Kennedy Center

The most direct road to old Baltimore next week might run through Washington. Actor Laurence Fishburne takes to the stage at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Tuesday to perform the title role in "Thurgood," a one-actor play about the first African-American appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. And, as Fishburne embodies Thurgood Marshall delivering a lecture on his life at Howard University, audiences will also get a glimpse into the city where the future justice grew up. Theatergoers will meet Marshall's formidable grandmother, Annie, who launched possibly the first sit-down strike ever held in the city from her grocery store at the corner of Dolphin and Division streets.

The Kennedy Center plans to shake up the Foggy Bottom hood next season. As part of its 2013-2014 lineup, the center will showcase a global pop music phenomenon. Really? Shizzle, man. A week-long festival, "One Mic: Hip-Hop Culture Worldwide," will feature MCing, DJing, B-Boying and more. The National Symphony will even get in the act, performing with the rapper Nas. And you thought the Kennedy Center didn't have game. On a more traditional front, Washington's premiere culture palace will offer the International Theater Festival 2014, with such productions as “A Midsummer Night's Dream” by the Bristol Old Vic from England and South Africa's Handspring Puppet Company.

Impervious to cynicism and layered with critic-retardants, "Mary Poppins" has plopped into the Kennedy Center Opera House for a nice long stay that should keep the box office humming. The musical, a Disney/Cameron Mackintosh presentation that boasts the theatrical bells and whistles expected from those forces, might not fully satisfy folks devoted to, and expecting a copy of, the popular 1964 movie that inspired it. Devotees of the children's book series by P.L. Travers that started it all might find a nit or two to pick as well.

"The Kennedy Center Honors" is one of the nation's great TV treasures. And while this year's show is a little uneven, the high points still make it one of my favorite TV viewing experiences of the year. Maybe you have to be a little older to appreciate this annual production on some levels. If you grew up with TV in the 1950s and '60s, the golden age of variety shows hosted by such stars as Judy Garland and Danny Kaye, you can appreciate "Kennedy Center Honors" as the last, great variety show on television.

In 2010, your initial reaction to the iconic '60s musical "Hair" might be a yawn. A show without a plot to speak of? They've long been a dime a dozen. Nudity? Please. Some seasons, you can't find a show without it. Someone in drag? See previous answer. Anti-establishment preachy-ness? As if we've ever run out of that. Heck, even hip-hugging jeans are back. But, as last year's Tony Award-winning Public Theater revival makes plain, there's a force churning beneath the "American Tribal Love Rock Musical" that can jolt even jaded theatergoers out of condescension and ennui.

The Kennedy Center plans to shake up the Foggy Bottom hood next season. As part of its 2013-2014 lineup, the center will showcase a global pop music phenomenon. Really? Shizzle, man. A week-long festival, "One Mic: Hip-Hop Culture Worldwide," will feature MCing, DJing, B-Boying and more. The National Symphony will even get in the act, performing with the rapper Nas. And you thought the Kennedy Center didn't have game. On a more traditional front, Washington's premiere culture palace will offer the International Theater Festival 2014, with such productions as “A Midsummer Night's Dream” by the Bristol Old Vic from England and South Africa's Handspring Puppet Company.

Anyone interested in time travel need not settle for an episode of “Dr. Who.” You can be whisked back to the 1950s in a flash just by catching the production of “Irving Berlin's White Christmas” at the Kennedy Center. You have to check a lot of baggage first, though. For a start, you can't take aboard any prejudices against mid-century musicals with snowflake-thin, surprise-free story lines and songs that do nothing to advance the plot or provide character insights. You also can't carry on your usual cynical antipathy to cornball humor, tap-dancing routines or precocious kids onstage.

Baltimore City has been chosen as the next school district to receive a comprehensive arts-education program from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the organization and city officials announced Monday. The program, "Any Given Child," will create a long-range arts education plan for Baltimore students in grades kindergarten through eight, and will be tailored specially for Baltimore city students by incorporating resources from city schools and other local arts organizations, according to a release.  The Kennedy Center will begin devising Baltimore's plan--which aims to have little administrative costs by partnering with renowned arts organizations and the local Arts Every Day program--with a comprehensive audit of arts education in city schools, which its consultants will conduct in the next six to nine months.

Baltimore-born billionaire and philanthropist David Rubenstein pledged $10 million Wednesday to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, with half of those funds earmarked for the National Symphony Orchestra. The five-year gift will include $5 million to the symphony in connection with the arrival of the group's new music director, Christoph Eschenbach; $2.5 million for a major annual cultural program at the institution; and $1.5 million for a program that brings the arts into classrooms around the U.S. The remaining $1 million will be used to support such major events as the center's annual honors gala and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

Copenhagen, Michael Frayn's 2000 Tony Award-winning play about a mysterious 1941 meeting between Nobel Prize-winning physicists Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr, begins a monthlong run at Washington's Kennedy Center Tuesday. Len Cariou stars as the Danish Bohr, opposite Hank Stratton as the German Heisenberg. Mariette Hartley plays Bohr's wife, Margrethe. Michael Blakemore, who won a Tony for his direction, serves as the director here. Show times at the Kennedy Center are 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays, with matinees at 2:30 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, through March 24. Tickets are $20-$68.

Anyone interested in time travel need not settle for an episode of “Dr. Who.” You can be whisked back to the 1950s in a flash just by catching the production of “Irving Berlin's White Christmas” at the Kennedy Center. You have to check a lot of baggage first, though. For a start, you can't take aboard any prejudices against mid-century musicals with snowflake-thin, surprise-free story lines and songs that do nothing to advance the plot or provide character insights. You also can't carry on your usual cynical antipathy to cornball humor, tap-dancing routines or precocious kids onstage.

Baltimore City has been chosen as the next school district to receive a comprehensive arts-education program from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the organization and city officials announced Monday. The program, "Any Given Child," will create a long-range arts education plan for Baltimore students in grades kindergarten through eight, and will be tailored specially for Baltimore city students by incorporating resources from city schools and other local arts organizations, according to a release.  The Kennedy Center will begin devising Baltimore's plan--which aims to have little administrative costs by partnering with renowned arts organizations and the local Arts Every Day program--with a comprehensive audit of arts education in city schools, which its consultants will conduct in the next six to nine months.

With some paint and glazes, a few tools and a little time, a plain, functional front door can become a home's welcoming statement, with the rich colors and grains of oak or mahogany. A concrete column can look like marble, a ceiling can become a cloud-dappled sky and old cabinets can get new life. To get those looks and more, all homeowners have to do is go to school. The Faux School, founded in Frederick by artist Ron Layman, 41, offers classes on decorative painting techniques to amateurs and professionals alike.

Check the web site for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., and you'll see an array of performances on the boards for this weekend alone that would make for a wonderful summer season in Harford County. Tickets for performances range from $18 for the hour-long family play "The Wings of Ikarus Jackson," to $130 for a box seat for a performance of "La Cage Aux Folles. " The demand for what might be characterized as high art is substantial in this area, and the general success of the Kennedy Center is a testament to how successful a major high-end arts venue can be. Scale down, and the success of organizations like the Havre de Grace Arts Commission has long been evident.

Children's program Oakland Mills Community Association's "Lively Arts for Little Ones" presents "Anansegromma of Ghana," a performance of traditional West African music, storytelling and dance, at 10 a.m. Friday, Jan. 20, at The Other Barn in the Oakland Mills Village Center, 5851 Robert Oliver Place. Tickets are $5. Information: 410-730-4610 or go to oaklandmills.org. Gardening class The Hickory Ridge Community Association sponsors "Grow it! Eat it! Spring Vegetable Gardening" from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 25, at the Hawthorn Center, 6175 Sunny Spring.

Ocean City Nautical & Wildlife Art Festival The 27th annual Nautical & Wildlife Art Festival brings together artists, including painters, carvers, sculptors and model ship builders, to showcase their work. The festival takes places alongside the North American Craft Show at the Ocean City Convention Center on 40th Street. The festival is Jan. 14, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Jan. 15, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for students ages 13-17 and free for children age 12 and younger with a paying adult.

I am off for a few days to deal with some minor medical stuff, and I did not intend to write any reviews, believe me. But I sat down last night to watch one segment of the preview DVD for  "Kennedy Center Honors," and I got up some two hours later feeling like I had been on a wild, joyous, pop culture rollercoaster ride. And I wanted to at least give readers of this a blog a heads-up to catch this brilliant production at 9 tonight on CBS (WJZ-Channel 13). As usually happens, and as I annually forget, the segments on the honorees that I don't care so much about are the ones that blow me away -- and make me want to run out and buy their DVD or get a Netflix of one of their greatest movies.