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It’s Maryland Day weekend in and around Annapolis, with 40 museums, historic homes and cultural sites open for free or $1. That’s a great option if you love history or just want to get out and explore. Or you could catch a performance of experimental South Indian dance that tells the stories of immigrant women.
Those are just some of the best things to do through March 27.
Passport promotion
Through March 31
Fount + Flourish, a women’s co-working space in Annapolis, launched a Women in Business Passport program for March, aka Women’s History Month.
You can pick up a passport at any of the 16 participating women-owned businesses in Annapolis and get a stamp every time you patronize one. The first 20 people to get 10 stamps receive a T-shirt, remaining winners will get a keychain.
“I have yet to get someone that has done 15 total stamps, this winner gets a shirt, keychain, and $120 gift certificate to Paint Nail Bar Annapolis,” said Bailey Feldman, the leadership coach behind Fount + Flourish.
The passports are free. Prices for goods and services vary.
Happy birthday, Maryland
Friday-Sunday
Maryland Day commemorates the arrival of English colonists at Saint Clements Island on March 25, 1634.
Across the state capital and wider Anne Arundel County, 40 historic homes, museums, and other cultural sites will be open for tours, lectures, music, and reenactments over the weekend. Most are free or cost $1 for admission, and some only open a few times each year.
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One of the centerpieces will be a visit by the Pride of Baltimore II to City Dock, where it will offer free deck tours through Sunday. The replica Baltimore clipper is a far cry from the tiny ships that arrived hundreds of years ago, the Ark and the Dove. But it will still be the coolest boat afloat in the Annapolis harbor.
Adult egg hunt
8-10 p.m. Saturday
Easter doesn’t arrive until March 31, but the least religious part of the central Christian holiday is already rolling. Plenty of area churches and other groups will host Easter egg hunts through next weekend but only one takes place at night and is limited to adults.
Hundreds of eggs-filled prizes will be spread around one of the ballfields at the Pip Moyer Recreation Center for the Adult Easter Egg Hunt. At 8 p.m., participants 18 and older will head out with flashlights for the hunt. Proceeds benefit the Recreation and Parks scholarship Fund.
The hunt is $20 in advance, or $25 on Saturday night. Registration is in person at the center. Last-minute registration closes at 6 p.m. and must be paid in cash. The rain date is Sunday.
The kids’ turn
Sunday
Next up on the Easter parade is the Easter egg scramble on the green at Annapolis Town Center.
Children will be grouped by age, and the event includes limits on the number of eggs for each child. Pictures with the Easter Bunny are included but bring your own basket. Tickets are $5, plus fees.
All ticket proceeds benefit GiGi’s Playhouse Annapolis, which provides programs for children with Down syndrome and their families.
Woodwind Quintet
3 p.m. Sunday
The Annapolis Symphony Orchestra Woodwind Quintet will perform music by Camille Saint-Saëns, Antonín Dvořák, Adolphe Deslandres and Blas María de Colomer in the second ASO chamber music concert of the season.
General admission tickets are $29 for the performance at Sts. Constantine & Helen Greek Orthodox Church. Student tickets are available at a cheaper price by calling the box office at 410-263-0907.
Movie meal
6-10 p.m. Monday
Bread and Butter Kitchen and Bell House Catering have been experimenting with a pairing of movies, food and drinks at Toast the 21st, a small bar and restaurant in Crownsville.
The latest feature is the 2022 comedy-horror film “The Menu,” which follows a couple to an exclusive dinner on an island hosted by a chef with murderous intent. Bread and Butter and Bell House Catering will serve multiple courses and cocktails on the movie’s theme of extravagant, shocking dining. General admission tickets are $110, plus fees.
Bharatanatyam dance
7:30 p.m. Wednesday
Seven dancers with the Nava Dance Theatre will use experimental movement to explore the stories of South Asian immigrant women in the United States in “Rogue Gestures/Foreign Bodies.”
The bharatanatyam dance company is based in San Francisco, and the production drew inspiration from the oral histories of Indian nurses, according to an event description. .
The performance at Maryland Hall is one of just a few stops on the company’s tour. Tickets are $35-$75, plus fees.
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Rick Hutzell is the Annapolis columnist for The Baltimore Banner. He writes about what's happening today, how we got here and where we're going next. The former editor of Capital Gazette, he led the newspaper to a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the 2018 mass shooting in its newsroom.
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