Gaithersburg, MD (March 6, 2023) The Arts Barn celebrates 20 years as Gaithersburg’s home for the arts with a special Anniversary Arts Festival Weekend, Friday, April 14 through Sunday, April 16, 2023. The Arts Barn is located at 311 Kent Square Road.

Enjoy a free community arts festival on the Kentlands Green on Saturday, April 15 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The family-friendly festival will feature music, dance and theater performances, an artisan market, food trucks, art demonstrations and activities, and more. Performers include Bollywood Dance with Pooja Patel, Metropolitan Ballet Dance Theatre, Gaithersburg Chorus, Shakespeare with Sandy Spring Theatre Group, and Domenic Cicala and the Thensome Band. Headlining the event is vibraphonist Warren Wolf.

The festival will also feature docent-led tours of the Arts Barn and Kentlands Mansion. The Mayor and City Council will present an official proclamation designating April 15 as “Arts Barn Day: Celebrating 20 Years of Creativity.”

Feel free to bring a chair or blanket. This event will be held rain or shine. In the event of rain, performances will move inside the Arts Barn and Kentlands Mansion. For a full list of weekend activities, visit our website here.

Celebrating 20 Years of Arts!

Twenty years ago the Arts Barn opened its doors. Since then nearly one million people have toured its galleries, created artwork in its studios and experienced the magic of the performing arts. Today the Arts Barn is part of the Arts on the Green, the City’s home for performing and visual arts, but a step back in time reveals a very different purpose for this historic building. Built circa 1900 on the former Tschiffely estate, the barn’s architectural style charmingly represents a bygone era. Horses lived in stalls on the first floor while pigeons roosted in a loft. The Tschiffely family entertained friends in a splendid upstairs ballroom with high ceilings and gleaming wood floors.

By 1990, the Tschiffely and Kent families and their animals were gone and development of the Kentlands community was in full swing. The barn and adjacent Kentlands Mansion were destined to become a cultural arts campus, with ownership transferred to the City of Gaithersburg. 

Extensive renovation began in 1999. The ballroom was transformed into an auditorium for concerts, live theater and film screenings. “A Fresh of Breath Air” by Dale Stein was the first performance in the new space (May 2002). A formal grand opening followed in July featuring a One-Act Festival produced by Montgomery Playhouse and Kensington Arts Theatre – still partners today. The stalls and loft were converted into classrooms, a box office, an art gallery, artist-in-residence studios, and a retail space for local artists. 

Arts on the Green is now a thriving cultural center that features exciting hands-on experiences, nationally and internationally known artists, and a nurturing space for community artists of all ages.

Celebrate this milestone year with us! Explore, engage, create, and participate in a vast array of arts and cultural offerings for all ages. Take an art class, attend a show, view an exhibit, listen to a concert, meet an artist, watch a film, hear a story, join the choir, and embrace your creative self. It’s all available at our beautiful and unique historic Arts Barn.

For more information, please call 301-258-6394 or visit www.gaithersburgmd.gov/aotg. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @ArtsOnTheGreen