This week’s news includes: One Maryland One Book selects Lawrence Burney, CitLit Festival announcement, Lewis Museum editorial, Dora Malech named senior advisor to the provost for the arts at JHU, The Evening Ritual at Wet City, BREAK A LEG dance collective, Felandus Thames at The Outpost at TLRAR, Criterion Collection releases John Waters’ films, remembering Thea Osato, Baltimore Spring theater happenings, and Christopher Columbus makes a surprise appearance at the White House.
2026 One Maryland One Book Selection Announced
Press Release :: March 26
Maryland Humanities is thrilled to announce No Sense in Wishing: Essays on Black Music, Belonging, and Baltimore by Lawrence Burney as the 2026 One Maryland One Book (OMOB) Selection.
Released in 2025 by Simon and Schuster, the book is a personal and analytical essay collection taking cue from Burney’s career as a culture writer and critic through which he looks at his home city of Baltimore, music from throughout the global Black diaspora, and the traditions that raised him, offering perspective on the people, places, music, and art that transformed him.
The 23rd Annual CityLit Festival has something for writers and readers of all genres
by Aliza Worthington
Published March 19 in Baltimore Fishbowl
The 23rd Annual CityLit Festival, taking place on April 11, has announced its theme and headliners. The free, day-long celebration of literature will happen in Mount Vernon from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
This year’s theme is “Bearing Witness: Literature as a Revolutionary Act.” CityLit organizers describe the theme as highlighting “the essential role of writers in documenting truth, challenging dominant narratives, and creating space to speak out.” Headliners will include Michaela angela Davis, Adrian Matejka, Reyna Grande, and Baltimore native Lawrence Burney.
Don’t reduce vital Reginald F. Lewis Museum to a single metric | GUEST COMMENTARY
by Terri Freeman
Published March 25 in The Baltimore Sun
The recent Baltimore Sun article reducing the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture to a “cost per visitor” metric presents an incomplete and deeply concerning view of our work.
Equating a Black cultural institution to a dollar amount is not only reductive — it echoes a long and painful history in this country of assigning monetary value to Black lives and experiences. That framing, whether intentional or not, is disrespectful, dismissive and demeaning. Additionally, it diminishes the significance of the work we do and devalues our mission.
Writing Seminars chair Dora Malech named senior advisor to the provost for the arts at JHU
Hub Staff Report
Published March 26
Dora Malech, an award-winning poet, celebrated teacher, and leader in the Johns Hopkins arts community, has been named senior advisor to the provost for the arts. She succeeds art historian Daniel H. Weiss, who was recently appointed director and chief executive officer of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Basement Selector is Staging a Quiet Rebellion Against the Digital Streaming Age
by Teri Henderson
Published March 24 in Baltimore Magazine
On Sunday nights, Wet City typically takes the night off on West Chase Street. But twice a month at the end of the week, this beloved bar, known as the spot for Spagett cocktails and some of the city’s best wings, will be jam-packed with people, swaying in their seats, enveloped in the sounds of iconic musicians. Think Sly and the Family Stone, Herbie Hancock, Daft Punk, Amy Winehouse.
This is “The Evening Ritual,” a monthly record-listening session focused on unplugging and fully immersing in sound. At the front of the room, behind the decks, is John Canale, also known as “Basement Selector,” staging a quiet rebellion against the digital streaming age. He carefully pulls an album and drops the needle—a gesture so practiced it looks like a prayer.
‘It’s Baltimore to the World’: BREAK A LEG keeps the gritty nature of Baltimore Club music alive, collaboratively
by Kylynn Couture
Published March 24 in Baltimore Beat
As the genre continues to expand and speak to people around the world, Club music remains forever connected to the authenticity and realness of Baltimore. And the spirit of collaboration, rather than competition, fostered by BREAK A LEG has placed Club music pioneers in the same lineup as up-and-comers in a way that the city hasn’t really seen in the last decade.
“The biggest sign [that] what we’re doing is successful is the fact that new and upcoming creatives, DJs, and musicians who really love this can put the work in, like DJ Dolla, he can come in and not have to build from the ground up,” says Sun. “There are some blueprints now, there is new infrastructure that Baltimore hasn’t always had in these past few generations.”
Emblazon Arts Presents Felandus Thames at The Outpost at TLRAR
Press Release :: March 16
Emblazon Arts is proud to announce its first artist presentation of the year, featuring the evocative work of Felandus Thames. The exhibition will run from March 14 through May 16, 2026, at The Outpost at The Last Resort Artist Retreat (TLRAR) in Baltimore.
Through a masterful use of parables, cultural idioms, and physically resonant forms, Thames offers a profound point of entry into the Black experience. The exhibition centers on a series of elevated hairbrushes—objects typically relegated to the everyday—reimagined as vessels of memory and archives of personal history. By challenging simple interpretation, Thames highlights the nuanced complexity of lived experiences and the hidden influences that shape self-perception.
Thames creates visual narratives that reflect the shared elements within Black life. This presentation encourages a deep reflection on how memory, material, and meaning intertwine in the stories we all bear.
On view from March 14th through May 16, 2026
The Outpost at The Last Resort Artist Retreat (TLRAR)
By appointment only. Please RSVP to [email protected] for viewing. An artist talk and programming will be happening, details forthcoming. An artist talk and accompanying programs are being planned, with details to be announced soon.
The Criterion Collection is releasing restored versions of John Waters’ ‘Hairspray’ and ‘Desperate Living’
by Ed Gunts
Published March 20 in Baltimore Fishbowl
Filmmaker John Waters says his 1988 movie “Hairspray” is “‘the gift that keeps on giving” because there have been so many versions of it, including a Tony Award-winning Broadway show; a 2007 film starring John Travolta; a live TV version in 2016; national touring and school productions, and a screenplay book.
Soon there will be more ways to experience it:
The Criterion Collection announced this month that it is releasing a 4K digital restoration of the 1988 movie, complete with deleted scenes, a behind-the-scenes documentary and commentary featuring Waters and actress Ricki Lake.
Artist Thea Osato’s window dressings were as iconic as the Baltimore storefronts they decorated
by Cayla Harris
Published March 21 in The Baltimore Banner
There was a time you couldn’t walk around Mount Vernon without seeing a Thea Osato original in the window of an iconic Baltimore storefront.
The glass at Louie’s Bookstore Café almost always had some elaborate collection of sketches, cartoon characters, dressed-up mannequins and book props that Osato positioned carefully. At Nyborgs’, the art supply store across the street, she’d use glittery paper to re-create paintbrushes and palettes.
She painted records and surrounded them with shiny bows to hang in the windows of concert hall An die Musik LIVE. Once, to ring in the new year, Osato sketched members of a jazz band to welcome guests at Park Ave Pharmacy.
Mystery and magic bloom on Baltimore theater stages this spring
by Marcus Dieterle
Published March 20 in Baltimore Fishbowl
Flowers aren’t the only thing springing into action. Baltimore’s stages are about to be full of fantastic theatrical productions.
From plays about juvenile detention and Victorian mysteries, to musicals about women’s suffrage and a high schooler who doesn’t have time on her side, check it all out in our spring theater roundup:
Antigone, ongoing through Sunday, March 29, Spotlighters Theatre. Spotlighters Theatre presents their production of Sophocles’ play “Antigone,” which follows the children of Oedipus and his mother, Jocasta.
Trump administration places Christopher Columbus statue on White House grounds
by Ava Berger
Aired March 23 on All Things Considered
The Trump administration placed a statue of Christopher Columbus on White House grounds over the weekend, doubling down on its efforts to commemorate the 15th-century explorer.
“As we celebrate our Nation’s 250th anniversary of independence, the White House is proud to honor Christopher Columbus’s legendary life and legacy with a well-deserved statue on the White House grounds,” Davis Ingle, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement. “In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero, and President Trump will ensure he’s honored as such for generations to come.”
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