Adaptation

Chicago -- Bridging the so-called skills gap, which separates jobs that go begging and people begging for jobs, is as complex as the increasingly diverse nature of the work force.Despite the headlines about job cuts and reduced hiring plans, employers in many large and small companies still swear they have jobs but can't find suitable applicants.In Maryland, for example, some insurance companies are having difficulty finding qualified sales agents, even though the state reports that about 140,000 people are pounding the bricks looking for work.

Tony Reich of the Patuxent Theatre Company describes his adaptation of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" through a trio of disparate plays."It's sort of like 'Nicholas Nickleby' meets 'The Fantasticks' meets 'Raisin,' " he said.It's part "Nicholas Nickleby" because every word is drawn from Dickens, part "Fantasticks" because the set is minimalist, Mr. Reich said."Bed, table, two chairs, two doors, four wooden boxes and that's it."And "Raisin"?Because it's mimed and all props, such as the dinner plates, the goose and glasses, are pantomimed.

CHICAGO -- Bridging the so-called skills gap, which separates jobs that go begging and people begging for jobs, is as complex as the increasingly diverse nature of the work force.Despite the headlines about job cuts and reduced hiring plans, employers in many large and small companies still swear they have jobs but can't find suitable applicants.In Maryland, for example, some insurance companies are having difficulty finding qualified sales agents, even though the state reports that about 140,000 people are pounding the bricks looking for work.

Scads of hit musicals, from "Show Boat" to "Sunset Boulevard," have been adapted from novels and movies. But musicals based on classic plays are relatively rare.When you get past Shaw and Shakespeare, the list grows thin. And, even the works of these two masters have spawned some musical clunkers. Is there anyone -- besides collectors of such trivia -- who remembers the short-lived 1968 musical, "Her First Roman," based on Shaw's "Caesar and Cleopatra"? Or "Rockabye Hamlet," eight years later?

Your choice: On ABC, you can watch the blatherings of the year's allegedly most interesting people; on VH-1, you can watch performances by better than a dozen of the most talented musicians of 1968 (not to mention ever)."Disney's Beauty and the Beast: A Concert On Ice" (9 p.m.-10 p.m., WJZ, Channel 13) -- Russian skaters Ekaterina Gordeeva and Victor Petrenko portray Belle and her Beast in this ice-bound adaptation of Disney's Broadway adaptation of its movie adaptation of the classic children's tale.

The Annapolis Opera Company presented a sorrowful version of Franz Lehar's "The Merry Widow" last weekend at Maryland Hall.The sets were spare, some of the costumes ridiculous, and the singing and acting uneven.Two sopranos alternated in the title role of Hanna Glawari, the Eastern European widow whose $20 million fortune is coveted by the tiny, mythical, impoverished country of Pontevedria.Phyllis Burg, who sang Friday, was slow to warm, with her top notes a bit strident through part of the first act. In the second act, however, she delivered a hauntingly lovely ballad, "Vilya."

Even if traditional furniture design is not especially to your liking, it still warrants careful examination from an aesthetic as well as a functional standpoint. That's true, by the way, for almost every element of interior design that has survived decades' or centuries' worth of changes in taste and usage.They all have something to teach us.The bureau-bookcase, also known as a secretary, is one of history's most successful examples of multifunctional furniture -- though it's been categorized in that way only relatively recently.

A swift, sharp adaptation of Stephen King's short story, 1408 may be a fairly unassuming achievement as supernatural thrillers go. But if you don't bring to it blockbuster expectations, you will experience an artfully sustained atmosphere of dread and a ghost story with an eye toward the mind games people play on themselves in times of crisis. Like many King stories (this one from the Everything's Eventual collection), it's about a nonbeliever who comes to believe. John Cusack can play cynical, bored characters in his sleep and, it must be said, sometimes has. Here, though, portraying a travel writer specializing in allegedly haunted locales, the actor deploys his deadpan cool very artfully in the service of a man who has suffered a traumatic loss and is doing his best to skate over the memories.

1. Rabbit-Proof Fence: Under Phillip Noyce's starkly poetic (and wonderfully unforced) direction, this tale of three Aboriginal girls walking across 1,200 miles of the Australian Outback simply to go home was everything a classic movie should be. Beautifully acted by a largely amateur cast, with a haunting score by Peter Gabriel, it served as a reminder that there's no substitute for a good story well told. 2. Chicago: Director Rob Marshall doesn't so much reimagine the movie musical (as Baz Luhrmann did in 2001 in Moulin Rouge)

Cadillac Records *** ( 3 STARS) This movie hasn't gotten the push it deserves from distributors or critics, but Darnell Martin's movie about Leonard Chess, the self-made Chicago "record man" who put Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Chuck Berry and Howlin' Wolf on vinyl and paid Alan Freed and other DJs to put them on the air, sends audiences out singing its praises. Whatever you feel about the contention that Chess and company created rock 'n' roll, the movie makes a great case for it: You feel present at the birth of a new American pop culture.