Everyman Theatre

Shakespeare's "King John" has never been produced in Washington (for that matter, it's hardly ever produced, period). Washington's Shakespeare Theatre, however, is making up for the oversight with a production directed by Michael Kahn, who has incorporated material from the anonymous play "The Troublesome Reign of John, King of England."Returning to the Shakespeare Theatre to play the title role is Philip Goodwin, who recently appeared on Broadway in the revival of "The Diary of Anne Frank."

Alumni Theatre Company. Director, musical director, technical staff and running crew needed for fall production of "Back to Bacharach and David." Director with musical experience preferred. Also needed are stage manager, light and sound technicians, prop person and costumer. Some positions paid. Call 410-455-4400.Everyman Theatre. Open auditions for equity and non-union actors for 1999-2000 season of plays. Roles available for all ages. By appointment only -- 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. today and noon to 5 p.m. Saturday.

In 1954, Noel Coward wrote in his diary: "I have been carefully reading Wilenski's `Lives of the Impressionists' and really no burlesque however extravagant could equal the phrases he uses to describe the `Abstract' boys. I am grateful to him for giving me a lot of hilarious material."Coward turned that material into his satire of the modern art world, "Nude with Violin." A second-rate work by a first-rate comic playwright, it is nonetheless receiving a sparkling production at Everyman Theatre in celebration of Coward's centennial.

HUNT VALLEY -- The final health department flu and pneumonia clinic will be held at the Lodge at Oregon Ridge Park on from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday.The cost is $8 for flu shots and $16 for pneumonia vaccinations, which are covered by Medicare.Information: 410-887-2723.Department of Aging seeks volunteers to be ombudsmenTOWSONTOWSON -- The county's Department of Aging is seeking volunteers for its Long Term Care Ombudsman Program, which trains advocates to investigate problems in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities and to resolve them with residents, families and personnel.

In his memoirs, Tennessee Williams wrote that "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" was his favorite play, the one that "comes closest to being both a work of art and a work of craft." The current production at Everyman Theatre, co-produced with Columbia's Rep Stage, does Williams' assessment proud.The second-act confrontation between Timmy Ray James' mean-spirited Big Daddy and his son Brick, played with intense self-loathing by Kyle Prue, is some of the best acting seen yet at this small gem of a theater.

"What family doesn't have its ups and downs?" Eleanor of Aquitaine says in James Goldman's "The Lion in Winter." The Hicken family, however, is definitely in an up cycle these days.Donald Hicken, head of the theater department at the Baltimore School for the Arts, has directed the production of "The Lion in Winter" that opens at Everyman Theatre Friday). His wife, Tana Hicken, who spent 15 years as a company member at Washington's Arena Stage, stars as Eleanor. And their daughter, Caitlin Bell, fresh out of graduate school at New York University, is Everyman's very first education director.

Entering her seventh decade on the stage, popular local actress Vivienne Shub has performed in more than 150 productions. But she'd never acted in a play by Pulitzer Prize winner Horton Foote until Everyman Theatre gave her a chance to star in "The Trip to Bountiful," opening tomorrow.In the role that won Geraldine Page an Academy Award, Shub will portray a widow determined to return to the small Texas town where she was born. Grover Gardner directs a cast that also includes Timmy Ray James, Jimi Kinstle, Lynn Steinmetz, Rob McQuay and Elauna Griffin.

There's a scene in the second act of "The Lisbon Traviata" when an opera aficionado tries to explain the appeal of the genre to a skeptic. "Opera is about us, our life-and-death passions -- we all love, we're all going to die," he says.That, in a nutshell, is what this Terrence McNally play -- receiving its Baltimore premiere at Everyman Theatre -- is all about.Actually the play is more like two operas. Act One is comic opera; Act Two, tragic. But both are savage, and although the humorous first act is the one for which the play is better known, at Everyman it is the serious second act that succeeds best.

When playwright Terrence McNally won the 1996 Tony Award for "Master Class," he thanked the late opera singer Maria Callas "for bringing beauty and passion and integrity to my life." But "Master Class" wasn't the first time Callas figured prominently in a McNally play. More than a decade earlier, the playwright wrote "The Lisbon Traviata," a play named for one of Callas' pirated recordings.Now "The Lisbon Traviata" is receiving its belated Baltimore premiere at Everyman Theatre, where it opens tomorrow.

Everyman Theatre opens its season tomorrowwith laughter in the form of David Ives' off-Broadway hit comedy, "All in the Timing." Ives' clever evening consists of six short playlets ranging in subject matter from a parody of composer Philip Glass' music to an attempt to prove -- or disprove -- the theory that "three monkeys typing into infinity will sooner or later produce 'Hamlet.' "Timmy Ray James directs an Everyman cast including Brilane Bowman, Jimi Kinstle, Jacqueline Underwood and Delaney Williams.

The production of "The Mystery of Irma Vep" running at Everyman Theatre has a portrait that drips blood, an Egyptian sarcophagus, hidden passages out of which characters unexpectedly pop, a mad woman in the dungeon and such deliberately tongue-in-cheek dialogue as, "He killed the wrong wolf!" As outlandish as the onstage antics might seem, they can't hold a snuffed-out candle to the frenzied activity taking place backstage. Three dressers and a stagehand conduct a carefully choreographed dance that allows the show's two actors to make up to 50 full costume changes during each performance, complete with Victorian-era petticoats, wigs, false teeth and top hats - often in two seconds or less.

A long-awaited renovation of Baltimore's historic Town Theatre will finally move to the construction stage if a local theater company can raise the last $3.5 million it needs to pay for construction. Everyman Theatre, which operates out of leased space on Charles Street, has reached 80 percent of its goal of $17.75 million to renovate the 99-year-old building on Baltimore's West Side, and aims to begin construction in the spring of 2010. The Town Theatre renovation is one of more than a dozen cultural and recreational projects in Baltimore that are moving ahead this fall with the help of loans approved by city voters last year.

Theater directors around the country are mourning the death of Michael Philippi, a theatrical lighting designer and Rodgers Forge resident, who died Tuesday in Chicago. According to the Cook County medical examiner's office, Mr. Philippi, who was 58 and had lived in Baltimore since 1993, collapsed and died on a downtown Chicago street. The cause of death has not been determined. Mr. Philippi was on his way to a technical rehearsal at the Goodman Theatre where he was working on its production of Alan Gross' "High Holidays."

Everyman Theatre signed a new three-year lease Friday at its current location at 1727 N. Charles St. But a theater spokesman said the company still plans to move into its new home in Town Theatre in the fall of 2011. "The move isn't being delayed," Managing Director Ian Tresselt says. "We're still very much on track." In November 2006, Everyman announced that it would move into the renovated vaudeville house at 315 W. Fayette St., doubling the current number of seats to about 300. Initially, that move was projected to occur in the fall of 2009.

As spring approaches - it officially begins tomorrow - it's a good time to check on what's in season in the area's arts scene. The next few weeks bring such classics as an appearance by John Waters at the Maryland Film Festival and a performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. There's surprising fare, too, like an exhibit at the Contemporary Museum exploring culture, science and the environment (Reverse Ark: In the Wake), and a surreal comedy at Everyman Theatre (The Soul Collector)

Actress Dawn Ursula will be on stage for just one scene in the Everyman Theatre production of Doubt. But the scene - a conversation between a parent and the principal of an elementary school in the Bronx in 1964 - is among the most riveting and gasp-inducing of the entire show. In John Patrick Shanley's play, which won the 2005 Tony Award, a self-righteous nun suspects that Father Flynn, a charismatic and forward-thinking new priest, is molesting the school's only African-American pupil.

Artscape will expand onto Charles Street this year to in an effort to boost the Station North Arts and Entertainment District and bring more people to the galleries, restaurants and shops in Midtown Baltimore's designated arts area. The arts festival, set for July 18-20, will continue to be centered in Bolton Hill along Mount Royal Avenue. But this year the festival will also occupy Charles Street from Mount Royal north to Lafayette Avenue, with a music stage, food court, street performers and other activities.

"Why do we see each other if we hate each other?" bemoans one of the characters in Yasmina Reza's comedy Art, playing at Everyman Theatre. It is a question that resounds in this witty and sophisticated piece. Art is deceptively simple: A middle-aged divorc?, Serge (Karl Kippola) has purchased a new painting. It is a pale minimalist work - a white 4-by-5 canvas with a few white brushstrokes. White on white. If you go Art runs through June 29 at Everyman Theatre, 1727 N. Charles St. Showtimes vary.

Jennifer L. Nelson is an award-winning poet and a playwright. She has a natural affinity for August Wilson, a dramatist so painstaking that even his stage directions -- which never are meant to be read aloud -- exhibit the imagery and cadences of fine verse. Staging Wilson's Gem of the Ocean for Everyman Theatre is taking everything that Nelson's got to give. And she couldn't be happier. Performances A full production of "Gem of the Ocean" runs from March 19-April 27 at Everyman Theatre, 1727 N. Charles St., . $16-$35.

`Rain' coming The lowdown -- Don't miss the Drama Desk Award- and Pulitzer Prize-nominated play Three Days of Rain tomorrow-April 13. Written by Richard Greenberg, this drama follows Walker, Pip and Nan as they read their parents' will and learn about their lives. If you go -- Three Days of Rain is tomorrow-April 13 at Fell's Point Corner Theatre, 251 S. Ann St. The play is 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $15-$17. Call 410-276-7837. Photo album The lowdown -- Looking Through the Lens: Photography 1900-1960 comes to the Baltimore Museum of Art Sunday-June 8. The exhibition features about 150 prints by some of the 20th century's most famous photographers, including Man Ray. If you go -- Looking Through the Lens is Sunday-June 8 at the Baltimore Museum of Art, 10 Art Museum Drive.