Rock ‘n’ Roll Opera makes its home in Baltimore

By Lisa Traiger

“One thing I love about Baltimore is its scrappy energy. No one comes here to ‘make it,’” Aran Keating says about his adopted city, which he has called an incredibly supportive place to make art. People-power, he adds, is what makes this a great city of unsung creatives.

Keating is one of the founders of Baltimore Rock Opera Society, an itinerant group primarily made up of volunteers who, each year for nearly two decades, have created and performed a kick-ass original rock opera. Founded on a whim and plenty of “why not?” energy, BROS, as the organization is aptly known, has grown into a popular annual event attracting hundreds of volunteers and even larger audiences.

And the founders — a 20-something group of young men who called their group house Brotopia — proudly own the moniker. In fact, Keating says, “The acronym BROS just kind of arrived from the ether, and it just feels right. It kind of motivated us” early on, he added.

Who are the BROS?

Back in about 2007, Keating estimates, two group houses of what he calls “multihyphenate creatives” came together. All 22 or 23 years old, at one abode, Dylan Koehler, Eli Breitburg-Smith and Jared Margulies enjoyed their Brotopia. Keating explains: “There’d be the king, an advisor, and a sort of courtly musician and they had this ridiculous story that they wanted to tell about their bachelor pad.” Together with Keating and John DeCampos, from this high-strung and hypersmiling energy, the Baltimore Rock Opera Society was born.

“BROS is a nonprofit community of artists who come together to put on kick-ass rock shows for the next 70,000 years,” says Patrick Staso, a long-time volunteer participant who frequently played trombone in the band. Today, Staso, who first discovered the brash troupe of hard-core troubadours in 2011, serves the organization as executive director, and when he’s not fundraising and managing the organization’s lean $200,000 budget, he’s ensuring the shows go on.

Wild and crazy BROS

Keating describes a typical show as “everything in excess,” with the wildest, most insane sets, costumes, stories and music. “We’re a nonprofit that creates opportunities for local artists to have their concepts created on stage,” he said. “It’s a creator space for actors and makers and it doesn’t discriminate.” That means anyone who wants to participate can show up and volunteer. That could be as simple as brushing paint on sets and sewing on buttons. Others go all in, contributing to the storytelling by writing complete scripts and musical scores; designing and building elaborate costumes, puppets, masks and scenery; performing on stage or playing in the show band; or, equally important, cooking enormous pots of spaghetti to feed the hungry cast and crew after rehearsals and performances.

BROS shows follow in the tradition of the great rock concept albums — The Who’s “Tommy,” Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” David Bowie’s “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust” and Green Day’s “American Idiot” — crafted with theatrical, often fantastical original narratives joined by hard-driving rock or heavy metal accompaniment.

In 2010, Baltimore Rock Opera Society’s first production, “Gründlehämmer,” leaned into its muscular “bro-ness.” The original libretto followed an agrarian kingdom where the fields were tended, the sick healed and enemies defeated by the power of electric guitar riffs. When they have to defend their community from the cave monster Gründle, a young boy with outsized guitar slayer skills comes to save the day.

“He pulls the magical guitar from the guts of the Gründle, which was the Gründlehammer — the guitar,” Keating explains. “That guitar could eat your soul. It’s that powerful it can’t be wielded by mortal men…. [The boy] defeats the evil king and takes the throne.” This premiere performance received high praise for its sweeping scale. One writer called it a “social experience [that] becomes inextricably linked to the actual production.”

In recent years, BROS has lost some of its hypermasculine bravado, thereby attracting all genders and ages to both the creative side and the performances. Sometimes, more women or those who identify as nonbinary fill the volunteer roster than men.

Pitch party perfect

Mace Morningstar, a fiber artist who graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art, first connected with BROS in 2019, while they were still a student working on outer space-themed wrestling costumes as a thesis project. Serendipitously, the opera society’s show that year, “Space Kumité,” was space themed with the added feature of wrestlers. It was a match made in heaven. Today, Morningstar serves as the organization’s paid production director, overseeing all aspects of each show’s development. They live and thrive with spreadsheets, managing all aspects of the current show in production, plus the coming year’s script development, to ensure all volunteers and staff meet deadlines and have the tools and resources necessary to do the job.

BROS puts on two productions annually: a major original rock opera in the spring and a less elaborate concert production featuring a local Baltimore band in the fall. The creative team continually finds itself at work on a new concept and script while simultaneously readying a show for its spring performances. Morningstar explains the show process starts with an all-in pitch party, where the small staff of six and all regular volunteers are invited to toss in ideas, themes, and scenarios to get the ball rolling in an evening filled with copious coffee and beer. After an often raucous vote, a writing team gets to work on the script. Throughout the year, staged readings and design pitches bring the group together to refine the script, characters, and music, and to discuss the scenery, lighting, technology and costumes.

“BROS changes constantly,” Morningstar says, “because different people have different time to come hang out and work with us. So, it’s the vibe … the eternal energy that’s just great. I always love that it’s whoever has time to come hang out and make weird stuff together and work together.”

Each mainstage opera attracts about 150 volunteers across the process from pitch to post-production. Keating honors the importance of the volunteers, “which I think is really valuable. Yes, artists deserve to get paid, but in the world we’re in, I’m happy this is a non-monetary space to commune. Everybody who walks in that door is not there because they’re getting paid or to bolster their resume. They want to make art with some really amazing people and contribute to something that’s just bigger than you could possibly do on your own.”

Coming from all walks of life, the volunteers might be born-and-bred Baltimoreans, transplants, recent college grads, mid-level managers, welders, laborers, college teachers, you name it, Keating says. Their commonality stands in their commitment to the weird, wild and fantastical creations the BROS devise together.

There will be blood

 

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This year’s show, “American Vamp,” hearkens back to the 1980s, when hair was big, shoulders broad and neon, spandex and velour ruled. Dracula is in the house, the competitive, cut-throat PlasmaCorp, with two vampires working in upper management. New hire Laura van Felsing finds herself in this battle, which is as bloody as it is dark, for dominance. The 10-piece band features three guitars, synthesizers, a violin, a cello and horns.

“For us, 10 pieces is a little bit insane,” Morningstar says. “I’m excited because it’s a cool mixture of ’80s sounds — synth ballads, killer rock and old-fashioned Gregorian chant.” Not all BROS shows are appropriate for all ages, they add: “Our spring show, I would say, is PG-13, maybe a little more … if you’re cool with it. There might be some swearing, some allusions to sex or violence. I think it depends on your kid, though.” “American Vamp” runs weekends, May 29-June 20, in downtown Baltimore.

A BROS participant since 2020, Hanna Al-Kowsi pitched and is directing “American Vamp.” She drew inspiration from the history of vampirism in literature and popular culture. Vampire fans will note influences of Anne Rice, Bram Stoker, old texts like “Thalaba the Destroyer” by Robert Southey and the record of some of the first alleged vampire attacks in East Prussia, dating from the early 1700s. Expect blood, lots of it.

There’s something unique to Baltimore embedded in the ethos and mission of the Baltimore Rock Opera Society. “Community is a big part of it,” Morningstar says. “I think community is so important in Baltimore. Plus, the fact that we often build stuff out of trash — which is being resourceful and, for us, often preferred just because it’s more fun. Also, the determination to build something as insane as a full rock opera … is also very Baltimore. There’s a lot of audacity and ‘by-God-we’re-gonna-figure-it-out’ [energy]. And bringing together lots of different people to do something insane is a very Baltimore thing.”

“In this world of increasing corporate control across all aspects of our lives,” co-founder and board member Keating says, “that this can continue is really important. Just that there’s a space where we’re free to be an actual unfiltered community of people who are doing exactly what they want to do without an algorithm, without corporate influence … It’s a pure community expression of art. I feel so proud of that, and thank God something like this exists.”

Learn more about the Baltimore Rock Opera Society and “American Vamp.” The show runs at Zion Church, 400 E. Lexington from May 29-June 20, 2026.