Baltimore is now the setting of two Broadway musicals—“Cry-Baby,” which opens this week, at the Marquis, and “Hairspray.” (There is also “Thurgood,” now in previews, about the Baltimore-born Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.) Both shows are inspired by films by one of Baltimore’s most celebrated sons, John Waters, who based “Cry-Baby” on his boyhood fascination with a local gang called the Drapes.
Don’t think that Baltimore hasn’t noticed the trend. The city has leaped at the chance for cross-promotion. “The thought was, O.K., here’s an opportunity where Baltimore will be on Broadway,” Sam Rogers said last Tuesday, over dinner. He was one of several executives from the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association (their slogan is “Baltimore: Get in on it”) who were in town to attend a preview of “Cry-Baby,” in preparation for a new marketing campaign aimed at theatregoers. Rogers held up an ad that will soon appear in Playbill: “You’ve seen the musical, now visit the set.”
“We’re helping people make that connection and say, ‘Oh, I can go to a place like that?’ ” Jennifer Maguire, who does P.R. for the city, said. “A lot of people think Baltimore is what they see on ‘ The Wire.’ But that’s not the true Baltimore—it’s too gritty.” (Baltimore currently ranks as the country’s twelfth most dangerous city.)
Tom Noonan, the president of the association, added, “People have a dated perception of Baltimore as more of an industrial city than the tourism mecca it is.” Noonan detailed the city’s attractions—the Inner Harbor, the Washington Monument (Baltimore’s came first), an “emerging culinary scene.” He named famous Baltimoreans: Babe Ruth, Edgar Allan Poe, Tom Clancy. He made a map with his silverware to show how easy it is to get around. (Another catchphrase the city is pushing: “In Baltimore, you’re two feet away from everything.”)
The “Cry-Baby” campaign will include a microsite on Baltimore.org, directing visitors to John Waters hot spots—“stores he likes, bars he frequents,” Rogers said. While it may seem odd that Waters, whose most indelible screen image of Baltimore may be of a drag queen eating dog feces, has become the city’s poster boy, he “encapsulates what Baltimore is all about,” Noonan insisted. “Baltimore has a quirkiness to it,” he explained. “You can go down to Lithuanian Hall for the Night of 100 Elvises, then to Hampden for the HonFest, where you’re gonna want to wear your spandex and your beehive hairdo. We’re a city that likes to poke fun at itself.”
The executives headed over to the theatre. At a reception afterward, they talked about locations in the show that they had recognized: Roland Avenue, the Maryland Penitentiary. (“They escaped right through my neighborhood!”) No one was sure whether Turkey Point, the Drapes’ hangout, was a real place, but Noonan looked it up on his BlackBerry and found out that it is. Nancy Hinds, the association’s vice-president of public affairs, who has lived in Baltimore her entire life, brought up Hutzler’s department store, where one of the musical numbers takes place. She and her sister, she said, used to go there as children and eat at the lunch counter. It doesn’t exist anymore—the area has been redeveloped, and is now the site of a sports complex, chain stores, and a 2,280-seat theatre, where “Hairspray” played not long ago.
“It was fun to go see ‘Hairspray’ in Baltimore,” Noonan said. “Everybody was cheering and yelling. On the line ‘ You’ve won a two-year scholarship to Essex Community College,’ the whole audience laughed.”
Hinds grinned. “If you’re not a local, you wouldn’t get it.” ♦
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