Community Calendar

Every first Friday of the month from June 6 through October 3, 2025, join Maryland Opera for an evening of favorites from Opera, Broadway, and beyond. Enjoy a glass of wine and a tasty meal from a local food truck as you sit on the lawn at Boordy Vineyards and experience opera in the great outdoors with the idyllic backdrop of of the sunset behind the performers.

*July's concert is on JULY 11, not July 4 due to the Independence Day holiday.

THE SHARK IS BROKEN

BY IAN SHAW and JOSEPH NIXON
DIRECTED BY Gené Fouché

SEPTEMBER 12 – OCTOBER 5

Preview September 11
ASL Interpreted performance September 19

It’s 1974 and the hit movie JAWS is being filmed. Well, it would be, if the prop shark wasn’t a mechanical mess. In this laugh-out-loud comedy, testy, feuding costars Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, and Roy Scheider take center stage as booze flows, egos clash, and tempers flare. The actors pray for an end to the shoot, not knowing it will change their lives forever.

In this captivating adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion by Sarah Rose Kearns, audiences are transported to a world of social intrigue, family drama, and enduring love. Anne Elliot's touching journey of resilience and second chances unfolds against the elegant and beloved backdrop of Regency-era England, laced with Austen's signature wit.

Persuasion will open September 26 with previews on September 24 and 25. The production will close on October 19. Thursday shows are only 10/9 and 10/16.
Visit www.chesapeakeshakespeare.com for more information or call the box office at 410-244-8570.

Join MET's longest running improv team, The Comedy Pigs, for a night full of laughs! The Comedy Pigs perform on the first Friday and Saturday of each month. The Comedy Pigs specialize in short-form improv, similar to what you'd see on the TV Show "Whose Line is it Anyway?"

Back for its second year, Abbott and the Big Ten Conference are hosting the We Give Blood Drive competition to entice students, alumni, fans, and community members to rally around their Big Ten school to donate blood, save lives, and address the country's ongoing critical blood shortage.

From August 27 to December 5, anyone eligible to donate blood can do so anywhere, anytime in the U.S. to count for their school. The school with the most donations at the end of the competition will receive $1 million to advance student or community health.

New this year, everyone who donates or attempts to donate blood throughout the competition will receive an exclusive, limited-edition, Homefield-designed T-shirt specific to their school. To receive the shirt:

1. Show up to donate
2. Submit your donation (or attempt to donate) at BigTen.Org/Abbott or by texting DONATE to 222688 (ABBOTT).
3. Click the link sent to your email
4. Use your redemption code
5. Your shirt will be shipped to the address of your choice. 

Last year, the University of Nebraska won, and is using the funds to advance student health on campus. The University of Maryland is competing this year and will host several blood drives on campus and in the surrounding area throughout the competition. To find a blood drive near you, please visit: https://bigten.org/abbott/maryland

Join Us for the Annual Plant Sale at Historic London Town and Gardens!
Our Plant Sale is one of the most important fundraisers of the year, with all proceeds supporting the care and maintenance of over 10 acres of woodland and ornamental gardens. These gardens are home to some of the region’s finest collections of magnolias, camellias, and azaleas.

You’ll find a wide selection of plants for sale—many of which are featured throughout our gardens. All plants are hardy to USDA zones 7a and 7b and thrive in our local mix of heavy clay and sandy soil. Plus, get expert advice and tips from local Master Gardeners.

Free to attend!
Members and Volunteers receive 10% off all plant purchases.

Time: 8:00am - 9:00am: MEMBERS ONLY
9:00am - 1:00pm: Open to the public

Ellicott City, MD: Capes on, sneakers laced — it’s time to step up for a great cause! The Autism Society of Maryland’s Every Step Counts Autism Walk & 5K Run is back on Saturday, October 4, 2025, at beautiful Centennial Park — and this year, we’re going SUPERHERO STYLE!

This fan-favorite fall event invites the Autism community and its allies to come together for a day of fun, connection, and celebration. Whether you're running the 5K, walking the 4K, or strolling the 1K route, every step you take supports thousands of individuals and families across Maryland.

Highlights include:

5K Run, 4K Walk, and 1K Stroll options

Live entertainment, food trucks, music, and roving performers

FREE Capes for participating children and youth

Inflatables, balloon artists, bubbles, and a kid-friendly Event Village

Appearances by costumed superheroes (come dressed as your favorite!)

FREE registration for kids under 10 and under (registration required)

Prizes for top runners, fundraising teams, and more!

This year we welcome Elevate Spectrum as our Title Sponsor along with dozens of wonderful sponsors in our resource tent!

Be a Hero for the Cause

This focus exhibition of 10 works explores the relationship between burning fossil fuels—namely, coal—and the emergence of European modernism. Drawing on research conducted by climate scientists and art historians, the exhibition presents a range of paintings and works on paper by Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, James McNeill Whistler, and others to explore the ways that their artistic practices and style emerged, in part, in response to widespread pollution in London and Paris.
Presented as part of the Turn Again to the Earth environmental initiative.

More than 50 works on paper investigate how artists working in Europe and French-occupied northern Africa watched and participated as nature became a resource for people to hoard or share.

Drawn from the BMA’s George A. Lucas Collection, this exhibition of 19th-century art foregrounds the many ways that human relationships, including imperialism and capitalism, affect the environment. Deconstructing Nature is organized thematically, focusing on five environments and the ways artists explored them in their work: The Desert, The Forest, The Field, The City, and The Studio.

Born and raised in Baltimore, George A. Lucas (1824–1909) spent most of his adult life immersed in the Parisian art world and amassed a personal collection of nearly 20,000 works of art. In 1996, the BMA, with funds from the State of Maryland and the generosity of numerous individuals in the community, purchased the George A. Lucas Collection, which had been on extended loan to the Museum for more than 60 years.

In this focus exhibition of approximately 20 photographs, prints, drawings, and textiles, the natural environment is a source of creative inspiration worth celebrating and protecting.

Works by artists such as Winslow Homer, Richard Misrach, Charles Sheeler, and Kiki Smith, among many others, depict the elements of air, water, earth, and fire and address broader themes of ecological awareness and preservation. These themes range from how artists have used visual language to convey the act of locating oneself in nature; works that depict natural forms through the physical integration of environmental components; and artists’ commentary on sites of environmental disaster, the sociopolitical ramifications of human impact, and the potential of symbiotic healing for this planet and its occupants.