Fairy

Cirque du Soleil meets Shakespeare in the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival's charming outdoor staging of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Shakespeare's romantic comedy looks at love on three levels - in the ranks of the royals, among young people and in the fairy kingdom. In director Laura Hackman's breezy production, some of those fairies fly from the trees. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM -- Through July 23 -- Evergreen House Meadow, 4545 N. Charles St. -- $25 -- 410-366-8596 or baltimoreshakespeare.

Tomorrow, Toby's Dinner Theatre, which has been in Columbia for the past 27 years, will open a second location, in Baltimore at the newly remodeled Best Western Hotel and Conference Center in Canton. Featuring a four-course buffet and live orchestra, Toby's Baltimore plans to inaugurate its state-of the art performance space with an 11-week run of Walt Disney's Beauty and The Beast, directed by owner Toby Orenstein. The production, which comes off a six-month engagement at the original Toby's, has been revamped to suit the 300-seat auditorium built in conjunction with the renovation of the hotel.

Maturity 80% of those 55 or older work Mature people, like almost everyone else, want to be actively involved in the work force: A recent study by the Urban Institute, a nonprofit organization in Washington, shows that almost 80 percent of people age 55 and older are in paid employment, volunteering or taking care of their families and those outside of their households. "These findings sharply contrast with the image of older Americans as unengaged adults living out their older years solely in pursuit of leisure and rest," report researchers Sheila Zedlewski and Simone Schaner.

Packing all the nostalgia that any family could wish, Ballet Theatre of Maryland's production of the classic Nutcracker ballet avoids being weighted down by familiarity, and instead seems remarkably fresh and free of any rote movement. The original choreography by Ballet Theatre Artistic Director Dianna Cuatto, which premiered last season, seems much-improved by adequate rehearsal that enabled her to perfect every scene danced by her professional troupe and well-prepared students. And, continuing a partnership that enters its third season, J. Ernest Green and the Annapolis Chamber Orchestra and Chorale add their talents at selected Nutcracker performances.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe plunges into an imaginative landscape as large as all creation - and never slackens its barreling pace or shrinks its panoramic scope. As it moves from the Battle of Britain to an apocalyptic war between good and evil in the bizarre parallel world of Narnia, this movie has everything a first-rate fantasy should have, including sweep, color and clarity. It boasts some indelible performances, notably from Georgie Henley as Lucy Pevensie, the little girl who trailblazes Narnia's glacial wonderland, and Tilda Swinton, as Jadis, the White Witch.

Kids may create fairies for contest Mark Roberts, creator of collectible fairies, Santas and elves, will hold his second Fairy Creation Contest in conjunction with his signing tour. He will be at Interior Concepts, 2560 Riva Road in Annapolis, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. today. During the signing, children are invited to enter the contest by coloring, embellishing, naming and creating the story behind a fairy of their imagination. The winning fairy will be created and sold in 2006 as the Healing Heart Fairy, furthering the Mark Roberts Healing Heart Charity Fairy Program.

The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming! Well, not the Russians exactly, but their clothes will be in stores through the fall and winter. Look for the trend to continue into summer. Elements of Russian style - also called Russe - are everywhere this fall. Earlier, designer runways were filled with fur hats, trim military jackets, embroideries, voluminous skirts in flowery prints, boots, gold bangles and pendants. Diane Von Furstenberg even named her fall 2005 collection "Winter Palace," after the former imperial residence in St. Petersburg.

The Brothers Grimm is Terry Gilliam without the hook. Like every film he's directed, it's visually fascinating and stylistically distinctive. But unlike Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, 12 Monkeys and even a noble failure like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Grimm comes with no built-in reward for watching it. It's not that the film is without the requisite innovative visuals, and Gilliam remains a conjurer of worlds heretofore unseen....

THE QUESTION: After I set my trash out on the curb each week, where does it go? The trash fairy collects it. OK, seriously trash collected from Howard County homes travels about 100 miles to a private landfill in a remote corner of eastern Virginia. Each night around midnight, about 325 tons of Howard's garbage is sent south from an Annapolis Junction transfer station across the Potomac River on a train to a 630-acre landfill opened in 1996 by King George County, Va., and operated by a huge national company called Waste Management Inc. Send a question to: howard.