venus Theatre’s 20th birthday, Randall will post an image for 20 days on Instagram as prompts. Playwrights are invited to create a play inspired by one or more of the images and submit it to Randall on Dec. 15. Randall then hopes to publish five of the plays in the theater’s first anthology.

You can follow along at venustheatrecompany on Instagram. It looks like they are in the process of designing t-shirts to be sold as holiday gifts, so that might be just the thing for the aspiring feminist theatre fan in your life.  Maybe you.

A footnote to this story: if you go to the Baltimore Sun website and search “Venus”, I’m sure you won’t be surprised to call up stories on tennis great Venus Williams and the planet Venus. But your search will also call up eighteen stories over the years about the Venus Theatre, the most recent of which is dated November 25th. If this doesn’t give you a big hint as to why saving local journalism is crucial, I don’t know what would. 

Small stories like independent arts venues, community charitable organizations, neighborhood meetings, creative curriculum initiatives in local schools - - those stories disappear without local journalism. As frustrated as I get with the local news situation from time to time I can’t lose sight of the fact that it’s the best, most professional voice we have to get local stories out there. 

If you want to keep local news going, buy or give a subscription. 

If you’re looking at places to donate for giving Tuesday, consider small arts venues like Venus, or the Chrysalis at Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods.