Backstage at Center Stage, Costume Shop and All
When Center Stage theater moved into the former Loyola College and High School on Calvert Street in Mt. Vernon, the building had been vacant for decades. The Catholic school was built in 1899 to fill out a campus owned by the religious order the Society of Jesus, which previously had erected St. Ignatius Church at the corner of Madison and Calvert Streets and needed more space than its basement could provide to offer schooling for Catholic youth. The high school and college occupied the site until 1922, when they split into separate institutions and moved out.