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 The
Hot l Baltimore
by Lanford Wilson
September 8-23,
1989
Directed by Rhonda Clark
Once there was a railroad and
the neighborhood of the railroad terminals bloomed with gracious hotels. The
Hotel Baltimore, built in the late nineteenth century and remodeled
infrequently, was intended to be an elegant haven. Now it is scheduled for
demolition.
As the action unfolds, the
residents, ranging from young to old, from the defiant to the resigned, meet in
the lobby and talk and interact with each other during the course of one day.
The drama is of passing events in their lives, of everyday encounters and of the
human comedy, with conversations often overlapping into a contrapuntal musical
flow. In the resulting mosaic each character emerges clearly and perceptively
defined, and the sum total of what they are - or wish they were - becomes a
poignant, powerful call to America to recover lost values and to restore itself
in its own and the world’s eyes.
 FROM THE DIRECTOR:
For years I have wanted to direct or act in a play by Lanford Wilson, and now
I've had the wonderful privilege! Lanford Wilson is an expert at creating vivid
characters, and the cast of THE HOT L BALTIMORE and I have had a ball ferreting
out the nuances of this compassionate, intelligent play.
THE HOT L BALTIMORE was a
huge Off-Broadway success, winner of the Obie Award, NY Drama Critics Circle
Award, and Outer Critics Circle Award in 1973. Filled with humor and pathos, it
has been called "a touching study of lost souls trapped by society's
inexorable decay." Sadly, what spoke to audiences in the early seventies is
just as pertinent today.
When looking at the milieu in
which Mr. Wilson was writing, I remember a country still involved in the Vietnam
"Conflict" which threatened to tear our nation apart. A presidential
administration on the brink of collapse and American cities in the throes of
urban renewal.
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