After three years, the best costume party in town returned to the Creative Alliance at The Patterson. The 2023 Marquee Ball took place on Saturday, April 22 and included a VIP dinner, art auction, open studios, dance party, and live performances by Super City featuring Eze Jackson, Beach Creeper, and some other special guests.
The theme this year was Creature Feature, which gives a nod to The Patterson’s history as a movie palace in a previous lifetime and emphasized 50’s kitsch monster cult films with hints of Old Hollywood ghoulish glam. For anyone challenged by the costume challenge, local vintage shop Milk & Ice Vintage, whose Instagram excels at historic Halloween costumes, were available this year to consult and style costumes.
The Marquee Ball is Creative Alliance’s annual fundraiser gala that includes a VIP dinner, live and silent auctions, open studios, and a wild dance party that honors The Patterson’s history as a movie palace.
This year the 2023 Marquee honorees included a Golden Formstone Award for “formidable contributions to the Baltimore art scene” presented to Tyde-Courtney Edwards, Founding Director of Ballet After Dark, a dance therapy program providing trauma-informed care, holistic resources, and somatic interventions to Black youth and women impacted by various levels of trauma and violence in Baltimore City. In addition, a 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to architects Diane Cho and David Benn, who, according to Creative Alliance, are “responsible for the creative repurposing of many aging historical buildings in our city and strong believers in the arts as a catalyst for community revitalization. Their architectural firm was responsible for the revitalization of The Patterson theater and the design of the Creativity Center.”
This event is the main fundraiser for Creative Alliance, all proceeds go towards funding free youth education and arts programming.
