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.