Fairy Tale

IT MAY NOT be quite the stuff of happily-ever-after. But the latest twist in the saga of the supersized nursery-rhyme characters that have been languishing in the long-closed but hardly forgotten Enchanted Forest amusement park is pretty darn close to a fairy tale come true. A dozen strong backs and a few trucks last week managed to move the unwieldy wood-and-fiberglass figures of Mother Goose, Papa Bear and six of Cinderella's 10-foot-long mice to a Howard County petting farm from what's left of the Route 40 fairy-tale park.

Thanks for reporting on the real ownership of the 20 acres at the proposed Mays Chapel Elementary School site ("Mays Chapel school groundbreaking disrupted by protesters," April 26). Contrary to County Executive Kevin Kamenetz's claim that the Baltimore County School System owns all 20-plus acres at this site and thus has the right to use it for a school, the BPCS owns only 10 acres; the other 10 acres are owned by Baltimore County Department of Parks and Recreation. The parks department's open space program requires reasonable use of the space by all citizens.

Ellicott City residents Rosario and Maria Di Marco never lost their desire to have a second home by the sea in Lewes, Del. To this day, the quiet resort town holds happy memories of summer vacations at Fort Miles near Cape Henlopen Park when their children were growing up. "Three years ago, while Googling for properties in the Lewes area, Rosario came across an abandoned home," Maria Di Marco recalled. "The house was in deplorable condition. The roof had caved in, snakes were hanging from the ceiling, and other creatures had decided to make it their home.

The final night of our two-night special event takes us to Canada.  Sean seems to be in better spirits after the fiasco in Montana and the ladies were ... being the ladies. We'll have the opportunity to join them for three dates tonight two, one-on-one dates and one group date. Let the games begin. Date Card. Catherin is selected for the first one-on-one date and the card reads "let's find our fairy tale ending. " Let's go! Catherine stands outside in the snow, alone, waiting.

"There was once a witch who desired to know everything. ... Her name was Watho, and she had a wolf in her mind." A pretty cool hook for a fairy tale and, as it turns out, a pretty cool inspiration for an original production being staged by Single Carrot Theatre under the intriguing title "Illuminoctem." The source material comes from 19th-century Scottish author and clergyman George MacDonald, who counted the likes of Tennyson and Lewis Carroll among his friends, the likes of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis among those he influenced.

In a perfect world, the no-new-taxes budget put forward by the Republican minority in the General Assembly would be a viable option. But the reality of American life in the 1990s cannot be ignored. The GOP plan seeks to do the impossible.Republican delegates want to hold Maryland's spending to last year's level. That's a sound theoretical notion. It doesn't work in practice, though. The state's electric and heating bills, for instance, go up every year -- just like they do in the homes of most Marylanders.

"Dragon's Dogma" Xbox 360/PS3 Capcom Rating: 3 stars out of 4 “Dragon's Dogma” has the elements of everything you'd expect from an open-world action role-playing game with a fantasy setting. Even the box art smacks of a “Dungeons and Dragons” guide. Once you get inside “Dragon's Dogma,” you realize that it is unlike any fantasy RPG (or almost any) game you've played before. The key feature of “Dragon's Dogma” is the “pawn” system, a format that allows the player to create one “main pawn,” a character that follows you perpetually, and two other pawns that are sourced from an online database of other players' pawns.

Cockpit in Court's production of the Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine fairy tale musical, "Into the Woods," isn't entirely a happily-every-after experience. It's more like so-so ever-after. Granted, the show isn't about attaining bliss. Although ostensibly lighter than most Sondheim musicals, "Into the Woods" has its darker, deeper side, particularly in the second act, which is about what happens when Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella and Jack (of Beanstalk fame) discover that having their dreams come true can be a real nightmare.

IT SEEMS the law finally caught up with Gold E. Locks, when a jury found the flaxen-haired porridge-pilferer guilty of trespassing. Nearly 60 people attended the mock trial of The Three Bears vs. Gold E. Locks, held Saturday at the Savage branch library. But they were not there because they were concerned about Gold E. Lock's fate or whether the bears would be compensated for damages. Spectators attended to learn about the judicial process and the workings of the courtroom. "It's a venue of public education for the basic knowledge of how the justice system works," said Diane Li, assistant branch manager for the library and coordinator of the program.

EDWARD Scissorhands,'' directed by Tim Burton, is a smartly, sweetly told fairy tale that goes a little dark as it draws to a close.The downturn, almost at the end, doesn't really scuttle the film, but it would have been that much better without it.''Edward Scissorhands'' begins on exactly the right note. This is a fairy tale, and Burton, who co-wrote the story on which the film is based, doesn't want us to forget it.As the movie begins, we are given a closeup of the castle in which the Scissor boy lives.

Hansel and Gretel Witch Hunters is the latest twisted adptation of a classic tale or character, akin to tales Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or Abraham Lincolm Vampire Hunter . As might be expected from such a bizarre mashup of Grimm's fairy tale and modern culture, the movie seems to have split critics and viewers, according to early reactions. Here are excerpts some reviews: -- Tribune: Writer-director Tommy Wirkola focuses on the fights, and flings all manner of viscera at the 3-D camera as limbs are whacked off and heads and torsos explode.

Ballet Theatre of Maryland opened its 35th season, and 10th with artistic director Dianna Cuatto at the helm, with the fireworks of a world-premiere ballet. Known for enchanting audiences with classic tales at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts, Cuatto summoned new choreographic wizardry for her personal favorite, "The Dancing Princesses," a lesser-known Grimm fairy tale. Striving to deliver "a dramatic retelling in dance where I could create an amazing new secret world of magic," Cuatto achieved her goal and more.

The witch had been weeping in the boxwoods for more than half a century before Laura Amy Schlitz picked up her pen and set her free. The 57-year-old Schlitz is the librarian at Park School and a Newbery Medal-winning author whose newest novel, "Splendors and Glooms," will be published Tuesday by Candlewick Press. But in 1959, she was a small child in the throes of a nightmare. "This book is a deeply personal story, and it goes back a very long way," she says. "When I was 4 years old, I woke up in the middle of the night and told my parents there was a witch crying outside in the boxwood bushes.

Ellicott City residents Rosario and Maria Di Marco never lost their desire to have a second home by the sea in Lewes, Del. To this day, the quiet resort town holds happy memories of summer vacations at Fort Miles near Cape Henlopen Park when their children were growing up. "Three years ago, while Googling for properties in the Lewes area, Rosario came across an abandoned home," Maria Di Marco recalled. "The house was in deplorable condition. The roof had caved in, snakes were hanging from the ceiling, and other creatures had decided to make it their home.

"Dragon's Dogma" Xbox 360/PS3 Capcom Rating: 3 stars out of 4 “Dragon's Dogma” has the elements of everything you'd expect from an open-world action role-playing game with a fantasy setting. Even the box art smacks of a “Dungeons and Dragons” guide. Once you get inside “Dragon's Dogma,” you realize that it is unlike any fantasy RPG (or almost any) game you've played before. The key feature of “Dragon's Dogma” is the “pawn” system, a format that allows the player to create one “main pawn,” a character that follows you perpetually, and two other pawns that are sourced from an online database of other players' pawns.

Reviews for "Snow White and the Huntsman," a dark and violent retelling of the fairy tale, are all over the map. This movie follows the recent release of a comic adaptation -- "Mirror, Mirror" with Julia Roberts and Nathan Lane -- and they couldn't be more different. "Snow White and the Huntsman" is driven by special effects, and a vicious queen, played by Charlize Theron. Snow White (Kristen Stewart) is much more feisty too -- far, far from a naive fairy tale character. Sounds like a movie you will love or hate.

GINGERBREAD houses and fairy tales simply go together. Add the year's biggest holiday and you have a dream combination.Fifth-grade students at Freedom Elementary School have been busy learning about the magical qualities of fairy tales through a literature unit on those special childhood stories.In addition to reading fairy tales of their own choice, students also read fairy tales from other countries. Reading "Lon Po Po," a well-known Chinese fairy tale, students found similarities to "Little Red Riding Hood."

ART REVIEWWhat: Fay's Fairy Tales: William Wegman's "Cinderella" and "Little Red Riding Hood"Where: Baltimore Museum of Art, Art Museum Drive near North Charles and 31st streetsWhen: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays; through Dec. 5Admission: $5.50 adults, $3.50 seniors and students; $1.50 ages 7 through 18; free Thursdays$ Call: (410) 396-7100All the world loves a good fairy tale, and all the world loves William Wegman's dog photographs, so what could be a better match than fairy tales illustrated with William Wegman's dog photographs?

This week's featured adaptation is "Mirror, Mirror," the humorous retelling of the Grimm fairy tale about Snow White and the jealous Queen, and reviews are encouraging. Of course, it won't have a chance of beating the debut of "The Hunger Games," which brought in more than $150 million in its opening weekend. But it looks like an entertaining treatment, and the cast has some star power with Julia Roberts and Nathan Lane. Here are excerpts from "Mirror, Mirror" reviews.

Fairy tales seem like so much fun until you start paying attention. All that violence and vengeance, the spookiness, illusion, deceit. "And ah, the woods," as Stephen Sondheim writes in his latest book. "The all-purpose symbol of the unconscious, the womb, the past, the dark place where we have our trials and emerge wiser or destroyed. " In one of his most imaginative contributions to the Broadway musical, Sondheim invites audiences to step "Into the Woods," where a mash-up of fairy tales, tribulations and discoveries await characters and audiences alike.