This week’s news includes: Ekiben shares it’s success, former top restaurant The Wren is for sale, a recap of AFRAM, The Walters unveils a new website, summer must-see art shows in DC, John Waters stars in American Horror Story, arts education grant in danger, 2026 National History Day Contest winners announced, and Chesapeake Shakespeare Company (CSC) presents Shakespeare Beyond this summer.
How Ekiben became a launchpad for food talent in Baltimore
by Matti Gellman
Published June 22 in The Baltimore Banner
When local chef Marvin Rodriguez decided to break away from El Paraiso, his family’s decades-old eatery in Reisterstown, he called Ekiben restaurant co-founder Steve Chu.
Chu understood what it was like to be raised in a commercial kitchen. Growing up in a family of restaurateurs, Chu said Christmas lost its meaning around age 8, when he began working late on holidays. But his early experiences did more than shape the bao buns and tempura broccoli behind Ekiben, the critically acclaimed Asian fusion chain he owns with Ephrem Abebe.
The success of Ekiben — which has grown from a hot dog cart to four brick-and-mortars over the last decade — turned Chu into a Baltimore spokesperson of sorts, and his business into a hot spot for talent that some refer to as an incubator for culinary entrepreneurs.
The Wren, named a top restaurant by New York Times and Bon Appétit, is up for sale
by Christina Tkacik
Published June 18 in The Baltimore Banner
The Wren, the Fells Point pub that was named last year by The New York Times and Bon Appétit as one of the best restaurants in the country, is up for sale.
The $1.25 million listing price includes the liquor license, furniture and fixtures, and name of the pub.
Chef Will Mester opened The Wren in early 2025 with business partner Rosemary Liss. It was the second venture for the two after opening their Station North bistro, Le Comptoir du Vin.
Vaughn-Hall: AFRAM is a love letter to Black Baltimore. Don’t let chaos rewrite it.
by Jasmine Vaughn-Hall
Published June 21 in The Baltimore Banner
AFRAM, one of the largest festivals on the East Coast that celebrates Black culture, turned 50 this weekend, but on its last day news highlighting the worst parts almost outweighs the good.
During the second day of the festival, I stood on a grassy hill overlooking the main stage and wrote on my Instagram story, “AFRAM truly is a love letter to Black Baltimore.”
And I meant it. But less than 20 minutes later a new narrative about the beloved festival unfolded.
PHOTOSTORY: AFRAM 2026
by Sydney Allen
Published June 23 in Baltimore Beat
Sunday, June 21, was the final day of AFRAM and coincided with Father’s Day and the summer solstice — the longest day of the year and the beginning of summer. Families camped in tents, lawn chairs, and blankets on the hills and in the fields of Druid Hill Park. Music echoed loudly throughout the park from multiple performance stages while festival-goers meandered through food vendors, organization representatives, and business vendors of all sorts.
The Walters Art Museum unveils new website with improved design and functionality
Press Release :: June 23
The Walters Art Museum launched a new version of its main website, thewalters.org, today. Visitors to the site can navigate nimbly thanks to its intuitive design, allowing them to plan their visit, explore exhibitions, discover programs and events, make a donation, and execute more functions with ease. Improvements to the site’s accessibility and performance were also made, including design changes for legibility and contrast and improved support for screen readers and keyboard navigation. Further, the design of the site and its content mirror the needs of the Walters’ expansive community by clearly identifying events, resources, and opportunities for the museum’s many audiences, including families and kids, educators, teens, college students, and lifelong learners.
The new website prioritizes the user and offers a media-rich experience. The best examples of this can be seen on the site’s newly comprehensive exhibition and event pages. Visitors to these pages can now easily discover exhibitions and events that relate to one another, peruse a gallery of installation images, and learn about objects in an exhibition through an interactive collection module.
The Walters approach to its website redesign underscores its commitment to digital access, an area in which it is a leader and was an early adopter. The Walters first launched thewalters.org in 1998. In addition to the museum’s main site and the art website, art.thewalters.org, the museum’s collection of nearly a thousand rare books and manuscripts has its own dedicated, award-winning website located at manuscripts.thewalters.org. Across these sites, visitors can explore the 36,000+ objects in the Walters’ global collection and download public domain images for any use, free of charge. Updated object images and information are uploaded to these sites regularly.
This project was developed with the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Digital Accelerator for Arts and Culture. The program helps cultural organizations strengthen technology and management practices to improve operations, drive revenue, increase fundraising, engage broader audiences, and deliver dynamic programming.
The website was created in partnership with Linked by Air, a Brooklyn-based design and engineering studio with nearly two decades of experience building digital platforms that connect cultural institutions with their constituents. Linked by Air designed and developed the site.
10 Art Shows to See in DC This Summer
by Emma Cieslik
Published June 17 in Hyperallergic
As Washington, DC, gears up for massive celebrations for America’s 250th birthday, artists and institutions are exploring and exploding the very concept of American aesthetics — and what American art can and should achieve. While Trump attempts to reshape DC in his image, including re-erecting a monument to an enslaver in Freedom Plaza, the city feels like the epicenter of an urgent artistic reckoning. From Faith Ringgold’s bloody flag painting at the National Gallery of Art to Gail Rebhan’s collages created with US census verbiage, national iconography, identity, and material culture challenge a myopic view of American art history. Note that significant street closures during the 250th celebrations may make it harder to get to museums on the National Mall.
Is John Waters the new Vincent Price? His role in American Horror Story brings him frighteningly close.
by Ed Gunts
Published June 23 in Baltimore Fishbowl
When John Waters announced during a spoken-word performance last February that he has a “big new part” in Season 13 of “American Horror Story” (AHS), he quipped that he has “always been trying to steal Vincent Price’s career.”
Now that filming is underway on the anthology horror series and details are emerging about the characters, it’s becoming clear how close he was to the truth.
Waters will play a new character in the AHS universe, a phlebotomist named Mr. Phibes.
House Proposes Slashing Major Arts Education Grant
by Isa Farfan
Published June 16 in Hyperallergic
Arts advocacy groups are sounding the alarm after a congressional subcommittee last week approved a budget proposal that would eliminate the Department of Education’s (DE) only arts grant program.
The Republican-chaired House Appropriations Committee, a congressional subgroup that shapes the government’s annual budget, advanced a proposal that could defund the DE’s Assistance for Arts Education program last Tuesday, June 9.
“The Assistance for Arts Education program is the federal government’s only dedicated arts education grant program,” Erin Harkey, CEO of the advocacy nonprofit Americans for the Arts, explained in an email to Hyperallergic. “Eliminating it would reduce support for critical work that students, educators, and communities depend on, including teacher professional development, accessible arts education programming, community partnerships, and arts education outreach.”
Fifteen Maryland Students Awarded at Nationwide Competition
Press Release :: June 18
Maryland Humanities congratulates fifteen Maryland students for their accomplishments at the 2026 National History Day Contest. Aria Fulton, Evelyn Rubens, and Lena Yumoto from Howard County won a silver medal for their group documentary, “Sunlight and Dynamite: The Secrets of the Stasi Files.” Hanna Ariannejad, Kayla McCloskey, and Natalie Martin from Montgomery County won a bronze medal for their group website, “Silent Spring: DDT, Dissent, and the Dawn of a New Era.” Bernadette Cate from Baltimore County won a bronze medal for her individual website, “The Free Speech Movement: Revolution, Reaction, and Reform at U.C. Berkley.” Eight other students were recognized at this year’s competition and/or earned a spot to showcase their research projects at a Smithsonian Institution museum.
Held June 14-18, 2026 at the University of Maryland, College Park, a total of 58 students from Maryland competed at this year’s national competition. Maryland honorees of this year hailed from Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Howard County, and Montgomery County.
CSC’s Shakespeare Beyond Returns for 4th Year with Revolutionary War-Era Romeo and Juliet
Press Release :: June 22
This summer, Chesapeake Shakespeare Company (CSC) will bring Romeo and Juliet into parks and outdoor gathering spaces across Maryland through Shakespeare Beyond, the company’s touring program that pairs free professional theatre with community-based arts programming. Now in its fourth year, the tour begins July 21 at Towson University and is currently scheduled to continue at ten locations through August 13.
Set in Baltimore during the Revolutionary War, this new production reimagines Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy through a distinctly historic and local lens. The Montagues become Patriots, the Capulets are Loyalists, and two young people caught between family, politics, and an increasingly divided world struggle to imagine a future together. With original music woven into the production, Romeo and Juliet becomes both a story of secret love and a reflection on Baltimore’s place in America’s larger fight for freedom and self-determination.
The production arrives as the United States commemorates its 250th anniversary, offering a message of peace and hope during a time of national and international conflict. Designed to be welcoming for audiences of all ages and levels of familiarity with Shakespeare, Beyond’s Romeo and Juliet is a diverse and delightful production that is easy to love. […]
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