After 17 years performing in borrowed and rented venues, Iron Crow Theatre has found a permanent home.
Directors of the organization, which started in 2009 and describes itself as Baltimore’s only queer theater company, announced this week that they have signed a lease for space at 2600 N. Howard Street in Remington, previously home to the Single Carrot Theatre and most recently ArtsCentric.
“The move marks a major milestone in Iron Crow Theatre’s history,” the company said on its website, www.ironcrowtheatre.org. “After seventeen years of producing throughout Baltimore, and over a decade fighting for space, the company is establishing a permanent home of its own and creating a year-round space where Baltimore artists, queer artists, and their allies can create, gather, take risks and bring new ideas to life…Queer theatre has a permanent home in Baltimore.”.
The building is a former tire shop that has been repurposed by Seawall, the development company that will be Iron Crow Theatre’s landlord. Iron Crow will share the building with La Maison by Café Dear Leon.
The theater company has recently produced shows at the Baltimore Theatre Project on West Preston Street and the M&T Bank Exchange on West Fayette Street. Its new home features a flexible black box theater along with spaces designed to support rehearsals, special events, workshops, readings and new work. The performance space can accommodate up to 100 patrons and can be reconfigured for each production.
Producing Artistic Director Sean Elias and Managing Director Natka Bianchini signed a lease on July 29.
“For seventeen years, Iron Crow Theatre has believed that queer stories deserve to be told here in Baltimore, and told ambitiously and without compromise,” Elias said in a news release about the new location. “Having a permanent home allows us to deepen that commitment, not only by elevating the scale and quality of our work, but by creating a place where queer artists and their allies can take risks, develop new ideas, and know there will always be a stage in Baltimore for them. This is the future we’ve been working toward, and in many ways, we’re only just beginning.”
The new location “gives us something we’ve never had before — a space that is truly ours to transform, a place where we can take bigger creative risks, create more immersive experiences and bring artists and audiences together year round, and build the kind of theater we’ve always dreamed of building,” he said in a video posted on the company’s website. “We cannot wait to show you what we’re going to do with it.”
“I could not be more excited or proud for Iron Crow to be moving into this space,” said Bianchini. “Having a permanent home has been a shared dream for more than ten years. The permanence of the space will give us the freedom and flexibility to not just create bold and exciting theatrical experiences, but to provide our artists and our audiences with a welcoming and vibrant home base and stable hub for queer community.”
‘Season of Chance’
Iron Crow plans to open its 2026-2027 “Season of Chance” on Oct. 16 with a Halloween season return of Richard O’Brien’s “The Rocky Horror Show.” Directed by Elias, the show will run through Nov. 7.
“This year’s full live musical performance takes over Iron Crow Theatre’s entire new home and returns it to its rightful place as Baltimore’s premier Halloween theatrical event,” the company said in a release. “Fused with the audience participation, call-outs, and prop bags made famous by the midnight showings of the feature film, patrons will be invited to arrive early and explore Frank’s castle before the performance! Grab a drink and wander through Frank’s laboratory or get ready for the floor show with us with the chance to purchase costumes from previous versions of the show, all before the curtain even rises.”
In November, Iron Crow will host its second annual “Queer Thanksgiving” celebration, “bringing our community together once again for a chance to gather around the table, celebrate chosen family, and remind ourselves that theater is as much about building community as it is about what happens on stage.”
The season will continue with “Wolf Play” by Hansol Jung and directed by Melissa Freleich, opening January 22, 2027.
“Wolf Play” is “one of the most exciting new queer plays tackling modern queer issues,” the company says. “At its heart is a queer family navigating love, parenthood, and adoption. Blending razor-sharp humor, raw emotion, and breathtaking theatricality, the play uses puppetry in an inventive way to explore the experience of a child caught between the adults who love him.”
“A home for ideas’
Two more productions opening in April and June of 2027 will be announced later this year. Also launching this season is a new works reading series dedicated to developing and supporting new queer work and the playwrights and artists creating it, with readings presented throughout the season in the company’s new home.
Iron Crow’s new home is intended to serve more than the company itself, directors say.
“It will be a home for ideas — a place where queer artists, Baltimore artists and creative partners can develop new work, experiment, gather, and bring ambitious ideas to life,” they say. “Iron Crow plans to activate the space throughout the year with performances, readings, workshops, community gatherings, collaborations and projects still to be imagined.”
