Frank Sinatra made one of his first appearances with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra on this stage in 1939 - and after 14 dark years, the theatre came back from the dead to host Broadway. The Hippodrome Theatre, at 12 North Eutaw Street in downtown Baltimore, opened on 23 November 1914 and reopened on 10 February 2004 as the centrepiece of the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center. Designed by Thomas W. Lamb - the era's premier theatre architect - for impresarios Pearce and Scheck, the 3,000-seat house was the largest theatre in America south of Philadelphia at its opening, running movies and big-time vaudeville: Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Benny Goodman, the Andrews Sisters and Red Skelton all played it, and weekly attendance hit 30,000 in the 1920s. Decline followed the classic arc - stage shows ended around 1959, the house soldiered on as downtown's last movie palace, and the doors closed in 1990. The rescue was state-scale: the Maryland Stadium Authority led a 65-million-dollar project by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer that restored the auditorium from little more than archival photographs and knitted it together with two 1880s bank buildings into a full performing-arts complex, reopening with The Producers. Today the roughly 2,300-seat Hippodrome is Baltimore's Broadway house: the CareFirst Broadway series brings Hamilton, Wicked and the touring repertoire through downtown, joined by comedy, concerts and community events, with the theatre anchoring the Bromo Tower Arts and Entertainment District's revival of the city's west side. Practical notes: the theatre sits two blocks from the CFG Bank Arena with the Baltimore Arena metro station nearby, garages line Eutaw and Baltimore streets, and the restored auditorium - Lamb's palatial plasterwork returned to 1914 form - rewards a look up before the overture.

Type: Theater / Concert Hall

Address: 12 North Eutaw Street, Baltimore, MD, United States, 21201

Website: https://www.france-merrickpac.com

Capacity: 2300

Opening Date: 23/11/1914

Accessible