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Now Showing On North Monroe...

How an empty lot in West Baltimore became an outdoor theater.

Reginald Johnson used to play a game with his children years ago called "What's Pretty?" to help them find the beauty in ugly places.

"I would take the worst area I would find, and the game was on," said Johnson, 64, a photographer who's lived in Midtown Edmondson for over 30 years.

"So that meant they had to find, right there, in the midst of all kinds of turmoil, what was pretty about this area," Johnson said. 

He still looks for pretty, including in a recent project sponsored by Morgan State University and Ground Root Inc., a non-profit that promotes economic growth and artistic expression. In their hands, a trash-filled lot at the corner of North Monroe and West Lanvale became the Community Walkthrough Theater. For five Sundays, starting Sept. 19, it offered slideshows by photographers like Johnson who were trained by Ground Root's Photo Voice project. The theater also presented news, cartoons and movies like Regina King’s 2013 “Let the Church Say Amen.” Anywhere from 20 to 50 people, on average, showed up – sometimes bringing their own chairs, sometimes sitting on planters built for the theater.

“I think it’s really educational,” said Amy Lehman, a member of Step Forward, a rehab organization. “It’s positive for the community. I think it’s a positive project, and it should keep going throughout the city.”

“Before we even started this project, the first thing we did was focus groups,” said Dr. Randolph Rowel, the Morgan professor who partnered with Ground Root. “Find out what the community thought we could use this space for. We will continue collecting data."

The Sunday program ended October 30 and will work on production development over the winter.

At the start of the project, teenagers and adults were taught how to make digital cameras and how to use them. They were then sent out to capture images representing four themes: education & business, community services, art and spirituality.

While Johnson looked for beauty amid chaos, another Photo Voice photographer, Timothy McCleary Sr., looked for “the positives of the community and the negatives of the community.” The 54-year-old Army veteran joined Rowel and The Mission Continues, a veterans group, to help turn the vacant lot into the theater space.

“Anything I see positive in the community, I help out,” Johnson said. “I like promoting that which is beautiful. Photo Voice did all of that – put beauty right in front of me.”

This story was produced as part of Morgan State University’s Baltimore Reporting project. Photos by: Timothy McCleary Sr., Reginald Johnson, and Akira Kyles.

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