Center Stage

Fairy tales seem like so much fun until you start paying attention. All that violence and vengeance, the spookiness, illusion, deceit. "And ah, the woods," as Stephen Sondheim writes in his latest book. "The all-purpose symbol of the unconscious, the womb, the past, the dark place where we have our trials and emerge wiser or destroyed. " In one of his most imaginative contributions to the Broadway musical, Sondheim invites audiences to step "Into the Woods," where a mash-up of fairy tales, tribulations and discoveries await characters and audiences alike.

Steel Panther and James Durbin performed at Rams Head Live on Thursday night. Contributor Jay Trucker has this review: Comedy clubs are littered with guys who can strum the guitar and tell jokes concurrently, but the key to a great musical comedy act is the strength of their musicianship. As with Weird Al and Spinal Tap, Steel Panther demonstrate talent comparable and at times superior to the acts they parody.   The '80s glam-metal foursome formed in 2000 according to its bio (or in 1988 according to the “bio”)

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.

Kwame Kwei-Armah is doing his utmost to speed up the transitions. Center Stage 's new artistic director strides back and forth along the stage where the troupe's production of "The Whipping Man" is being rehearsed, scrutinizing the set from all angles. He brings in more helpers. He removes obstacles from the actors' paths and cuts out extra steps. He signals the precise moment when two bags of loot are flung through an open doorway and land on the floor with a muffled thump.

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.

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.

Perhaps now, the rest of us will have our say. If there is an overriding hope for the Oct. 30 "Rally to Restore Sanity" that "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart is holding in Washington, surely that's it: a simple prayer that maybe the rest of us will finally be able to get a word in edgewise. The comedian's rally — a "call to reasonableness" it says on the "Daily Show" website — promises a welcome antidote to the tide of craziness now engulfing this country. My colleague, cartoonist Jim Morin, did this great animation on The Miami Herald's website (www.

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...

With its new production of "Around the World in 80 Days," Center Stage is launching on an odyssey as daring and fraught with peril as the one undertaken by Jules Verne's fictitious explorer, Phileas Fogg. For the first time in the venue's 46-year history, the organization is trying to capture that most maddeningly elusive of creatures - young theatergoers. And the troupe is scooping them up one Mud Pie Mojo ice cream cup at a time. "Never before in recent memory has Center Stage marketed a show to families and children," says David Henderson, the troupe's communications director.

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.

Fairy tales seem like so much fun until you start paying attention. All that violence and vengeance, the spookiness, illusion, deceit. "And ah, the woods," as Stephen Sondheim writes in his latest book. "The all-purpose symbol of the unconscious, the womb, the past, the dark place where we have our trials and emerge wiser or destroyed. " In one of his most imaginative contributions to the Broadway musical, Sondheim invites audiences to step "Into the Woods," where a mash-up of fairy tales, tribulations and discoveries await characters and audiences alike.

After a performance of "The Addams Family," the Broadway musical now playing at the Hippodrome Theatre, a tall, bald, mustachioed man went backstage to greet the cast - the original, the ultimate Gomez Addams, John Astin. Douglas Sills, who portrays the head of the spooky household in the musical, dropped to the floor and did an elaborate kowtow. "You're a hero," Sills said. "Thank you for passing the torch to us. " That torch was lit 48 years ago, when the "The Addams Family" series debuted, fleshing out the slightly spooky, thoroughly contented characters created by New Yorker cartoonist Charles Addams.

In the prop department at Center Stage , crew members have worked themselves to the bone for their latest production. They had to create nearly 200 realistic-looking skulls and 400 femur, humerus and radius bones — not to mention pelvises — needed for the run of Martin McDonagh's bleak and brilliant comedy, "A Skull in Connemara," which closes next weekend. At each performance, two actors go through a pulverization ritual in Act 2, seizing mallets and laying waste to three skulls and a handful of other human remains sitting on top of a big wooden table.

INDIANAPOLIS - The Ravens have drafted an interior offensive lineman in the first round just once in team history, taking Auburn left guard Ben Grubbs with the 29th pick in the 2007 draft. They are picking in the same spot again this April, and that plan could repeat itself in an effort to find Grubbs' replacement. Offensive linemen took center stage at the first full day of the NFL scouting combine at Lucas Oil Stadium. They interviewed with teams, underwent psychological and physical testing and then met with the media.

There's a lot of talk in Irish playwright Martin McDonagh's "A Skull in Connemara," and some of what its characters say may even be true. Sadness and violence also percolate just beneath the surface of the jocular banter, prompting uneasy laughter from the audience at Center Stage. That volatile mix of emotions is something of a trademark for McDonagh, whose credits include "The Beauty Queen of Leenane," "The Lonesome West" and "The Cripple of Inishmaan. " He knows how to pull you into an amusing story and then jolt you with its less amusing undercurrents.

More than 200 girls and their American Girl dolls hit the runway at Towson Town Center on Saturday, Jan. 28. The walk was short and the line was long, but there were smiles all around. "I got to tell the guy what I liked," said Savannah Shafer, 7, of Lutherville, with her look-alike American Girl doll after walking the runway. "I wasn't nervous," she said, smiling. "I like playing with my American Girl online. " All of the girls participating had a chance of being selected for the American Girl Fashion Show, to be held March 24 and 25 at the Hippodrome Theater.

Debbie Chinn will step down from Center Stage after a whirlwind two years as managing director of Baltimore's largest and best-known regional theater — a decision she says she initiated. Chinn, 53, announced her resignation Tuesday during a meeting of Center Stage staff. "There were gasps," she said, adding that she will leave at the end of December. "These are extraordinary times that require bold decisions," Chinn said. "I've been thinking about this for quite some time and became convinced that Center Stage should be free to chart its own course without being confined by past practices — even if that meant reconsidering my own position.

There's a lot of talk in Irish playwright Martin McDonagh's "A Skull in Connemara," and some of what its characters say may even be true. Sadness and violence also percolate just beneath the surface of the jocular banter, prompting uneasy laughter from the audience at Center Stage. That volatile mix of emotions is something of a trademark for McDonagh, whose credits include "The Beauty Queen of Leenane," "The Lonesome West" and "The Cripple of Inishmaan. " He knows how to pull you into an amusing story and then jolt you with its less amusing undercurrents.

Even in his first job, Stephen Richard showed a flair for devising unorthodox methods of helping a cash-strapped California theater festival make ends meet. "In Los Angeles in the early 1980s, it was kind of the custom that when a rock group went off tour, the crew got a bonus by selling the equipment off the back of the truck," he said during an interview in his new work space at Center Stage . "Their wasn't much market for used stuff, and it was kind of expected. They'd back the truck right up to our door.

Doris Randall hadn't worn her brown bomber mink coat in ages. Her full-length shearling coat got even less use - she wore it about twice in the 15 years since her husband gave it to her. She considered giving the garments to charity before discovering Seleh's De Federal Hill, a tailor and furrier specializing in remodeling leathers and furs. A few months later, Randall had a new three-quarter-length coat for herself and a contemporary-looking mink vest with black sweater sleeves that she gave to her daughter.