Fun in Baltimore @TCG

TCG wrapped the first day of its conference (yesterday) with an evening reception at the American Visionary Art Museum, a museum dedicated to artists with no formal training--and the most inspiring museum I've seen. The sculpture in front of the museum included a chandelier tree, an art bus, and a huge bird, with a violin for a body, whose head reached the balcony on the second floor that was designed like a nest. The museum itself stayed open late for us, and its exhibits included a floor featuring OCD art (highly detailed geometric drawings so detailed with lines and squiggles that magnifying glasses were provided; 26 pencil stubs each with 1 letter of the alphabet carved out of the lead--incredibly small, precise and carved w/o a magnifying glass), other pieces of kinetic installations--I can hardly describe it all. Of course the gift shop was so awesome. Imagine a couple of hundred theatreworkers set free in a place like that.

Today, day 2, uninspired by the thought of a boxed lunch, I headed across the street to the "world famous" Lexington Market, not sure what to expect. Turns out it's a huge food court of all different kinds of food with musical entertainment in the center court (harmonicas, when I passed by). This is where all the locals were, and I soon stumbled upon Faidley's seafood, with its famous crab cakes. Now, the crab in Baltimore is amazing. The all-lump crabcake is as big as your fist. And they ship all over the country.

You're probably wondering about theatre, and sadly, I haven't been to any. There are no planned theatre outings as part of the conference, and tonight I opted for one of the dine-abouts, dinner gatherings each hosted by a local theatre company at a restaurant in the city. But one dine-about took place at Liz Lerman's house, a narrow 3- or 4-story wonderfully quirky place with a balcony with a view to die for. The featured menu item was Baltimore's best deep-dish pizza.

Actually, what I said about not seeing theatre isn't exactly true. The Albugga Theatre from Sudan performed a 30-minute piece in a conference room. The company was about 12 or 15 performers, but only 8 were granted visas, but no matter. The performance was energetic, funny and very well received--and all was symbolic of TCG's energy around international and cultural exchange, evident in American Theatre's expanded international coverage. (While I did talk a few times with editor Jim O'Quinn, senior editor Randy Gener was off in Switzerland or some such on assignment.)

Tomorrow is the last day of the conference, and I'm jumping on a plane right after, so my next post will probably be after the fact. Happily, the weather is supposed to be clear tomorrow, so I shouldn't have to spend an hour on the runway waiting for 30 other planes, all delayed by thunderstorms, to take off.

Ah, the thunderstorms. Actual repetitive lighting strikes. There's some fun!