Lady Day

Center Stage's 1992-1993 season will be highlighted by three playwrights never before produced at the theater, as well as a new format consisting of musicals presented in repertory in a cabaret setting.The lineup for the 30th anniversary season, described by artistic director Irene Lewis as "somewhat lighter in tone" than the current season, includes the off-Broadway hit "The Good Times Are Killing Me" and the first major U.S. production of the Canadian script "Escape From Happiness," by Center Stage newcomers Lynda Barry and George C. Walker, respectively.

The group that knows more about feeding and housin people than any other in town has come to the aid of Baltimore's hungry and homeless.Mike Whipple, president of the Hotel and Motel Association of Greater Baltimore, had the pleasant duty of presenting representatives of the Maryland Food Committee and the Maryland Food Bank with a check for $29,000 at Our Daily Bread on Monday. The money was raised from the association's annual fund-raiser, Food for All.Before presenting the check, Mr. Whipple, general manager of the Sheraton Inner Harbor Hotel, was joined by fellow general managers Jim Biggar, Stouffer's Harborplace; Werner Kunz, Harbor Court; Dale Garvin, Hyatt Regency; Mike Seville, Comfort Inn; Joe Kane, Omni Inner Harbor; Ken Pinchak, Columbia Inn; Jim Kappel, Marriott BWI; Dominic Eckenstein, the Admiral Fell Inn; Steve Book, Sheraton BWI; Frank Leone, the Doubletree; Dan Hatch, Sheraton Towson; and Richard Fahey, Baltimore Marriott, all of whom donned aprons to prepare and serve lunch at Our Daily Bread, Maryland's largest soup kitchen.

A British biographer believes he can prove conclusively that jazz singer Billie Holiday, one of Baltimore's most prized hometown treasures, was really born in Philadelphia.Baltimore has always cherished its reputation as Holiday's birthplace, recognized her preeminent place in jazz history and even erected a memorial statue on Pennsylvania Avenue.Her voice, a copper-toned, bittersweet and perfectly phrased jazz instrument that triumphed over the pain of her life, has remained compelling for each succeeding generation since her death in 1959.

Five one-acts by `Tenn' When scholars David Roessel and Nicholas Moschovakis were researching their 2002 book, The Collected Poems of Tennessee Williams, they discovered a cache of 20 unpublished scripts in Williams' archives. Now three of those plays - These Are the Stairs You Got to Watch, Escape and And Tell Sad Stories of the Death of Queens - are receiving their world premieres at Washington's Kennedy Center as part of an evening of one-acts jointly titled Five by Tenn. Opening tonight, this first production in the four-month-long festival, "Tennessee Williams Explored," also includes another world premiere, The Municipal Abattoir.

It's a rich week at the AFI Silver. Starting today, Werner Herzog's 1972 Aguirre, The Wrath of God is shown in an exclusive new 35 mm print in honor of the film's 35th anniversary. Klaus Kinski, Herzog's muse and "best fiend," stars as Don Lope de Aguirre, leading a Spanish expedition in search of El Dorado along the Amazon in the 16th century. Tomorrow through Wednesday, the Cinema Tropical festival continues with Young Rebels, the first movie from Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, the team behind Oscar-nominated Half Nelson.

Chesapeake Music Hall pays tribute Sunday to legendary jazz vocalist Billie Holiday in the fifth of its Jazz At the Music Hall series of concerts.Ronnie Wells, one of the top jazz singers in the Baltimore-Washington area, portrays Holiday. Wells is backed by her husband, Ron Elliston, and his quartet,Wells, who teaches jazz vocal techniques at the University of Maryland, has been a frequent performer at U.S. and international jazz festivals, appearing throughout Europe and North and South America.

A new biography of Billie Holiday concludes that the great jazz singer Baltimore celebrates as a hometown cultural icon was actually born in Philadelphia.The biographer, Robert O'Meally, an English and American studies professor at Barnard College in New York City, said he was surprised and horrified when he found Holiday was not born in Baltimore.A self-styled jazz fanatic who grew up in Washington, O'Meally considered Holiday one of a Pantheon of more or less local great ones that included Duke Ellington, Chick Webb and Eubie Blake.

Jazz singer Billie Holiday abused drugs and alcohol. Sh entered into self-destructive relationships with men. She died lonely and unhappy at 44.Can such a woman be a role model for today's youth?"

THERE'S A sucker born every minute," said P.T. Barnum. And maybe some fans of The Sopranos are feeling likewise, with the "unsatisfying" go-to-black finale to the series on Sunday night. But in a way, the show ended perfectly, if not with the high level of violence, comeuppance or escape devoutly wished for by so many. There they sat in a restaurant, four not-terribly-bright, craven, greedy, clueless, messed up people - one a violent killer - pondering the possibility of manicotti. Completely ordinary except for the dozens of murders and crimes that littered their past, occupied the present and shadowed the future.