State-of-the-arts Baltimore, late summer 1966

In one instance, Baltimore audiences paid nothing to attend the theater in the late summer of 1966.

Center Stage took a traveling set to the Wyman Park Dell, the lawn at Mount Royal Station, the Mansion House at Druid Hill Park, and the Village of Cross Keys for free outdoor performances of Moliere’s comedy “The Miser.”

A Sun critic noted only a little noise interference created by Baltimore Transit Co. buses.

Metropolitan Opera singer Patrice Munsel appeared in “Camelot” under a canvas tent at the old Painters Mill Music Fair in Owings Mills.

The British pop music invasion brought the Yardbirds to the Civic Center the weekend of Sept. 10-11, 1966, an event hosted by WCAO radio disc jockeys. On that Sunday, the group also (oddly enough) made a guest appearance at the annual “I Am An American Day Parade,” staged in East Baltimore.

The crop of summer movies included Alfred Hitchcock’s “Torn Curtain,” which played for weeks at the Town, now the Everyman Theatre, on Fayette Street. Doris Day’s fans lined up for “The Glass Bottom Boat” at neighborhood movie houses. .

Baltimore couldn’t seem to get enough of Jason Robards in “A Thousand Clowns,” which played for nearly half a year at the old Playhouse on 25th Street.

And into September, “My Fair Lady” and “Born Free” were at the Cinema One at the Yorkridge in Timonium.