86th Season | 2007-08

Cherie Weinert as Rosalie Stier Calvert

 
Special Program...
Mistress of Riversdale
Sunday, March 9, 2008 at 2 pm
Hampton House, Hampton National Historic Site, Towson, Maryland
Park Staff: 410.823.1309 ext. 237
Admission: Free to the public, reservations encouraged.
Wednesday, March 12, 1 & 4 p.m.
Homewood Museum, The Johns Hopkins University
3400 N. Charles Street, Baltimore, Maryland
410.516.5589
Admission: $6; Reservations required.
Friday, March 14, 2008 at 7:30 p.m.
The College Park Arts Exchange: The Old Parish House
4711 Knox Road, College Park, Maryland
info@cpae.org, 301.927.3013
Admission: $5.

Adapted from the original words in the letters edited in Margaret Callcott's book, this one-woman dramatization devised by Suzanne Pratt, director of Theatre Hopkins, and performed by Cherie Weinert details the life of wealthy Belgian émigré Rosalie Stier Calvert, wife of George Calvert, at their plantation near Washington during the first two decades of the 19th century.

The text is drawn directly from extraordinary letters Rosalie, mother of nine children, sent to her family in Antwerp over her 20 years at Riversdale. Rosalie's correspondence includes her views of presidents Washington, Jefferson, and Monroe as well as Napoleon, Aaron Burr and Baltimorean Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte. Also detailed is her courtship and marriage to the grandson of the fifth Lord Calvert, and their creation of the Riversdale estate, which not only lent its name to the Washington suburb, Riverdale, but also provided the original campus of the Maryland Agricultural College, which later became the University of Maryland.

For booking information, contact Theatre Hopkins by phone (410-516-7159) or email (thehop@jhu.edu).

Cherie Weinert

This picture and the two below: The gardens of the Paca-Jennings house in Annapolis where Rosalie Stier Calvert lived with her family before her marriage.

From a performance at the residence of the Ambassador from Belgium.

Baroness Chris van Daele; Suzanne Pratt, director of Theatre Hopkins; Cherie Weinert who portrays Rosalie Calvert, and Margaret Callcott, author of Mistress of Riversdale.