Center Stage

With its intimate account of working-class black men and women, the late August Wilson's 10-play cycle chronicling the African-American experience in the 20th century catapulted him into the pantheon of great American playwrights. Wilson is also box-office gold. The 2007-2008 theater season includes 30 productions of Wilson's work, making him the year's most widely produced playwright, according to American Theatre Magazine. Center Stage will begin performances of Joe Turner's Come and Gone this week; Everyman Theatre will stage Gem of the Ocean in March; and the playwright's 10-play chronicle will unfold in its entirety as a series of staged readings at Washington's Kennedy Center in March and April.

Psychiatrists, skinheads, underground radicals and horse rustling. It's hard to find a pattern in the subjects of award-winning playwright Willy Holtzman's works. As he put it, he's attracted to dramatic stories that draw on "factual, historical material." But if Holtzman's plays before Hearts, which opens tonight at Center Stage, had anything in common - it's that they had nothing to do with him. Self-conscious about his "cookie-cutter background" as a baby boomer growing up in Missouri, Holtzman has, as a rule, shied away from anything autobiographical.

Center Stage announced last week that it has wrapped up a $6.8 million fundraising campaign to shore up its endowment, and to plan a major building project expected to take place in a few years. The $6.8 million in pledges includes an increase of $4 million to the theater's endowment, bringing it to $20 million. It also includes $2.8 million for physical improvements to the building that already have been completed, and to plan a redesign of the entire theater complex. The success of the fundraising campaign "demonstrates the community's commitment to Center Stage and the theater's core mission," Lynn Deering, president of Center Stage's board of trustees, says in a news release.

The Children's Theater Association is trying something new for its holiday production. The company, which conducts after-school classes for children ages 3-13, is mounting an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen" that incorporates scenes scripted by children who play roles in the ensemble."

Two performers are making their theatrical debuts in Center Stage's current production of "An Ideal Husband, and though they don't have any lines, chances are, anyone who sees the show won't forget them.That's because Oliver and Wicket are canines -- a Jack Russell terrier and a Shetland sheep dog -- who alternate in the role of "Dog." Although there is no such role in Oscar Wilde's play, Oliver's owner, Jonna Gane Lazarus explained, "This is really an Irene [Lewis] thing."This isn't the first time Lewis, artistic director of Center Stage and director of "An Ideal Husband," has added dogs to a production.

Sunday's radio auction for Center Stage raised $177,823, bringing the 22-year auction total to more than $2 million."We're delighted, absolutely," said Sydney Wilner, coordinator for the Baltimore theater's auction. Sunday's figure was the second highest in its history.The top item was a 10-day Caribbean cruise, donated by Holland America Line Westours, which fetched $4,340 from Virginia Humphries, a businesswoman from Eldersburg. Humphries was also the successful bidder on two other trips -- a six-night stay in St. Maarten and a week in Snowbird, Utah.

As I overheard someone in the audience say, "Dracula" "has been done to death." John L. Balderston and Hamilton Deane's adaptation of Bram Stoker's vampire tale is probably best known as the 1931 Bela Lugosi movie. It re-surfaced four decades later in a sexy stage version starring Frank Langella. And the play has been a Halloween perennial at little theaters.So here it is, ensconced at the Spotlighters for the month of October. As directed by Melainie Eifert and Ron Gregory, with a set designed by Mitchell A. Nathan, the production turns the entire tiny theater into a kind of Halloween funhouse.

From a controversial performance artist to Rodgers and Hammerstein, from the gritty sensibility of Eric Bogosian to a hit musical about a sinking ship, area theaters will usher in the new century with a little of everything this season.Musical lovers have a mix of old and new to choose from, starting at the Lyric Opera House on Sept. 21, when Richard Chamberlain plays Captain von Trapp in the Broadway revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "The Sound of Music." In December, Maury Yeston and Peter Stone's 1997 Tony Award-winning musical, "Titanic," sails into the Mechanic Theatre, which will also present the 1998 Tony-winning revival of Kander and Ebb's "Cabaret" next June.

It's not a play. It's not a revue. I'm thinking of a term called 'dancescape theater,' " Dianne McIntyre says, trying to zero in on a genre for "I Could Stop on a Dime and Get Ten Cents Change," the show she conceived, choreographed and directed. Based on the stories and reminiscences of her 84-year-old father, F. Benjamin McIntyre, a member of the black middle class who grew up in Cleveland, the show opens Wednesday at Center Stage.If McIntyre has trouble categorizing her theatrical production, it's probably because she approaches theater from the perspective of a dancer and choreographer, not a playwright.

A large-scale production of the Irish tragicomedy, "The Hostage," and the East Coast premiere of Eric Bogosian's new play, "Griller," will highlight the 1999-2000 season at Center Stage.Written by Brendan Behan in 1958 and set in a Dublin pub, "The Hostage" will be presented in the Head Theater, which will be re-configured into a cabaret format. "It's sort of free-flowing in the sense that the waiters and waitresses in the cabaret setting will probably be extras," said Center Stage artistic director Irene Lewis in announcing the season.

On Monday night, Tyrone Stokes will stand up on stage and tell a paying audience about the "heavy season" that he likens to the final quarter of a football game, "when I was trying to get help for my loved one, who is mentally ill, before the clock ran out." Cher Beasley will describe how the medication she was taking to treat agoraphobia had an unusual and unwanted side effect. "I started lactating at age 15, resulting in the justifiable question from my peers, 'Are you preggers?' I was mortified."

Oscar Wilde wouldn't be the least surprised to find that, in 2009, we still live "in an age of surfaces," as Lady Bracknell laments in "The Importance of Being Earnest." Or that the only people who "speak disrespectfully of Society" are those who "can't get into it." Not much has really changed since Wilde's brilliant comedy ignited the London theater world in 1895. Human beings remain just as silly and vapid as ever, proving daily one of the many delectable maxims that flies through the play: "In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing."

In 1963, 13-year-old John Rothman watched and listened intently as his father and several other prominent Baltimoreans sat around the family dining room table planning a crucial element in the city's cultural life. "They were talking about how Ford's Theatre was being torn down and how there would be no professional theater here," Rothman says. "So they were going to found one." The result was Center Stage. Donald Rothman, a prominent lawyer who died in June at age 86, guided the creation of the company and its move in the early 1970s to its present location on North Calvert Street.

TODAY EXPERIMENTAL ANIMATION: This week's revival screening at the Charles Theatre, 1711 N. Charles St., is a presentation of hand-made experimental animation. The screening takes place at 9 p.m. Tickets are $8. Call 410-727-3464 or go to thecharles.com. STYLE AT THE STATION: A little shopping therapy never hurt anyone, but it's even better when the money you spend goes to a good cause - a charity of the retailer's choice. Green Spring Station, at Joppa and Falls roads, offers three days of promotions and fashion tips.

Margaret Mary Sullivan, a longtime Maryland Public Television producer who produced award-winning cooking shows with such gastronomic legends as Julia Child, Pierre Franey and Jacques Pepin, died Tuesday at Good Samaritan Hospital of complications from surgery. The Hamilton resident was 62. Born in Baltimore and raised on Thornberry Road in Mount Washington, Miss Sullivan graduated from Maryvale Preparatory School in 1965. "When we were kids, she loved piling into the car and going out to the Painters Mill Music Fair to watch shows under the big tent.

When it comes to hip-hop, Baltimore doesn't have too many nationally recognized artists. The major hip-hop record labels focus on cities like New York and Atlanta and spend little time or attention on Baltimore. Musician and event organizer Jamel Jones, who knows there's no easy fix for the situation, hopes that wide-reaching events at well-regarded venues are a step in the right direction. That's why Jones, a 28-year-old Baltimore native, helped put together Burn Tha Mic, an evening of hip-hop, R&B and gospel performances.

Bilal Ali wants to start a dialogue with kids about music. He's done that with his own children, now 21 and 23, and he's hoping the Baltimore Music Festival, which takes place Saturday at Center Stage, will give others that chance, too. Ali, president and CEO of Bilal Ali Productions, organized the concert, which will feature performances by spoken-word, gospel, R&B, jazz and neo-soul artists, to bring attention to local music. "Music is the only art form that transcends race, gender and the other foolishness we get bogged down in," he says.

SATURDAY Dan Deacon: Baltimore's own Maniacal Music Minister always throws one heck of a party. This Awesome Summer Blowout of the ever-popular TaxLo dance party featuring eccentric pop music composer Deacon is sure to be a smash. Tickets are $12 in advance and $15 at the door. 8 p.m. Sonar is at 407 E. Saratoga St. Call 410-783-7888 or go to sonarbaltimore.com. Children's event: From WMAR's children's program The Kinderman Show, Kindersinger will perform as part of the Port Discovery Children's Museum's Super Saturday: Super Summer Time!

Donald N. Rothman, a retired trial attorney who was a force in regional arts and theater groups, died of respiratory failure Monday at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. The Broadmead resident was 86. After helping to found Center Stage in 1963 and move it to its Calvert Street home in the 1970s, he went on to become board president of the Baltimore School for the Arts and was an Everyman Theatre adviser at his death. "Donald was a fabulous leader and a driving force behind Center Stage in its infancy," said television personality Rhea Feikin, one of the theater troupe's original players.

The 23rd Annual Benefit Gala may have been celebrating Center Stage and its programs. But for many of the guests at the theater's annual shindig, this night was all about outgoing board president Lynn Deering, who was stepping down after six years on the job. "She is so hard working. I mean, she has devoted herself to the Center Stage board. [She put in] thousands of hours - fundraising, legislative work; things that she's never done before. She put her whole heart and soul into doing this," said Lainy LeBow-Sachs, executive vice president for external relations for the Kennedy Krieger Institute.