What is Sky Stage?

Sky Stage temporarily transforms a boarded property in the heart of Frederick, Maryland’s downtown historic district into an interactive building-scale public art work. 59 South Carroll Street, a pre-Revolutionary War building, was damaged by a major fire in 2010 and has no roof. Now, the plywood boards on the doors and windows have been removed to reveal a center for free arts and culture. The open-air theater offers drama, music, children’s story time, art classes, folklore, history, naturalists, and film. The local community is invited to program the space.

Sky Stage is by artist Heather Theresa Clark. Framed by historic stone walls, Sky Stage’s open-air theater seats an audience of 140 people among trees. The centerpiece of Sky Stage is a digitally-designed two story sculpture with ribbons of drought-resistant plants that twist and wind through a wooden lattice and the building’s doors and windows. State of the art green roof technology has been modified to support the spiraling plants. Rainwater is collected from an adjacent roof and stored in a cistern to irrigate the plants and trees. Artist Heather Clark collaborated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Digital Structures research group who computationally designed and engineered the sculpture’s complex wooden lattice with custom geometry-generating algorithms.

Frederick Arts Council is overseeing the day-to-day operations of the theater.