CATONSVILLE, Md. — Tucked into the woods of Catonsville, the Lurman Woodland Theater hosts free, family-friendly concerts about two dozen times a year kept alive entirely by volunteers.
The outdoor amphitheater sits surrounded by trees, neighbored by Catonsville High School, Hilltop Road and Bloomsbury Avenue. Its roots stretch back generations, to a German immigrant named Gustav Lurman who bought 600 acres in the area.
As chair Cynthia Wilber explained, decades later, Lurman's daughter sold a portion of the land, including where the high school now sits, to Baltimore County.
Catonsville’s Lurman Theater has roots dating back decades
Concerts were held at the venue in the 1960s, but the programming fell apart amid the Vietnam War. In 1992, local residents worked to rehabilitate the space, leaving a legacy that continues today.
"It's safe. It's happy. It's family. It's good music," Wilber said.
Wilber said the volunteer team also works to engage the next generation.
"We try to include our cooperative service students. We have 4 of them this year, from, from the local high schools," Wilber said.
Mike Lang spent decades working as a musician, and now handles sound at the theater and serves as an emcee. Lang said Baltimore County helped the venue two years ago with new bathrooms, asphalt and picnic tables.
"All, all the woodworking you see around here is all new. So the county did a nice job for us. They did a really good job," Lang said.
For Lang, the mission of the theater goes beyond the performances themselves.
"I think it's a great thing, and I think that music brings people together. It brings the community together two days a week here at The Lurman," Lang said.
"To me," Lang added, "it is the best venue in the county. It really is. Maybe biased to a certain extent, but for the most part I, I believe it to be true.
For Wilber, the theater offers something harder to quantify.
"It is my release for the week, even though I don't work anymore, I still have stresses in my life, and every time you come here and listen to a concert, you go home, you just feel better," Wilber said.
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