1915–1970s The Parkway Theatre was designed by Oliver Birkhead Wight, a native of Baltimore County who designed other theaters in the city, including The New Theater, The McHenry Theater, and the Howard Theater. Its design was "closely modeled on London's West End Theater, later known as the Rialto, with shared features like the interior's rich ornamental plaster work in a Louis XIV style." The Parkway contains
Italian Renaissance and
Beaux-Arts architectural elements. The exterior is
terra cotta and beige brick; in the late 1940s and early 1950s at 12:00am Roland Nuttrell and Charles Purcell produced a nightly live WCAO radio program at the Parkway entitled
Nocturne, featuring poetry readings in a deep baritone voice by Charles Purcell, interspersed with melodic lullaby selections on the 2/8 Wurlitzer organ by Roland Nuttrell that were far more effective at putting a person to sleep than taking sleeping pills. John Kilduff of Baltimore was a talented artist and saxophonist of The Red Devils (a Baltimore Jazz Band), he sketched and designed mostly all of the advertisements and coming attraction displays for the parkway and other Loew's Theatres such as The Century/Valencia Theatres, and Keith's Garden Theatre (Where he worked for years).
Neglect (1970s–2012) The theater closed its doors for good in 1978, due to poor attendance and urban decline. It changed hands several times and there were attempts to find a new use for the building. At one point it was the headquarters of an association of Korean business owners. The City of Baltimore included it in the Charles North Vision Plan and in 2009 contracted with developer Samuel Polakoff to convert it into a performance space at a cost of $12 million, but withdrew the rights in 2011.
Restoration and re-opening (2016) On October 20, 2014,
Johns Hopkins University announced that the theater would be reopening in mid-2017. Renovations on the Parkway Theatre began in early 2012, but this recent donation has greatly assisted the process. In May 2024, it was announced that the theater would re-open for the 25th Maryland Film Festival.
Programming by Maryland Film Festival (2017–present) The Parkway restoration project was completed in the Spring of 2017 and the theater opened on May 3, 2017, with the opening night of the 19th Annual Maryland Film Festival The band
Beach House shot the music video for their song "Chariots" in the historic auditorium of the Parkway in April, 2017 prior to the theater's public opening. The first public screening in The Parkway was the Opening Night Shorts Program of the 2017 Maryland Film Festival on May 3, 2017, hosted by
Josephine Decker and
Kris Swanberg and the directors of each short film presented. The first short presented, and therefore the first film to screen in The Parkway in decades, was
Jessica Kingdon's
Commodity City. The other shorts presented that evening were
Terence Nance's
They Charge For the Sun,
Jeannie Donohoe's Game, Matthew Salton's
Richard Twice, and
Nathan Truesdell's
Balloonfest. The first feature film screened in the Parkway was
Barry Levinson's television film
The Wizard of Lies on the afternoon of Thursday, May 4, 2017. The first theatrical film screened in the Parkway was Theo Anthony's
Rat Film the same evening. The first 35mm film screened in the Parkway was
Agnès Varda's
Vagabond, guest-curated and hosted by the band
Beach House, on the evening of Saturday, May 6, 2017. The first live music performance in the restored Parkway was
Alloy Orchestra's live score for the German silent film
Variety on Sunday, May 7. These screenings all took place within Maryland Film Festival 2017. The Parkway opened for year-round business on the evening of Friday, May 12. The first feature film screened in the Parkway in a non-festival setting was
John Waters'
Female Trouble. Other films screened that evening included
David Lynch's
Mulholland Drive, Jenny Gage's
All This Panic, and Kristopher Avedisian's
Donald Cried. The last two titles were the first films to have week-long theatrical runs at the restored Parkway. The first live music outside a festival setting was curated by members of the band
Animal Collective in tribute to the late experimental musician
Tony Conrad on the evenings of Friday, September 29 and Saturday September 30, 2017. The performers included
Deakin and
Geologist of Animal Collective,
Dan Deacon with Jessie Hughes and M. C. (Martin) Schmidt of
Matmos, Asa Osborne of
Lungfish and Zomes, Owen Gardner and Andrew Bernstein of
Horse Lords, Steve Strohmeier, and
Daniel Conrad. Longtime director of programming Eric Allen Hatch, who began working for MdFF in 2007, departed as lead programmer of The Parkway in February, 2018, citing creative differences detailed in a
Filmmaker article concerning the need for greater risk-taking and attention to diversity in independent-film festivals and alternative venues. ==References==