Seeing a show at the Recher Theatre has been somewhat of a rite of passage for teenagers growing up in Towson for the past 16 years. The venue has hosted a plethora of acts, from legend Iggy Pop to local band All Time Low. But in mid-February, the Recher family revealed that the theater would close and reopen as a nightclub. 

Wearing a gray newsboy cap and carrying a leather organizer, John Astin looks like the very model of a Johns Hopkins professor as he strides across the Homewood campus en route to lunch at the Brody Learning Commons cafe. And yet, this esteemed college campus—rife with Nobel Prize winners and eminent scholars—seems like an unlikely place for a star sighting of the actor who played Gomez, the loveably madcap father figure from the ABC hit series, The Addams Family.

During its first two incarnations, CityLit Festival conferred a curious Midas touch: Book a writer as headliner, and, whammo, he or she wins the Pulitzer Prize. Ten days prior to the 2004 inaugural festival, the Pulitzer board announced the event’s main attraction, Edward P. Jones, as its fiction winner; ditto the next year when Steve Coll copped a Pulitzer for nonfiction just before his festival appearance. Subsequent editions have featured luminaries such as poet Mark Doty, fiction writer Junot Díaz, and Baltimore-based mystery writer Laura Lippman. 

You've been the Choir’s artistic director and conductor since 2004, what made you decide to leave now?

You know, I love Handel Choir and what a community chorus represents to its singers, instrumentalists, and audiences. It was a very hard decision, but I just knew. Time to trim my responsibilities and time for fresh vision and energy to take the organization to the next level. I invite everyone to meet the new conductor at our Spring Gala [May 4] where I’ll hand over the baton! It will be bittersweet for me!