BMA to Host Five Performances of Dan Rodricks’ Baltimore, You Have No Idea in December

Tickets for this popular show go on sale September 15

BALTIMORE, MD (September 5, 2024)—Award-winning journalist Dan Rodricks brings his popular Baltimore, You Have No Idea play back to the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) for five performances in December 2024. The production includes a full company of actors who bring Rodricks’ poignant and amusing stories to life, plus an original song about Baltimore and two new scenes. Performances are held in the BMA’s Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Auditorium Wednesday through Sunday, December 11–15, and tickets are available at YouHaveNoIdea.org beginning September 15. Ticket prices are $35 per person; BMA Members receive $5 off with discount code.

Baltimore, You Have No Idea is a 90-minute multimedia production that brings to life Rodricks’ one-of-a-kind stories from more than four decades as a columnist for the Baltimore Sun, as well as his work as a local radio and television host. Baltimore characters are portrayed with a blend of emotion, insight, respect, and humor, and their stories are accompanied by live music and audio clips, as well as projected images and video. Audiences will experience stories like Rodricks’ very first column on the ex-wife of a local burglary fence and her bemusing legal predicament, his award-winning “Dear Drug Dealers” columns as a desperate gambit to reduce criminal violence, plus his many funny observations and touching interactions with people around Baltimore every day.

Baltimore, You Have No Idea was written by Dan Rodricks, directed by Will Schwarz, and features original music by Mat Lane. It debuted at the BMA in December 2022 at and returned in December 2023. In both runs, every performance sold out.

Dan Rodricks

Dan Rodricks is a long-time columnist for The Baltimore Sun and a former local radio and television host who has won several national and regional journalism awards over a reporting, writing and broadcast career spanning five decades. He is also the author of three books, including Father’s Day Creek: Fly Fishing, Fatherhood and The Last Best Place on Earth (Apprentice House, 2019).

Since January 1979, Rodricks has written more than 6,500 columns for The Baltimore Evening Sun and Sun. His “Dear Drug Dealers” series in The Sun, a public call for an end to criminal violence in Baltimore bolstered by his campaign to provide information about jobs or job training for ex-offenders, won the 2006 Excellence in Urban Journalism Award from the Freedom Forum and the Enterprise Foundation, as well as the 2005 Public Service award from the Chesapeake Associated Press. In 2006, he was named Public Citizen of the Year by the Maryland chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. His broadcast work includes a “Roughly Speaking” podcast for baltimoresun.com; hosting “Midday,” a daily talk show on WYPR FM 88.1 public radio; and hosting “Rodricks For Breakfast” on WMAR-TV. He also held a weekly stint as a feature reporter/commentator on WBAL-TV and wrote and narrated programs for Maryland Public Television. Rodricks’ stage credits include leading roles for the Young Victorian Theatre Company productions of;The Pirates of Penzance (1986), Iolanthe (1986), The Yeoman of the Guard (1987), The Mikado (1988), and HMS Pinafore (2001); and Action Theater’s Death of a Salesman (1999). In May 2022, Dan was awarded an honorary doctorate of journalism degree from McDaniel College. Most recently, Rodricks has written, produced, and performed in two original plays. Based on stories from his newspaper column, Baltimore, You Have No Idea (December 2022 and 2023) and Baltimore Docket (February 2024) document a city seemingly in perpetual recovery.