Community Theater

One singer crooned like Sinatra. One twanged in true Conway Twitty style and another gave a credible gravel-voiced impression of Louis Armstrong. And, of course, an Elvis entered the Cow Palace at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium with a guitar and had most of the audience swaying in the seats Thursday before he left the building. The show was called "Baltimore County Seniors Got Talent," and 11 performers proved it in a contest loosely based on the similarly named TV reality show.

Tidewater Players, the community theater of Havre de Grace, is tackling the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning drama, "Proof," by David Auburn. The plot revolves around a brilliant theorem, or proof, discovered after the death of a famous mathematician. But the former professor was mentally ill during the last years of his life, when he was cared for by his younger daughter, Catherine. Is it possible that he wrote the proof? If not, who did? Robert Oppel directs. For Tammy Crisp Oppel, who plays Catherine, it's not the first time she's been in a play directed by her husband.

Genevieve M. Nyborg, who owned an art supply store and was treasurer of a community theater, died of cancer Tuesday at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. She was 84 and lived in Guilford. The former owner and president of Nyborg's Artist and Engineering Supplies at Charles and Hamilton streets in downtown Baltimore, she was also the treasurer of The Spotlighters, a St. Paul Street theater, for 38 years. Born Genevieve Morris in Baltimore and raised in Canton, she was a 1935 graduate of Eastern High School.

Driving down from Bel Air on a dark and windy night, Angela Davis is bound for the bright lights of Broadway.Parked in Fells Point, she pulls open the door that separates the wanna-be's from the willing. Timidly, she peers around the vestibule of the Vagabond Players theater. Then, digging her hands deep in her red parka, she recites the actor's version of the Fifth Amendment."I'm not sure if I'll read," she tells the stage manager.Mrs. Davis, who does read, is among the early arrivals. The next night, several dozen hopefuls are huddled on the faded couches and gold brocade chairs waiting to audition for nine parts in "Hay Fever," a comedy by Noel Coward.

Uniontown Elementary School saw its last pupils a decade ago, but the old building could ring with young voices again if its last principal can persuade Carroll County officials to grant it a new life. The principal, Mary E. Stong, and other members of the Little Community Theatre see the school as an excellent venue for their group. And in the course of drumming up support, other ideas have bubbled up for a re-opened building. "If we get in there, we'll make it a place of wonder," said Arnie Hayes a theater member from Silver Run and a veteran actor, director and producer.

The Cockpit in Court Summer Theatre is in the midst of its 40th anniversary season, a significant milestone for a company that has tackled a sizable breadth of repertoire, from "Lysistrata" to "Hairspray," and maintained wallet-friendly ticket prices the whole time. This year, the troupe, based at the Community College of Baltimore County in Essex, has offered productions of "The King and I" and "Steel Magnolias," as well as a children's show, "Dr. Dolittle. " An eager, if uneven, production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical "Sunset Boulevard" opened last weekend on the main stage; "Laura," a play version of the hit 1940s film, opens Friday in the cabaret theater.

Mary Alice Feather was born into what would become one of the country's best-known political families - she was the sister and aunt of two U.S. senators - but she aspired to achieve fame on Broadway. She spent only a few years trying to succeed in New York, but her love for the stage continued into her final years, when she won acclaim as a mainstay in Baltimore community theater. The Ellicott City resident, who worked as a nurse for 12 years, died of lung cancer Thursday at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care.

They didn't allow too much dancing in the convent.Juanita Barrett remembers a little ballet now and then, but that was about it during the first 18 years of her life with the Franciscan Sisters on Maryland Avenue."

I CONSIDERED Big Little Joey Peske to be a gift from God. It seemed like he fell from the sky one autumn night in 1989 -- a comic comet who, for the next several years, made me and countless other Baltimoreans laugh. This was back when I moonlighted as host of a weeknight talk show on WBAL Radio. The first time Peske called the show and we spoke on the air, he played me like a cheap ukulele. "Danny," he said, in a voice that crossed Tom Waits with George Burns, "you made a big mistake on the answer to tonight's Baltimore trivia quiz."

REGULAR PATRONS of the Colonial Players of Annapolis know only too well that this autumn's season premiere, "And a Nightingale Sang," opened somewhat later than originally scheduled.But the delay was worth it -- not only because of the evocative play about a blue-collar family living in England during World War II, but because a $300,000 face-lift has much improved the ensemble's East Street home.The upgrades include an enlarged lobby and bar where theater-goers can gather and sip beverages, a more functional box office and $70,000 worth of improvements in lighting and sound equipment.