FEATURES
By Sloane Brown, Special to The Baltimore Sun | May 16, 2010
Board member Terry Morgenthaler was a standout at the Center Stage gala in a grrr-ly Dolce & Gabbana number. The 55-year-old Ruxton resident loves fashion but knows where she can push the envelope and where she can't. Her style? "Classic with an edge — that's what everybody says. ... I like to be chic, but appropriate for my age," the Friends School badminton coach said. The look : Tan and red two-tone leopard print chiffon Dolce & Gabbana sheath dress. Black satin peep-toe Jimmy Choo pumps with multi-color crystal flowers.
ENTERTAINMENT
By Tim Smith | tim.smith@baltsun.com | January 21, 2010
It's harder than ever to prove that beauty is only skin-deep, since so much skin is routinely nipped, tucked, exfoliated, moisturized and colorized, all at enormous expense, in the eternal quest for looking hot. But the message of self-acceptance espoused so nobly more than a century ago in Edmond Rostand's play about the nasally gifted Cyrano de Bergerac can still resonate today, if given half a chance. Resonate it does in "Cyrano," an adaptation of Rostand's original five acts currently getting a breezy treatment at Center Stage, part of the company's "Short Work" series, and presented in the Head Theater.
ENTERTAINMENT
By Mary Carole McCauley, The Baltimore Sun | April 18, 2010
The actress and singer E. Faye Butler blazes away on stage like a human campfire. Audience members want to draw close, sit shoulder to shoulder in a ring around her and warm their hands. This is true when Butler is playing characters who are likable, such as the legendary blues singer Ella Fitzgerald, or as the African-American actress battling racial stereotypes in Alice Childress' "Trouble in Mind." But it is equally true when she's playing a role less likely to draw the audience's sympathies, such as the dour maid and title character Butler portrayed in Tony Kushner's "Caroline, or Change," or the at-times ruthless diva at the center of the production of "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" now running at Center Stage.
ENTERTAINMENT
By Tim Smith, The Baltimore Sun | October 8, 2011
In the age when a 140-character tweet is about as literary as some folks get, and when the most obvious of observations or lamest of jokes can elicit a "LOL" response, there's something doubly refreshing about the opportunity to indulge in the long, luscious feast of language and humor currently on the boards at Center Stage . Richard Brinsley Sheridan's "The Rivals" follows in the daunting footsteps of Shakespeare's most sparkling and plot-thick...
ENTERTAINMENT
By Tim Smith | tim.smith@baltsun.com | December 10, 2009
In 1992, David Sedaris rose - almost elf-like, you might say - into the spotlight by reading from his essay "The Santaland Diaries" on NPR's Morning Edition. With his soft-grained voice and disarmingly understated style of delivery, Sedaris broke a lot of people up recounting his experiences at Macy's in New York, dressed as one of Santa's helpers, guiding kids and their control-freaky parents toward the place where Christmas gift wishes could be expressed and, at least theoretically, granted.
ENTERTAINMENT
By Tim Smith, The Baltimore Sun | March 16, 2013
Center Stage seems to have a thing for public accommodations these days. The company's last play was set in a nondescript motel room. The current one is set in a nondescript hotel room. The deja vu feeling is intensified since both productions have been presented in the intimate Head Theatre, with the stage in the exact same position, and by the fact that the first character to enter goes directly into the bathroom. The similarities are all coincidental, of course, but still intriguing, especially when it comes to the mix of humor and some pretty serious stuff that fills each piece.