Emily Dickinson

Baltimore actress Tana Hicken will perform "The Belle of Amherst," William Luce's one-woman play about the reclusive 19th-century American poet Emily Dickinson, on Saturday and Sunday at the Gordon Center for Performing Arts.A member of the acting company at Washington's Arena Stage and former leading actress at Center Stage, Hicken has performed "The Belle of Amherst" at various venues over the past 15 years. She has described Luce's popular biographical play as "an affirmation of the joy of living and of nature."

In her end-of-season program note, Bay Theatre Company co-founder and artistic director Janet Luby refers to "the astonishing success of Bay Theatre's 2011-2012 season," and promised that this season's final production would do justice to the preceding three performances. Bay's current production is William Luce's 1976 biographical play "The Belle of Amherst," a one-woman depiction of the life of 19th-century American poet Emily Dickinson from about age 15 until her death in 1886.

In her end-of-season program note, Bay Theatre Company co-founder and artistic director Janet Luby refers to "the astonishing success of Bay Theatre's 2011-2012 season," and promised that this season's final production would do justice to the preceding three performances. Bay's current production is William Luce's 1976 biographical play "The Belle of Amherst," a one-woman depiction of the life of 19th-century American poet Emily Dickinson from about age 15 until her death in 1886.

Kutcher tweets to victory over CNN Actor Ashton Kutcher triumphed over CNN in their race to be the first to reach a million followers on the microblogging Web site Twitter. Kutcher surpassed that benchmark early Friday. At the same time, Oprah Winfrey made her entry to Twitter, joining the site and holding a Twitter special on her show Friday. She gained 100,000 followers in less than a day. Sun critic honored Baltimore Sun film critic Michael Sragow was chosen this week as one of the two top winners of the National Award for Arts Writing.

Composer Mark Lanz Weiser, writer Peter M. Krask and soprano Elizabeth Knauer sit under a tree in Mount Vernon Place trying to describe "Rendezvous of Light.""A music theater piece," its composer suggests, attempting to distinguish it from musical comedy or opera."Music theater drama," contributes Knauer, who stars as Emily Dickinson in the biographical one-woman show. The first-ever commission by the Young Victorian Theatre Company, "Rendezvous" will receive its world premiere tonight at Bryn Mawr School.

The picture of poet Emily Dickinson created by The Belle of Amherst and by actress Tana Hicken is startlingly robust. It's a portrait of the artist not as a tormented genius, but as a bit of a scamp. Eccentric, perhaps, but charming. Certainly, someone you might like to know. And it's a framing that intentionally downplays the poet's famously odd behavior. If Dickinson became a recluse at age 39, never venturing beyond her garden and hiding from visitors, it wasn't because she was fragile.

It's hard to say how much a performance owes to the actor who gives it and how much to the director who shapes it. In Rep Stage's production of The Belle of Amherst, it doesn't matter. Actor Tana Hicken and her husband, Donald Hicken, who directed, have worked together to produce an impressive portrait of Emily Dickinson. Dickinson (1830-1886) spent her life in a Massachusetts college town. As an adult, she never left her house but divided her time between performing everyday domestic chores and writing inward and personal poetry.

AMHERST, Mass. -- Emily Dickinson scholars call it "the war between the houses." The feud started in the last years of the poet's life with her brother's scandalous love affair, in which the rivals for his affection were the poet's best friend and her poetry's most important champion. It became public with a vengeful lawsuit on which all of late-19th-century Amherst took sides. It drew in Dickinson's literary heirs and editors. It was carried on by the children of the original combatants.

what did Emily Dickinson knowabout lifepouring out rhymesin a finite universethat threatened to swallowher poetry wholewhat did Emily Dickinson knowabout lifewith her spinster's heartand virgin manuscriptsa cool nucleussurrounded by evanescent energiesshe flung stars into the faces of planetsthat knew only how to remain smugas their orbits declined

"Shortly after Emily's death, her sister Lavinia came to me actually trembling with excitement. She had discovered a veritable treasure -- a box full of Emily's poems.''So Mabel Loomis Todd describes the initial stages of Emily Dickinson's literary debut. Mrs. Todd's role in that debut raised some serious questions about the authorship of Emily Dickinson's poems. These questions are made more serious by the recent publication of ''New Poems of Emily Dickinson,'' edited by William H. Shurr.

THERE ONCE was a man from St. Paul/Who went to a fancy dress ball./He said, `Yes, I'll risk it. I'll go as a biscuit!'/And a dog ate him up in the hall."

Summer is shorter than any one - Life is shorter than Summer - Seventy Years is spent as quick As an only Dollar - - Emily Dickinson Summer seems shorter every year. School systems cut down summer in her prime, calling all the young inside by the end of August. Football and soccer coaches blow their whistles a week before that. And music faculty practice with marching bands and cheerleading squads as soon as August begins. What is going on here? Swimming pools, without exception, lock their gates at dusk on Labor Day. Swimming into September does not have a chance anymore.

Regardless of one's beliefs, this is the season of hope. This time of year, we each hearken to the same seasonal chord: the dawning of the light and the promise of the New Year. Emily Dickinson (Dickinson, Pocket Poets series, Alfred A. Knopf, 26 pages, $12.50) wrote, "Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul." In her inimitable way, the poet put her finger right upon it: Hope is perhaps the most elusive of all human traits; it can leave at any moment, fly out from our souls, never to be coaxed back.

AMHERST, Mass. -- Emily Dickinson scholars call it "the war between the houses." The feud started in the last years of the poet's life with her brother's scandalous love affair, in which the rivals for his affection were the poet's best friend and her poetry's most important champion. It became public with a vengeful lawsuit on which all of late-19th-century Amherst took sides. It drew in Dickinson's literary heirs and editors. It was carried on by the children of the original combatants.

For all the quirky, laughable street names that grace Columbia's boxy blue street signs, the addresses could have been worse -- much worse. Columbians could be living on truly bizarre streets such as Liquid Prelude, Wagon Tongue Way or Purple Haze Road. Instead, more than 95,000 Columbians make their homes on far more mystically named roadways such as Enchanted Solitude Place, Gay Topaz and Spotted Horse Lane. Missy Burke, who is writing the first book on Columbia's street names, said it is unclear why Rouse Co. officials ditched some names -- why they opted for Solitude instead of Prelude -- when they were designing the planned community in the 1960s.

Norbert A. Schlei, 73, a key lawyer in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations who found legal underpinning for the 1962 blockade of Cuba and wrote landmark civil rights legislation, died Thursday at a hospital in Los Angeles. He had been virtually comatose for a year since suffering a heart attack while jogging on a beach. Mr. Schlei was the Democratic candidate for the California Assembly in 1962 when he was chosen by President John F. Kennedy as an assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel.

Kutcher tweets to victory over CNN Actor Ashton Kutcher triumphed over CNN in their race to be the first to reach a million followers on the microblogging Web site Twitter. Kutcher surpassed that benchmark early Friday. At the same time, Oprah Winfrey made her entry to Twitter, joining the site and holding a Twitter special on her show Friday. She gained 100,000 followers in less than a day. Sun critic honored Baltimore Sun film critic Michael Sragow was chosen this week as one of the two top winners of the National Award for Arts Writing.

AS I SAID TO EMILY DICKINSON2&'There is no frigate like a book@to stir imaginations?We've collected bucketsof ancient stars,created new constellations.I'd prefer one fanciful flightin his armsto a shelf full of boundimitations.''WHAT I LEARNED IN MISS STRASBURGER'S CLASS7+Schoolgirls who sat up front in classbecame well versed in lessonsplanned and in the unplanned lessonstaught by teacher's hands.Like the mother stroking%the newborn's headthe artist stroking his lastfew lines,her fingers stroked pages`she read aloud,almond-tipped fingers(caressing the rhymes.

The picture of poet Emily Dickinson created by The Belle of Amherst and by actress Tana Hicken is startlingly robust. It's a portrait of the artist not as a tormented genius, but as a bit of a scamp. Eccentric, perhaps, but charming. Certainly, someone you might like to know. And it's a framing that intentionally downplays the poet's famously odd behavior. If Dickinson became a recluse at age 39, never venturing beyond her garden and hiding from visitors, it wasn't because she was fragile.

It's hard to say how much a performance owes to the actor who gives it and how much to the director who shapes it. In Rep Stage's production of The Belle of Amherst, it doesn't matter. Actor Tana Hicken and her husband, Donald Hicken, who directed, have worked together to produce an impressive portrait of Emily Dickinson. Dickinson (1830-1886) spent her life in a Massachusetts college town. As an adult, she never left her house but divided her time between performing everyday domestic chores and writing inward and personal poetry.