Characters

Forget the water cooler - or any other public space like social media or the Internet. When a TV show strikes the kind of psychic chords that HBO's “Game of Thrones” did last week with its blood-drenched Red Wedding sequence, the morning-after conversation is just as likely to find its way into the very private realm of a therapist's office. That's what happened at the Potomac practice of psychiatrist Dr. Michael Brody, anyway. “All season with this show, I start hearing about it from my patients on Monday,” Brody says.

Ever wonder what comic book icon Stan Lee smells like? It's a mix of bergamot, ginger, white pepper, basil, violet, and finished off with cedar, vetiver and musk. The creator of popular Marvel Comics characters such as the X-Men and the Hulk teamed with the Lutherville-based JADS International to create his namesake scent, Stan Lee Signature Cologne. The company describes the cologne as a "fresh and sophisticated fragrance for the adventurous. " Andrew Levine, 48, chief executive officer of JADS International, said the collaboration is the result of meeting Lee at a Comic-Con event in Philadelphia last year.

Ever wonder what comic book icon Stan Lee smells like? It's a mix of bergamot, ginger, white pepper, basil, violet, and finished off with cedar, vetiver and musk. The creator of popular Marvel Comics characters such as the X-Men and the Hulk teamed with the Lutherville-based JADS International to create his namesake scent, Stan Lee Signature Cologne. The company describes the cologne as a "fresh and sophisticated fragrance for the adventurous. " Andrew Levine, 48, chief executive officer of JADS International, said the collaboration is the result of meeting Lee at a Comic-Con event in Philadelphia last year.

Forget the water cooler - or any other public space like social media or the Internet. When a TV show strikes the kind of psychic chords that HBO's “Game of Thrones” did last week with its blood-drenched Red Wedding sequence, the morning-after conversation is just as likely to find its way into the very private realm of a therapist's office. That's what happened at the Potomac practice of psychiatrist Dr. Michael Brody, anyway. “All season with this show, I start hearing about it from my patients on Monday,” Brody says.

Could a production titled "Daddy's Girl" by a little-known playwright from Kansas offer rewarding theater? Gary Ray Stapp, who wrote his first play in 2003, sets this story - staged by Bowie Community Theater - in an eatery called Maudie's Diner and fills it with masterful one-liners and amusingly quirky characters. "Daddy's Girl" follows 25-year widower and diner proprietor Benard Muloovy as he tries to identify his long-lost daughter. A portrait of Benard's wife, Maudie, hangs on the diner wall, talking to him and enlisting the help of an angel to reunite her husband with their child Elizabeth.

One actress, five characters Theatre Project's season gets under way tomorrow with the world premiere of "Pandora's Box," a one-woman show about the interwoven lives of five diverse women. The tale of everyday heroism stars Kate Redway as: a 12-year-old girl coping with her father's death, a 30-something dominatrix, a 91-year-old Jewish widow, a lesbian construction worker and the white mother of four adopted black children. Produced by the New Jersey-based RPM Productions, "Pandora's Box" is written by Daria Finn, a construction-worker-turned-playwright.

Last week, the producers of the Fox medical drama House pulled off one of the more difficult tricks in TV these days: They cut through the clutter of a not-so-terrific year for prime-time scripted series and caused a major stir with the out-of-the-blue suicide of a character, Dr. Lawrence Kutner (Kal Penn). The shocking gunshot wound to the head of this make-believe character gave birth to a host of real-life questions as to how we relate to TV, how the networks sometimes exploit our devotion to beloved characters, and how new media, like Facebook and Twitter, are making fictional characters more a part of our everyday lives than ever.

In yesterday's Maryland Live section, one of the actresses was misidentified in the photograph accompanying the review of the Avalon Theater Company's production of "A Very Fine House." The correct identification is Michelle Bar-av (on left) and Marge Goering.The Sun regrets the errors.When Crosby, Stills & Nash recorded "Our House," group living meant communes, tofu and free love. In Carol Weinberg's "A Very Fine House," which takes its name from that song, group living means a retirement home, pitted prunes and Social Security.

Even back then, when he was still creating with words the enchanted Broadway that would become internationally celebrated through Frank Loesser's beloved musical, "Guys and Dolls," Damon Runyon was himself perplexed, and maybe a little off-put, by all the fuss about "Runyonesque characters" and the question, posed by interlopers, of what made one. He wrote about this sometime, as best I can tell, in the early 1940s."

Jungle plants extend off the stage, reaching toward the audience. An African drum beat sounds, and a story of the beginning of the world begins, "My Best Beloved." Armed with creativity and charm, Glenelg Country School last week pulled the audience into the magical African world of Just So. Based on Rudyard Kipling's "Just So Stories," the performance combines Kipling's stories in one musical. In the beginning of the world, the Eldest Magician created all the animals, only to realize that they are all the same.

I think Edith Bunker did more to liberate the caged American housewife than Betty Friedan ever did. The author of "The Feminine Mystique" is the one who identified the nameless dissatisfaction of women at home with the kids and the kitchen chores. But it was Archie Bunker's wife, Edith - so memorably portrayed by Jean Stapleton, who died last week at 90 - who brought it home, literally. "All in The Family" was the most popular show on network television for years in the 1970s - back in the days of appointment television, when families gathered together to watch their favorite shows.

The Obama White House has been trying to de-legitimize Fox News almost from the day it took office. Remember the media blitz of 2009 launched by then White House Communications Director Anita Dunn? I stood with Fox on that one on principle and came away impressed with the almost tribal unity that Roger Ailes inspired in his troops in the face of White House pressure. Ailes showed more of that Thursday with a memo sent to the Fox newsroom. Read it below, and try to tell me he's not right.

100 Years Ago Sheep vs. dogs "It is reported that Mr. Harold Hopkins had a large number of sheep killed by dogs last Sunday morning.  "Wanted: A woman to cook, wash and clean, and remain at night, good wages. Mrs. James Steward. Hill St. Ellicott City.  "Wanted: Two good farm and garden hands $8.00 per week, good house. All year around employment. Apply to B.M. Baker, Ingleside" I wonder whether that $8 is for two farm workers or for one, probably for two, $8 and a house would most likely be too much of a windfall for one person.

Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice will be the first player featured during the upcoming season in USA's "NFL Characters Unite" campaign, the cable channel will announce later today. Rice will also announce an expanded relationship between the NFL and USA at the upfront TV presentations in New York City later today. Here's the release from USA: NEW YORK - May 16, 2012 - USA Network announced today that it is expanding its Characters Unite collaboration with the National Football League.

As the television networks announced their fall schedules during this week's upfronts, news was pretty mixed for TV's LGBT characters. The good news first: Former "Will & Grace" star Sean Hayes is returning to NBC with a new sitcom bound to touch on gay issues. In "Sean Saves the World," the openly gay Hayes stars as a divorced gay dad raising a teenage daughter (Sami Isler) with the aid of his overbearing mother (Linda Lavin). Judging by the trailer , the show will tread on conventional multi-camera sitcom ground, especially with that pushy laugh track.

Charles Kelley stands in Baltimore's historic Lexington Market, chowing down on a Faidley's overstuffed crab cake sandwich. It doesn't bother the 37-year-old North Carolina man that the market doesn't have gourmet coffee, wine or cheese shops. He's OK with the faded signs and the dirty floor. As jumbo lump crab meat spills out of his sandwich, Kelley is in a state of bliss. "I've had crab cake sandwiches all over," he says, "and this is the best. " While devotees such as Kelley, who come from long distances for the renowned seafood at the 231-year-old market, are content with their surroundings, city officials are hoping to attract a broader audience.

Ever since Edgar Allan Poe invented the genre, there have been three areas of concern in mysteries: plotting, character development and environment. Some writers -- Agatha Christie jumps to mind -- enjoy immense success with plotting alone.Add character development to strong plotting and you get P. D. James. Dick Francis has found a winning formula pushing wooden characters through fascinating plots in wonderfully detailed environments. All three elements -- a strong plot, and strong characters living in a fully realized world -- are found only in the works of mystery's masters: the American icon Raymond Chandler, the underappreciated Australian Arthur W. Upfield, the prolific Belgian Georges Simenon.

A cast of colorful papier-mache creations made by local middle school students are introducing young patrons to popular storybook characters at Mount Airy Branch Library.From Eric Carle's hungry little caterpillar to Dr. Seuss' cat in a red and white hat, members of the Mount Airy Middle School's eighth-grade Palette Club used paper, paste, paint and plentiful portions of imagination to make 14 child-pleasing figures.The middle school artists, accompanied by art teacher and club adviser Elizabeth Fabritius, presented the marvelous menagerie to the Children's Department of the library after school May 12.The characters represent nearly a school year's worth of work by club members, who began their individual projects with sketches of favorite book characters.

In 1936, Clare Booth Luce surprised theatergoers with “The Women,” a snappy - and snapping - play about catty New York socialities and wannabes, performed by an all-female cast. Three decades later, Canadian playwright Michel Tremblay delivered a kind of flip side. Tremblay's “Les Belles Soeurs” (“The Sisters-in-Law”), which has been given an intriguing production at Fells Point Corner Theatre, consists solely of female characters. These Montreal ladies are on a much lower socio-economic level than Luce's rhymes-with-”itchy” types, but just as prone to gossip, prejudgments and back-stabbing - and likewise capable of being awfully amusing.