This post is for all the Greenbelters who’ve never been to the UMD’s Clarice Smith Center for Performing Arts, which opened 25 years ago and is just five miles from Old Greenbelt. I’ll suggest some performances below but first, everyone’s primary hesitation (I’ve been told) is how to get there and where to park.

How to get to the Clarice and where to park

Drive west on Rte.193 (Greenbelt Road) for about 5 miles and turn left onto Stadium Drive. At the circle, take the first right to find the parking lots, which are all free after 4:00 pm.

Shaded in purple is the first parking lot you get to, less than a city block away from the Clarice. If it’s full, just keep driving to continue through other, larger parking lots, all free.

If you’d rather, there’s paid parking in the structured parking garage directly across the street from the Clarice. It uses the ParkMobile app, which can be a hurdle for the tech-challenged (like me – I’ve tried!). It’s $4/hour.

Free performances

Here’s the Event Calendar, where you need to click on the event to see if it’s free, but almost all of them are – because they’re student and faculty performers. The performances can be intimate or really big, like this “Conductor’s Concert,” when conducting majors lead the combined UMD Symphony Orchestra and Wind Orchestras. That’s next Friday April 10.

Special performances

For big names and out-of-towner performers there’s usually a price for the tickets. If memory serves, when comedian Leslie Jones was scheduled to perform in January (but got cancelled by the crazy weather) the price for the public was just $40, much less than at a large venue in D.C. (As a student, my ticket was free.)

On Maryland Day: shows and behind-the-scenes at the Clarice

A great time to see the Clarice is during Maryland Day, coming up soon – Saturday, April 25. There’s hundreds of things going on all over campus, including these at the Clarice: tours of the prop dept, etc., hip hop dance class,  children’s dance workshop, instrument petting zone, performances – 33 events to choose from. (If you go, I suggest going early before the line of cars for the parking lots gets long, which it will).

Throughout June – the National Orchestral Institute+Festival

I was curious how the Clarice is used during the summer when the students aren’t there and one answer is that it hosts the highly regarded National Orchestral Institute + Festival, now in its 38th year. Students at U.S. colleges and conservatories audition for one of the 100 positions in the orchestra, and work their tails off to get five full concerts ready for the public.

The result for us is the chance to sit in on master classes, open rehearsals and full-on orchestral performances. There’s lots more about the institute+festival in this post.

Partying or just hanging out before a show

Just last week I was looking for something fun to do with friends for my birthday – on a Monday night – and you won’t be surprised to learn that we ended up at the Clarice, which was a big hit with my Greenbelt friends, most of whom had never been there before. We shared birthday sweets here in the Clarice Courtyard, with daffodils and cherry trees blooming in the distance. Then we headed for the Dekelboum Theater to hear the UMD Percussion Ensemble. It was the perfect venue for our little party – the prettiest spot on campus!