Community Calendar

Harford County Public Library invites families to Halloween Hullabaloo on October 30 from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the Edgewood Library, 629 Edgewood Road. Participants will enjoy spooky-themed crafts, games and dancing. Costumes are encouraged. For more information, visit https://programs.hcplonline.org/event/14136986.

Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “An Encounter with Early Vampires,” a scholarly look at what folklore, grave sites, and various records tell us about centuries-old Slavic beliefs concerning the undead, with Stanley Joseph Stepanic, who teaches a course on Dracula and vampire folklore as an assistant professor of Slavic languages and literature at the University of Virginia.

[Doors open at 5. The talk starts at 6:30. The room is open seating.]

Modern popular culture tends to treat vampires as irresistibly sexy. But the folklore that gave rise to Dracula, Nosferatu, Twilight, and an assortment of skimpy Halloween costumes actually depicted vampires as gruesome rather than attractive, the stuff of nightmares rather than fantasies.

Join a fascinating excavation of early vampire belief with Stanley Stepanic, who has given several excellent Profs and Pints talks and whose course on Dracula is exceptionally popular among University of Virginia students.

He’ll take you on a scholarly journey to Eastern Europe and back in time several centuries, beginning with the first written evidence of vampires in a Russian text from 1047 A.D. You’ll learn about references to vampire burials in Slavic legal codes from the fourteenth century and about the vampire hysteria that swept Eastern and Central Europe in the mid-eighteenth century.

You’ll learn how the vampires of those times were depicted as rotting, reanimated corpses that returned from the grave to attack their victims and inflict diseases such as rabies and tuberculosis upon them. Many of the earliest were undead men whose first targets were their families. Women reported being sexually assaulted by the vampiric forms of their husbands, and those who subsequently gave birth would regard their offspring as human-vampire hybrids destined to become vampire hunters.

We’ll peer into the graves of people whose bodies were chopped into pieces to prevent their rise from the dead. Professor Stepanic will explain how writers of the eighteenth century resurrected the vampire in the much more appealing form we envision today, but echoes of original version continue to thrive in popular culture in the form of zombies.

You’ll come away seeing vampires in a new light that renders them far more terrifying. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID.)

Image by Canva.

Art is often a way to commemorate the end of life and to imagine what happens beyond the world of the living. Join us for an exploration of artworks that contend with what it means to transition from this life into the next.

The Express and Explore Tour is a 30-minute, staff-led art experience for adults that centers creativity and connection. These tours feature a different theme every month and encourage participants to unplug and unwind in our galleries through playful activities and group discussion.

Join us for this exciting edition of Sketching Sessions in partnership with our neighbors at the Enoch Pratt Free Library and Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University! As always, we invite novices, students, and practicing artists of all ages to spend the evening drawing in our galleries. Participants will receive light instruction on techniques to expand their sketching skills in a multisensory environment. In this double-sized special edition, visitors will be able to sketch throughout the museum’s second level, including the Ancient World and Sculpture Court galleries, as they enjoy music from students of the Peabody Institute. All you need to bring is an interest in drawing—we’ll provide the materials for you!

Harford County Public Library hosts Craft and Create: Day of the Dead on October 30 from 6 to 7 p.m. at the Whiteford Library, 2407 Whiteford Road. Participants, grades 6-12 and adults, are invited to make a craft with other craft lovers. All supplies provided. Each person attending must register prior to the program at https://programs.hcplonline.org/event/14135264.

Christie Dashiell [vocals]
Allyn Johnson [piano]
Romeir Mendez [bass]
Carroll Dashiell, III [drums]

With her sultry, soulful flare and cutting-edge compositions, GRAMMY® Nominated D.C.-based vocalist Christie Dashiell is armed with her distinctive and powerful voice and her serious chops as a jazz improviser and bandleader. As a member of Afro-Blue, Howard’s premier vocal jazz ensemble, Dashiell appeared on NBC’s “The Sing Off.” She has twice received recognition in DownBeat Magazine’s Student Music Awards as Outstanding Soloist and Best Vocalist in the Graduate College division. Her second album, Journey in Black, received a GRAMMY® nomination in 2025. Dashiell tours with her own quartet, and has performed with Nancy Wilson, Geri Allen, Smokey Robinson, Esperanza Spalding and Fred Hammond, to her more recent collaborations with modern jazz luminaries like Terri Lyne Carrington, Marcus Strickland and Marquis Hill. She has appeared at the Lincoln Theater in Washington D.C., Atlanta Jazz Festival, Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival, DC Jazz Festival and Winter Jazzfest in New York City.

Dust off an ancient console, jam in your favorite cartridge, and practice your overly long attack combos as you set forth on an homage to the games you know and love. In this show, you're the player, naming the characters, their backstories, and ultimately deciding their fate on an epic journey through a fantastic land of pixels and comedy.

Garbage Quest is an original semi-improvised homage to retro video games, presented by Baltimore Rock Opera Society featuring the band Garbage Masher. BROS puts the controller in the audience's hands, guiding our plucky adventuring party through quests, romance, and against the evil forces of Monetization in this 1 hour celebration of gaming, fantasy, and electronic music.

Music by Garbage Masher

Written by Ave Kaye and Robyn Stegman

Directed by Ave Kaye and Matthew Payne

Venue at 1915 Maryland Ave

Two One-Act plays written and directed by TU Department of Theatre Arts students.

Hiding in the Light of Day
by Humatabae Smith | directed by Makayla Hamilton
In the 1950s, a woman and her son travel from the deep south to make their way up to Goldsboro North Carolina. Will they make it to their destination? Or will something or someone derail them?

6 Days
by Shamar Martin | directed by Christian Smith
6 days is a comedy exploring the different ways humans connect with one another through love, curiosity, anger, and laughter.

INEBRIATED HALLOWEEN
CREATED BY LAURA STARK & THOMAS SCHOLTES

OCTOBER 24 – NOVEMBER 1

Join us for a hilarious and spooky journey through some of your soon-to-be favorite stories of history with the latest installment of the Inebriated series, Inebriated Halloween. Created by Laura Stark and Thomas Scholtes, with the technical expertise of Stephen Craig and Shayden Jamison, don’t miss the latest installment and our scariest and possibly most inebriated stories yet!
For mature audiences

Dust off an ancient console, jam in your favorite cartridge, and practice your overly long attack combos as you set forth on an homage to the games you know and love. In this show, you're the player, naming the characters, their backstories, and ultimately deciding their fate on an epic journey through a fantastic land of pixels and comedy.

Garbage Quest is an original semi-improvised homage to retro video games, presented by Baltimore Rock Opera Society featuring the band Garbage Masher. BROS puts the controller in the audience's hands, guiding our plucky adventuring party through quests, romance, and against the evil forces of Monetization in this 1 hour celebration of gaming, fantasy, and electronic music.

Music by Garbage Masher

Written by Ave Kaye and Robyn Stegman

Directed by Ave Kaye and Matthew Payne

Venue at 1915 Maryland Ave