Photo by Rich Isaacman
Maryland Hall, the crown jewel of the Annapolis Arts District, isn’t resting on its laurels. Long known as the region’s go-to destination for a stellar array of performances and classes, the 45-year-old arts center continues to shine, exploring new directions in its programming and courses.
“We’re dedicated to ‘Art for All’—that’s really what we’re about,” says Executive Director Jackie Coleman, who has led the organization since 2022. “We want people to feel connected to Maryland Hall, to find their purpose here.”
Last year, an estimated 120,000 visitors made that connection, attending more than 600 classes and supporting the Hall’s four resident companies: the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, Ballet Theatre of Maryland, Live Arts Maryland, and the Annapolis Opera. Live theater, film screenings, and other local productions also fill the Hall’s seats.
The Annapolis Pride Parade and Festival, the Songbird Festival, the Day of the Dead Festival and other community events find a home here, too. Top-tier visiting performers add to the mix. A partnership with Rams Head Presents, which began in 2014, features leading names in contemporary music at the Hall, with 15 concerts last year. (Bluegrass and country music fans, take note: the legendary Ricky Skaggs kicks off the 2025 season, appearing with Kentucky Thunder on January 5th.) And when the lights go up for intermission, audience members can tour several in-house art galleries, where curated exhibits display a range of local talent.
The Hall’s campus, just three blocks south of Westgate Circle, includes the three-story main building, four parking lots, and the Founders’ Green, an open space with a labyrinth and sundial. The broad front steps, a local landmark, are a thoroughfare for tots in tutus, paint-stained artists, musical theater wannabes, and creatives of every stripe.
Inside, Maryland Hall’s extensive catalog of art classes—music, dance, drama, painting and drawing, pottery, jewelry, photography, woodturning, and fiber arts, to name a few—keeps the building humming. Throughout the year, students find their muses here. “I often speak with parents who tell me that they attended classes here when they were young and are now bringing their own children,” Coleman says. “What we hear a lot is that it’s the quality of the educational experience, the quality of the instruction, that keeps people coming to Maryland Hall.”
That legacy continues, and in recent years the Hall has carried it to a wider audience. Since many students can’t make the trip to the campus, teaching artists are taking Maryland Hall to them with off-site, after-school sessions at Pip Moyer Center, Stanton Center, Marshall Learning Center, and Eastport Methodist Church. At the Hall itself, a number of classes are now grant-supported to lower tuition barriers and make enrollment more affordable.
Among the Hall’s newest ventures is the Media Arts Hub, where students can find inspiration and develop new skills through cutting-edge courses in digital arts and creative technologies. Imani Washington, who directs the program, sees children, teenagers, and adults discovering themselves through offerings like Digital Illustration, Graphic Design, and Music/Audio Production, which uses a state-of-the-art recording studio.
Courtesy of Maryland Hall
“This is a space for self-expression,” Washington says, pointing out workstations fitted with 15 Macs and 15 iPads, all connected to the Creative Cloud. “You can really feel the energy!” He’s observed that the more students engage in learning the technological arts, the more vocal and expressive they become. “Kids or adults might come in with some drawing or painting background, but as they gain trust in the software and the technology, their knowledge and skills transfer right over,” he notes. Registration is open now for five winter/spring classes at the Media Arts Hub, including projection mapping, digital scrapbooking, songwriting, audio book narration, and sports photography.
With the technology piece in place, Maryland Hall is now firmly in the vanguard of arts education. But before it can embrace the future, it has to deal with the past: specifically, an aging building constructed almost 100 years ago as the Annapolis High School. Beginning this spring, a long-awaited renovation will replace the Hall’s antiquated HVAC system, with work continuing in stages until September 2026. Some classroom space will be affected, but the main auditorium, already refurbished, will remain open throughout. A capital campaign has raised $6M for the project, with $3M more needed to cover the projected cost of $9M.
Considering the riches that Maryland Hall has provided to the Annapolis community, that sum seems like a reasonable payback—and a great investment. The improvements will ensure that members of the next generation, like more than a million visitors before them, will experience the joys of the arts at the Hall in the years to come.
To learn more about upcoming performances and events, buy tickets, register for classes, or share ideas for programs you’d like to see, visit marylandhall.org.
Carol Denny, the founding editor of What’s Up? Annapolis magazine, writes about the arts in and around Maryland’s capital.
