Comedy

What happens when you give a nerd a microphone? I found out Sunday at an open-mike comedy night. Damon's Grill in Hunt Valley hosts a weekly event called Drink 'Til We're Funny. The headliner, Lawrence Owens, was hilarious. But most of the dozen or so amateur comics before him dealt cringe-inducing duds and dirty but not funny jokes. "This is what happens when people from Best Buy drink," one of them said. Too true. People from Best Buy tell jokes about live action role playing (LARP)

Downloaded singles 1.Crank That, Soulja Boy Tell 'Em 2.Stronger, Kanye West 3.How Far We've Come, Matchbox Twenty 4.Bubbly, Colbie Caillat 5.1234, Feist[ITUNES (SEPT. 23)] Downloaded albums 1.Graduation, Kanye West 2.Across the Universe soundtrack, Various artists 3.Reba Duets, Reba McEntire 4.Into the Wild soundtrack, Eddie Vedder 5.Coco, Colbie Caillat[ITUNES (SEPT. 23)] Downloaded TV episodes 1.They Meet Again, The Hills 2.Manhattan Project, Top Chef 3.Maneater, Eureka 4.Blame the Victim, Damages 5.Make Love, Not Warcraft, South Park[ITUNES (SEPT.

CONVERSATIONS WITH WOODY ALLEN Eric Lax Knopf / 416 pages / $30 Compiled over 36 years of interviews, conversations and experiences one could only glean from gaining Allen's confidence and respect, Conversations is essential reading for aspiring filmmakers and those who wish to eventually put finger to keyboard in hopes of telling a story, but it is no less intriguing for simple cinephiles. Broken into eight sections - "The Idea," "Writing It," "Casting, Actors and Acting," "Shooting, Sets, Locations," "Directing," "Editing," "Scoring" and "The Career" - Conversations details not only the creative process but also the psychic burden of the divide between comedy and drama.

Carroll County Health Department is seeking individuals who have had contact with a rabid cat in the Cherokee Drive area of Taylorsville.A large gray domestic cat tested positive Wednesday for rabies after being involved in a biting incident.Anyone who might have had contact with the cat between Jan. 4 and 18 is urged to call Barry Fortune or Matt Helwig at the Health Department at 410-876-1884 during business hours.After hours or weekends: Central Alarm, 410-386-2260.Mount Airy Players to hold auditions for two playsMount Airy Players will hold open auditions for two one-act contemporary comedies written by David Ives and directed by Ken Berry.

Once upon a time, comic actress Margaret Cho was the first Asian-American to star in her own television sitcom, ABC's "All-American Girl." That was 1994 and the fairy tale lasted seven short and devastating months.With TV producers insisting that her face was "too full," some viewers complaining she wasn't Korean enough, and problems with drug and alcohol use, Cho fell into a months-long period of self-abuse and self-recrimination. The show was canceled after just one season, and it took Cho much longer to pull herself together.

Fell's Point Corner Theatre, whose 1996 production of David Ives' "All in the Timing" was one of the highlights of the season, brings another offbeat Ives comedy to Baltimore tomorrow when "Don Juan in Chicago" makes its local premiere.Re-interpreting the legend of Don Juan, Ives sets the first act of his comedy in 16th century Spain and the second in modern-day Chicago. Lili Liang directs a cast headed by Richard Dean Stover as Don Juan and Richard Peck as his sidekick, Leporello. Kara Jackson and Allyson Rosen will alternate in the role of Don Juan's devoted Dona Elvira.

"How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" "Practice, practice practice," goes the old saw.In "2 Pianos, 4 Hands," however, practice lands Ted Dykstra and Richard Greenblatt not on the concert stage, but on the theater stage. The off-Broadway hit opens a monthlong run at the Eisenhower Theater at Washington's Kennedy Center tonight.The two co-stars wrote this comedy about their own experiences as piano students, beginning in boyhood. And, in the course of the play, they demonstrate their progress with selections by composers ranging from Beethoven to Hoagy Carmichael and Elton John.

Who would have thought that Steve Martin -- the comedian with the arrow through his head, the original wild and crazy guy -- would write a play with the serious line: "This is the night the Earth fell quiet and listened to a conversation," and that he would mean it?Well, OK. Maybe he didn't think the entire Earth would listen. But Martin's play, "Picasso at the Lapin Agile," has won the attention of theater audiences across the country. And, as the production at the Mechanic Theatre proves, that attention is deserved.

Michael Frayn's "Noises Off" is the ultimate backstage comedy, the Murphy's Law of farces, a show about a British touring company struggling valiantly to stage -- what else? -- a farce. Columbia Community Players' production of this dauntingly fast-paced comedy opens a three-weekend run tomorrow.Bob Russell directs a cast including Stephen Bruun, Dave Gamble, Mo Dutterer, John Parry, Conni Ross, Amy Smith, Katie Thompson and Sharon Templeton.Columbia Community Players performs at Slayton House in Wilde Lake Village Green, Twin Rivers Road and Lynx Lane, Columbia.

"Jest a Second!" -- the sequel to James Sherman's comedy, "Beau Jest" -- takes place one year later. So it's perfectly fitting that Totem Pole Playhouse is presenting the sequel exactly a year after its success with "Beau Jest."Like "Beau Jest," "Jest a Second!" is being directed by Wil Love, the popular Baltimore-based actor and director who is a longtime favorite at this Fayetteville, Pa., summer theater. In the new comedy, which opens Tuesday, the hero and heroine have married and are expecting a child.

Go see Doug Stanhope at the Ottobar on Friday night, and chances are you'll be angered, outraged, maybe even ticked off beyond all sense of reason. With luck, you'll laugh, too. He is, after all, the comic whose profile in a 2006 issue of British GQ was headlined, "Is This America's Most Depraved Man?" As a comic, he's following in the footsteps of such angry young men as Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Bill Hicks and Lewis Black, ignoring conventions of good taste, cracking jokes about things both hallowed and profane, never meeting a sacred cow he didn't want to gore.

Tim Suhrstedt, born and bred in Catonsville, has the rare distinction of having shot two prominent pictures opening nationally the same day. "All About Steve" and "Extract" are farces, reflecting Suhrstedt's status as one of the go-to guys in movie comedy. But when he attended Catonsville High, he never thought he'd become a top Los Angeles-based cameraman, let alone one with an industrywide reputation for making comedy work visually. It was only when he crafted a Super 8 mm short for a cinema appreciation course at Lehigh University that Suhrstedt developed a case of the film bug. He went to work at Maryland Public Television when it still had a unit that shot on 16 mm film.

The Graduates, a locally produced comedy about four guys just sprung from high school celebrating their newfound freedom in Ocean City, begins a six-day run at Arbutus' R/C Hollywood Cinema 4 today. "The movie is my love letter to Ocean City and growing up in Maryland, and to my friends from that time in my life," says director Ryan Gielen, who has been promoting his movie for much of the past year and taking it on the festival circuit. "I made The Graduates as a response to the wave of insincere and lazy straight-to-DVD coming-of-age comedies that people have grown used to over the last 10 years."

BOOKS Michael Ian Black: at the Baltimore Book Festival: My favorite talking head from the VH1 nostalgia shows heads to Baltimore next weekend to talk about his new book, My Custom Van . According to the publisher: "Never before has a single book combined awesome vans, unicorns, Billy Joel and erotic fiction in such a potent combination." Well, I'm sold. Black goes on at 6 p.m. Saturday. The festival starts Friday and runs all weekend in Mount Vernon Place. For more: baltimorebookfestival .com DVD "Sex and the City" : This sure-handed adaptation of HBO's hit comedy series proved that superheroes aren't the only ones who can fill multiplexes.

Alicia Keys has aspirations of being a rock star, belting over screaming guitars. She also sees herself as a jazz chanteuse, elegantly dressed while scat-singing and improvising melodies on her beloved piano. Then she wants to do more acting -- some drama, maybe comedy -- and establish more charitable efforts. The list of things she wants to accomplish goes on and on. But it's not as if the pop superstar with the seductive, camera-ready face hasn't done a lot already. At 27, with a career that's barely a decade old, she owns 11 Grammys and four multiplatinum albums.

Like many a movie lover and even some Hollywood insiders, Ron Shelton, a writer-director of classic sports comedies, found himself going through comedy withdrawal last fall and winter, when the studios left farce off their schedules and stuffed them instead with protest films and message movies. "Shouldn't we be desperate for laughs when it's dark and gloomy?" Shelton asks, over the phone from sunny Ojai, Calif. "Shouldn't we want comedy in the winter? And who ever said that serious movies can't have a sense of humor?"

Having hope The lowdown -- Classic-rock cover bands Mister Wilson and Ethyl & the Mermen jam for a good cause at the second Concert for Hope. Proceeds from the event support HopeWell Cancer Support, a nonprofit organization that provides free support groups, educational programs and wellness classes for patients and families affected by cancer. If you go -- Doors open at 7 p.m., and the concert starts at 8 p.m. Saturday at Recher Theatre, 512 York Road, Towson. Tickets are $25-$30. Call 410-832-2719 or go to concertforhope .net.

Mo'Nique doesn't pull any punches. Whether it's with her stand-up routine, in her previous on-screen roles or in a fight sequence between her character and Martin Lawrence's in the new film Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, it's evident that the Woodlawn native sometimes hits too close for comfort. On the set of her new film, Lawrence had to warn her about her rampant punches. "I told him I was sorry!" she says. "But I told them ... I ain't no stunt person!" It was Mo'Nique's ability to play such abrasive and assertive roles in the past that made director Malcolm D. Lee write the role of Betty Jenkins - the sassy and promiscuous sister of the title character - specifically for her. But off the set and sitting in the WJZ-TV studios during a recent interview, Mo'Nique, 40, paints a very different picture of herself.

CONVERSATIONS WITH WOODY ALLEN Eric Lax Knopf / 416 pages / $30 Compiled over 36 years of interviews, conversations and experiences one could only glean from gaining Allen's confidence and respect, Conversations is essential reading for aspiring filmmakers and those who wish to eventually put finger to keyboard in hopes of telling a story, but it is no less intriguing for simple cinephiles. Broken into eight sections - "The Idea," "Writing It," "Casting, Actors and Acting," "Shooting, Sets, Locations," "Directing," "Editing," "Scoring" and "The Career" - Conversations details not only the creative process but also the psychic burden of the divide between comedy and drama.

INSIDE TODAY WHAT THEY'RE SAYING TODAY'S SUN COLUMNISTS Better Apple picking Apple's iPhone is a fantastic gadget, but most of us can get its most important bennies from a newer Apple toy that's a better value - the iPod Touch. Business baltimoresun.com/himowitz Going swimming, deer? An astounded Baltimore County couple discovers five partygoers in their pool, one is buck naked except for a pair of antlers. Maryland baltimoresun.com/rodricks OTHER VOICES Peter Schmuck on the World Series -- Sports Rashod D. Ollison on CD releases -- Live David Steele on Art Modell -- Sports 5 THINGS TO DO TODAY Haunted mansion -- Halloween Hauntings at the Carroll Mansion, a murder mystery ghost tour.