Some time in the next two months, artist Cinder Hypki will install a piece of mosaic with the logo FPCT -- for Fell's Point Corner Theatre -- into the sidewalk outside a three-story converted firehouse on South Ann Street.
The marker will represent the newest phase in the company's life, which began a few weeks ago when it officially purchased the building it has occupied for more than two decades, and into which it has poured more than $500,000 in improvements.
Talk about a concrete symbol of success.
"I'm glad that we were able to buy the theater, so that the people who come after us will have an artistic home," says Rick Stover, an actor and president of the theater's board of directors.
"It gives us a solid foundation for the future. No one lives forever, but I believe there still will be a theater here in 50 years. When you think of all the plays that will be put on, all the kids who will come and learn and grow, it's very exciting."
Invitations are being mailed this month to the April 26 gala celebrating the purchase, which culminated more than three years of negotiations. City officials eventually agreed to sell the building to the troupe for $1, partly in recognition of the way the arts organization has become an integral part of Upper Fells Point.
Unlike other community troupes, the Fells Point theater is on a quiet residential street of single-family homes, primarily refurbished rowhouses. This makes its ties to the neighborhood unusually strong.
"The community has ownership in this theater," says Sister Barbara English, a Catholic nun from the nearby Julie Community Center. "At least, we think we do."
When the troupe began serious efforts in 2004 to acquire the firehouse, the community came to the rescue. Roughly 20 neighbors trekked down to City Hall in support of the theater's request. Some, including English, made that trip more than once.
In her spare time, builder Barbara Moore tiled the theater's bathrooms and installed masonry blocks on the building's upper-story windows.
"My daughter is 27 now, but she took theater classes there from age 7 until she was in her mid-teens," says Moore, who also has served on the troupe's board of directors. "She just fell in love with theater. The skills she learned got her into the Baltimore High School for the Arts, which is very competitive. The theater has been an important part of our family's life."
Nor is she the only community resident to donate her labor; it's not unusual, on a Sunday afternoon, to find neighbors and company members putting up drywall together.
Kurt Schiller lives in the area but has no formal connection to the theater. Nonetheless, Beverly Sokal, the theater's president emeritus, says, he has pitched in more than once to build sets. He also undertook the considerable project of lowering the stage floor at cost.
Hypki, the artist, will design and install the work-intensive mosaic at a significantly reduced fee.
"I live four blocks from the theater, and I'm really proud they exist," she says.
"It gives back a tremendous amount to the community in which it is placed. Consistently over the years, they have worked with really troubled, really hard-to-reach kids and taught them leadership skills and how to present themselves. You cannot put a price on that."
Though various incarnations of the theater have been around since 1950, the troupe really got its start in 1987, when two local companies -- Fell's Point Theatre and the Corner Theatre -- merged.
The newly christened Fell's Point Corner Theatre moved into the vacant second floor of the old fire station at 251 S. Ann St., which had been converted into a recreation center. The arts group was authorized by former Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke's administration to lease the space rent-free if it paid all expenses associated with the upkeep of the 1859 building.
Sokal likes to laugh about the "deal" the troupe got.
"We converted the second floor into a 70-seat theater, with dressing rooms, a lobby and work- spaces," she says.
"We had to replace the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems at a cost of $125,000. We had to make the fire alarm system operational. We had to install new windows."
The third floor includes office space for the Baltimore Playwrights Festival, that the theater provides -- what else? -- gratis, and the company's costume and props department, crammed with enchanting oddities.
A bright yellow rubber chicken is dumped into the same box as a Bible. There's a ship's wheel, a wood-and-paint replica of a jukebox and a red beanie topped by a propeller.
In 1991, when the recreation center moved out of the building, the troupe took over the first floor, constructing a second, 94-seat theater. They also reconfigured the firehouse's entrance to make it energy-efficient and to provide access for wheelchairs.
Stover, the company's board president, estimates that the troupe has spent more than $500,000 during the past two decades. That's a hefty sum for an organization whose annual budget only recently topped $70,000 and which serves an audience of about 6,000 patrons each season. The money for the renovations was cobbled together piecemeal from a combination of government grants and private donations.
The promised payoff for all that hard work was huge. According to the terms of the original agreement, the city agreed to sell the building to the Fell's Point Corner Theatre for $1 once the lease expired in 2004.
But nothing is ever simple. Two new mayors, neither of whom were party to the original contract, brought in new administrations. In the past two decades since the theater moved into the firehouse, property values in Upper Fells Point had skyrocketed.
"Whenever you buy a building owned by the city at below market value, you have to justify it," says City Councilman James B. Kraft, who advocated on behalf of the troupe.
"But they spent a lot of years there, they did a lot to improve the property, and they have used it to benefit the entire community. The city has a lot of these vacant old fire stations, and many of them are falling apart. These were easy arguments to make."
The $1 purchase price swelled to more than $12,000 in closing costs and documentation fees. Theater officials realize, however, that's a drop in the bucket.
"The city has been more than gracious and more than generous," Stover says. "They didn't charge us for a lot of things they could have charged us for."
Now that the firehouse is really, officially the theater's, Stover will have plenty of time to indulge in one of his favorite rituals -- climbing to the third floor at sunset. He will stand before the glass panes that Moore carefully fitted and installed, and take in the panoramic view of dark buildings punctured with rows of lighted windows, silhouetted against a red-streaked sky.
It's a great vantage point for looking out at the widening circle of the theater's neighbors and friends.
mary.mccauley@baltsun.com
What's left in the 2007-2008 season
The Fell's Point Corner Theatre offers a mix of musicals, holiday shows and more exotic fair. Below are the remaining productions for the 2007-2008 season.
Showtimes are 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 2 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $17 for dramas, and $20 for musicals. Students and seniors get a discount. Call 410-276-7837 or go to fpct.org.
Three Days of Rain, by Richard Greenberg. March 14-April 14. Three siblings come together for the reading of their parents' will and glean unexpected insights into their own history.
The Woolgatherer, by William Mastrosimone. April 18-May 4. In this complex look at love and loneliness, a shy sales girl invites a smart-mouthed truck driver back to her place.
The Immigrant, by Sarah Knapp and Steven Alper. This new musical is set in the early 1900s in a tiny Baptist community in Texas, where a young Jew arrives after fleeing Czarist Russia.
The Baltimore Playwrights Festival. Fell's Point Corner Theatre will stage two locally written shows in July and August. Plays to be determined.
Mary Carole McCauley