Bard

If you want to get folks fired up about Renaissance theater, poking fun at William Shakespeare is one way to do it. The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company is doing that now with the second half of its ninth summer season, the parody "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)," written by Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Borgeson. The Bard, to be sure, did not pen the abridged "Complete Works. " Former founding members of the Reduced Shakespeare Company wrote and performed this script for the first time at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1987.

"Anonymous" is not shy about naming names. It contends that the 37 plays attributed to William Shakespeare, who died in 1616, actually were written by the Earl of Oxford, who died in 1604. As this story has it, the barely literate commoner Shakespeare fronted for the highly literate and politically well-connected nobleman Oxford. Consequently, such late Shakespeare plays as "The Tempest" reputedly would have been written many years earlier, stockpiled, and then eventually released under Shakespeare's name.

Newly surfaced is a copy of an account of the death of Edgar Allan Poe, written by Eugene Lemoine Didier in 1899, on the 50th anniversary of the poet's death.The basis for the account, according to Didier, one of the earliest biographers of the poet, is a former, unidentified, Baltimorean ''recently living in California.'' In his journal, Didier notes that on June 9, 1899, he sent ''the Poe article to the Sat. Evg. Post.'' It was accepted and he was paid $50. The following September he sent an article on the semi-centennial death of Poe to the Baltimore American, the Philadelphia Times, the Washington Post and the St. Louis Globe Democrat.

If you want to get folks fired up about Renaissance theater, poking fun at William Shakespeare is one way to do it. The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company is doing that now with the second half of its ninth summer season, the parody "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)," written by Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Borgeson. The Bard, to be sure, did not pen the abridged "Complete Works. " Former founding members of the Reduced Shakespeare Company wrote and performed this script for the first time at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1987.

On Tuesday, April 26, 2005, FRIEDA BARD (nee Silverman); beloved wife of the late Albert C. Bard; loving mother of Dr. Richard Henry Bard of New York, NY and Dr. Marjorie Ann Brownstein of Las Vegas, NV; dear mother in-law of Jane M. Bard and Dr. Marshall Brownstein; adored sister of Dr. Frank Silverman and Florence Kramer and the late Jack L. Silverman and Eva F. Goldenberg; loving grandmother of David Evan and Karen Jane Bard and Dr. Jeffrey Neil and...

WANTED: Traveling Bard to provide inspiration at an office in need of musical enlightenment.The qualified candidate will possess his/her own lyre and must be versed in ancient Greek poetry. Voice must be soft and lilting. Minstrels a plus but not necessary.Added consideration will be given to those who have a whimsical view of Howard County happenings and various news events that shape the daily lives of those who work in the county mainstream.We offer an excellent benefits package and pleasant working conditions, but no pay. The job will be rewarding to those whose mission is to use music as an inspirational force in the modern-day office structure.

Scotland's national bard, Robert Burns, died 200 years ago on July 21 at the age of 37. To commemorate the bicentenary of his death, events have been planned throughout Scotland.Among them is an exhibition called "Pride and Passion," which will run through Sept. 15 at the Royal Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. Songs and audiovisual material complement manuscripts, paintings and objects to present a full picture of a life that embraced farming, traveling, Freemasonry and romance as well as poetry.

In Ages of Man, actor Marc Horwitz provides audiences with a new definition of tough. Horwitz might not chase criminals for a living or enter burning houses to rescue trapped children. All he has to do is stand on stage by himself and talk to people who aren't there. He just has to deliver 110 minutes of sonnets and Shakespearean dialogue while shifting between two dozen roles. He merely must act his heart out inches from a room full of blank-eyed, arms-crossed, foot-jiggling theatergoers who can see every drop of sweat trickling down his face.

Shakespeare treated with respect, love Shakespeare is serious business, or so it seems to Everyman Theatre. The troupe has waited 17 years for its maiden fling with the Bard, and the jitters only show a little in the company's lively, often moving Much Ado About Nothing. Most of the rough patches come right out of the gate, with director Vincent M. Lancisi's cast acting at full volume and making the language seem like heavy lifting. Luckily, the large company soon eases into the warm Mediterranean setting and the pointed badinage, especially when Deborah Hazlett's appealing, unusually wise Beatrice starts aiming barbs at Jim Jack's Benedick.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra brushed up its Shakespeare for the opening of the Symphony with a Twist series. The tightly knit program included music inspired by the Bard and excerpts from his plays interpreted by members of the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington. Modest scenic elements were introduced to Meyerhoff Symphony Hall Saturday night, notably a cute starlit backdrop and bursts of confetti from the ceiling to go with scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream. As a curtain-raiser, conductor Marin Alsop chose the literally striking Death of Tybalt from Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet.

Fireflies crisscross a meadow as an audience on lawn chairs and blankets takes in the fast-paced complications of "As You Like It" on the grounds of the Evergreen Museum and Library — a particularly apt setting for the Maryland Shakespeare Festival production. "We wondered if we should bring scenery, since this is perfect for the Forest of Arden, where the action takes place," said company artistic director John Bellomo. "Looking up at the stars and hearing this great poetry, it's like we're all in the woods together.

Again this spring season, dancer-director Jacob Rice will be the key male figure on stage in the Central Maryland Youth Ballet 's production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Slayton House Theatre. He will partner a young ballerina in the showcased classical pas de deux . But if all goes as planned, Rice will find himself less in demand in coming years, as his current crop of proteges grow into their roles. Jacob Rice and his wife, Kimmary Williams, started teaching ballet in Columbia in 2005 with a mere six students.

Generations ago, Baltimore poet Folger McKinsey wrote "Charles Street in the Fall" about a stroll through the city. On Saturday, his descendents gathered for their 100th reunion, where they ate, played games and celebrated their heritage. "It's neat that this will carry on," said organizer and distant relative Glenn Opperman Sr. of New Jersey. Wearing turn-of-the-century garb to commemorate the centennial, Opperman, 60, said, "We're all afraid to say, 'This is it.'" On Saturday, the extended family gathered at Brandywine Springs State Park, site of the first family picnic in 1910, to continue the legacy and to remember the past.

Shakespeare and the out of doors go together naturally — not surprising, given that many Elizabethans got their first exposure to his plays in an open-air amphitheater. For the better part of 15 years, Bard fans and fireflies have taken in the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival's al fresco season on the meadow behind the Evergreen Museum and Library. And, for nearly a decade, the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company has celebrated the greatest English-language playwright with performances given at the ruins of the Patapsco Female Institute on a hilltop above Ellicott City.

Chesapeake born and bound to thee 'deed I am, I'm Chesapeake free Chesapeake born, Chesapeake Bay bred And when I'm gone, Chesapeake dead! "Chesapeake Born," Tom Wisner With the death this month of Tom Wisner, the colorful Chesapeake Bay folk singer, poet and storyteller whose work captured the spirit and beauty of the bay from Havre de Grace to Point Lookout, the nation's largest estuary lost one of its foremost advocates. At a recent gathering recalling Wisner's life at King's Landing Park in Calvert County, whose education center was named for him, eulogist Gov. Martin O'Malley spoke of his friendship with "The Bay Bard."

When Tom Wisner sang or wrote about the Chesapeake Bay, a task he dedicated his life to doing, he always tried to capture the voice of the water and the sky, of the rocks and the trees, of the fish and the birds, of the gods of nature he believed still watched over it all. The Bard of the Chesapeake Bay, whose music was recorded by the Smithsonian Institution and used in a National Geographic documentary, died of lung cancer April 2 at the Burnett-Calvert...

Shakespeare and the out of doors go together naturally — not surprising, given that many Elizabethans got their first exposure to his plays in an open-air amphitheater. For the better part of 15 years, Bard fans and fireflies have taken in the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival's al fresco season on the meadow behind the Evergreen Museum and Library. And, for nearly a decade, the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company has celebrated the greatest English-language playwright with performances given at the ruins of the Patapsco Female Institute on a hilltop above Ellicott City.

For an ambassador, he is surprisingly casual, in a black sport shirt and nondescript gray pants. No stiff upper lip, no stiff collar, no rigid and pretentious carriage to him. In fact, what you see is a regular bloke flopped on a couch, a bit puffy of face, under a thatch of reddish hair, attended the body over by the faintest sheathing of pudge.But Kenneth Branagh, at 32, is an ambassador: He's the sole representative of the Republic of Shakespeare, in whose love he has labored and not lost on behalf of the great dead white European male who towers over us all, like it or not. To do Shakespeare, or not to do Shakespeare: That is not the question.

Something might be rotten in the state of Denmark, but the future is looking brighter for Baltimore Shakespeare Festival. The festival, which has a new artistic director, a revamped mission and - in its current production of Wittenberg, a modern day "prequel" to H amlet - one of the strongest shows the troupe has mounted in years. For much of the year, the troupe has taken a performing hiatus, while it tended to administrative matters, such as hiring Michael Carleton as the artistic director to replace the departing James Kinstle.

Tom Wisner no longer performs for large crowds, just occasional visitors eager to learn what they can from the 78-year-old folk-singing environmentalist before the tumor in his lungs claims his life. His trademark white beard disappeared after chemotherapy. The treatment made his fingers so sensitive that he no longer plays guitar. For decades, Wisner has been known as the Bard of the Chesapeake Bay: a folk singer, artist, poet, historian and educator whose music celebrates the rivers and the bay. The Smithsonian Institution has recorded Wisner's work, and he was the recipient of the World Folk Music Association's 2002 John Denver Award.