Mission + History

Everyman Theatre’s Mission

Everyman Theatre provides transformative experiences through professional theatre that are welcoming, relevant, and affordable to everyone, featuring a Resident Company of Artists.

Everyman Theatre is a professional Equity theatre company celebrating the actor, with a Resident Company of artists from the Baltimore/DC area. Everyman Theatre is conveniently located in the heart of Baltimore City in the historic Bromo Arts and Entertainment District, near the corner of Fayette and Eutaw and steps away from the historic, newly renovated, Lexington Market. 

Founded in 1990 by Vincent M. Lancisi, the theatre’s mission is to provide transformative experiences through professional theatre that are welcoming, relevant, and affordable to everyone. With the values of people, community, and excellence at the core of its programming and operations, Everyman is dedicated to meaningful connections between artists and audiences both on-stage and off, while creating opportunities to sustain artists that are local to the Baltimore/Washington D. C. area. Lancisi partners with Managing Director Marissa LaRose in leading the organization in diverse, equitable, and inclusive storytelling.

Everyman Theatre’s education programs serve both the schools and the community at large. Community classes utilize skilled teaching artists to engage students of all ages in a variety of subjects from Improvisation to Page-to-Stage programs for youth. Everyman Theatre’s signature education program is its high school matinee program, providing Baltimore City and County students of up to 15 partner schools with repeat exposure experiences, including pre-and-post-show in-class visits, and transportation to and from the theatre completely free of charge.

The theatre also undertakes extensive measures to ensure all theatre and education programming is accessible to all. From assistive listening devices and hand-held closed caption devices to affordability throughout our programs, including Pay-What-You-Choose (PWYC) seats, $20 dollar student tickets
(more than 50% off of our lowest tier ticketing price point), equitable scholarships for every on-site class, and providing our flagship High School Matinee program completely free of charge for schools that meet specific data and demographic criteria.

Everyman truly has options available that remove price as a barrier to entry. We see this as vital to living up to our name Everyman Theatre.

CORE VALUES

PEOPLE | COMMUNITY | EXCELLENCE

Everyman Theatre History

Chart the long journey from Saint John’s Church to the Fayette Street Theatre.

Saint John’s Church

Everyman Theatre was founded by Vincent Lancisi in 1990. From the beginning, Everyman Theatre has striven to provide top-notch theatre that is affordable and accessible to everyone. With a Resident Company of local, professional artists, Everyman Theatre has staged critically-acclaimed productions ranging from classics to contemporary works to world premieres over the past 25 years.

Everyman Theatre’s first production—The Runner Stumbles—was produced in the winter of 1990 at Saint John’s Church. For the next four years, Everyman Theatre could only afford to produce one production per year at various locations in Baltimore, including Vagabond’s Theatre, the Theatre Project and even a classroom at MICA.

North Charles Street

The 1994/95 Season marked a series of firsts for Everyman Theatre. It was the first year at 1727 North Charles Street, which would be Everyman Theatre’s home for 18 years. It also marked the first multi-production line-up—starting with Sam Shepard’s Buried Child—and also offered subscriptions to patrons for the first time.

Throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, subscriptions numbers grew and a string of popular and acclaimed productions, including Amadeus, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Lion in Winter, The Glass Menagerie, The Crucible, and the wildly successful Proof, proved that Everyman Theatre was a mainstay in the Baltimore theatre scene.

Fayette Street

Through a generous donation from Bank of America and the Harold A. Dawson Trust, Everyman Theatre was given its new home on Fayette Street. Over the span of six years, Everyman completed a successful $18 million capital campaign co-chaired by Gina and Dan Hirschhorn.

In January 2013, Everyman Theatre celebrated the Grand Opening of its new permanent home on Fayette Street with the record-breaking production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, August: Osage County.

Everyman Theatre celebrated its 25th anniversary during the 2015/16 Season by producing The Great American Rep. A feat featuring American classics Death of a Salesman and A Streetcar Named Desire in repertory.

Everyman Theatre invites you to be part of the journey for the next 25 years.

Founding Board Members

These extraordinary board members have provided leadership for the organization for ten or more years.