Macbeth

The sun has set, and an overhanging canopy of trees blots out the stars. The woods are full of ominous sounds. Dark figures emerge from the shadows. It's hard not to shiver; something wicked this way comes. Oh, if only that were the case. If You Go Macbeth runs through July 22 in the meadow outside Evergreen House, 4545 N. Charles St. $15-$25. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 5 p.m. Sundays. 410-366-8596 or go to baltimoreshakespeare.org.

Editor's note: This excerpt from Shakespeare's play about the misguided nobleman explores Macbeth's pivotal meeting with three witches who can see into the future.Macbeth sat brooding, his thoughts far away. "The Thane of Fife didn't come today.I wonder if he's hatching some plot.My spies will discover what I cannot.Tomorrow I'll meet the witches three, and ask what they can predict for me."The sisters were hidden in a cavern deep;Around the cauldron, they did creep.With their hands so crinkled with time,They stirred a stinking putrid slime.

Plans to alleviate traffic congestion on major roads in South Carroll, the county's most populated area, are running afoul of residents, who fear their side streets will become thruways.Nearly 100 MacBeth Way residents barraged the county commissioners at a public hearing in Eldersburg on Monday with complaints about traffic volume and speeding on their street, which is one of several officials plan to make into connector roads for local motorists.About 200 homes line both sides of MacBeth Way, a 3.25-mile road that nearly parallels Liberty Road, a state highway that is at the heart of Eldersburg.

To alleviate traffic congestion on major roads in Carroll County's most populated area, the county must complete long-planned connector roads there, officials said at a public hearing yesterday that drew about 100 people to Liberty High School in Eldersburg.The county is moving ahead with plans to build several vital connectors, including MacBeth Way, which it has dubbed a priority project. Like many secondary roads, MacBeth goes through several neighborhoods that have sprouted in the 22 years since the original transportation plan for the area was written.

FireSykesville: Firefighters from Sykesville, Gamber, Winfield and Liberty Road, Baltimore County, responded at 5: 41 p.m. Wednesday to a house fire in the 6700 block of King Lear Court. Units were out 20 minutes.Sykesville: Firefighters from Sykesville, Gamber and Liberty Road, Baltimore County, responded at 4: 17 p.m. Wednesday to a gas line that had been struck in the 7000 block of Macbeth Way. Units were out one hour.Pub Date: 10/02/98

The Carroll County Planning and Zoning Commission gave approval yesterday for an Eldersburg commercial center that will house a Pizza Hut restaurant.The vote to approve the site plan for the $1 million project at Route 32 and MacBeth Way was unanimous."

This is a summer camp where acting out is applauded.Reciting lines in Elizabethan English onstage in a darkened theater at Morgan State University, 35 Baltimore youngsters are going to Shakespeare Summer Camp.The mix of ages, sizes and ethnicities is a testament to the universality of Shakespeare's plays: how they cut across time and distance to speak through the tongues of these actors, ages 8 to 16."This was my bright idea," said Maureen O'Neill, the 29-year-old camp director who enthusiastically exhorts the players through their lines as they rehearse a condensed "G-rated" "MacBeth" they will perform July 24 at the Baltimore Museum of Art."

Jeanette Nolan, 86, whose 70-year acting career spanned radio, stage, television and film, died in Los Angeles Friday after a stroke. Most recently, she portrayed Robert Redford's mother in the film "The Horse Whisperer," which was shot in her much-loved state of Montana.One of her best-remembered films was her first, in which she played Lady Macbeth opposite actor-director Orson Welles in his 1948 "Macbeth."She was particularly known for her roles in Westerns including the TV series "Laredo," "Gunsmoke" and, with late husband John McIntire, "The Virginian" and his series "Wagon Train."

An investigation into a string of car thefts in a North Baltimore neighborhood has ended with the arrests of three young men and led to suspects in two shootings, one of a pizza shop clerk, police said yesterday.The arrests were made March 20 after police said they saw three people in a stolen car on MacBeth Drive in Cedarcroft. Other charges related to a shooting were filed this week after an investigation, said Northern District Lt. Paul Abell.One of the young men had a 9 mm Ruger semiautomatic handgun when he was caught, Abell said.

BRYANT WOODS resident Nancy Berla spent several years during the 1980s writing about parental involvement in schools.When she retired a few years ago, she decided to put her ideas into practice by volunteering at her grandchildren's school, Running Brook Elementary.The school's administrators consider her such as asset that they nominated her for a Daily Points of Light Award, a national honor that recognizes outstanding volunteers.L Berla was featured on the Points of Light Web site April 30.Students and staff honored her at a ceremony at the school last month.

On May 12, 2009, Arthur Wilbur Brown A graveside service will be held on Friday at Franklin Memorial Park in Rocky Mount, VA. Arrangements by the CONNELLY FUNERAL HOME OF ESSEX. In lieu of flowers donations may be made to Don MacBeth Memorial Jockey Fund, P.O. Box 18470, Encino, CA 91416 or at www.macbethfund.org.

For the next four nights, the legendary Macbeth, long-deceased high king of Scotland, will stride about Woolly Mammoth Theatre's stage with Homer Simpson and Barack Obama. MacHomer, the 70-minute solo show that Rick Miller, a Canadian actor, has been performing on and off for the past 13 years, is always a delightfully bizarre concoction. Only Miller would bring audiences the Bard's spooky, 11th-century tale of murder and ambition as narrated by more than 50 characters from The Simpsons.

"Double, double toil and trouble;/Fire, burn; and, caldron, bubble." The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company is presenting Macbeth through Dec. 2 at Howard County Center for the Arts. In the public mind, the three witches have almost become comic characters. Stirring their steaming brew and chanting their imprecations, they are ideal subjects for comedy sketches and magazine cartoons, not to mention informal gags at the kitchen range. But if an audience can immerse itself in the idea that people in Shakespeare's dark, savage Scotland believe seriously in mystic forces that can shape their lives and forecast their destinies, the play will unfold in all its power.

Yesterday, William Shakespeare slipped into Jessup's Patuxent Institution. The Bard made his way through the security gate, then traveled down several long halls of the red-brick, maximum-security prison, before stepping inside the cinderblock walls of a gym that would serve as a temporary Globe Theatre. One of his most notorious characters trudged in behind him: Macbeth. Patuxent inmates and their guests spent yesterday afternoon watching the schemes of the ambitious, murderous Scottish lord -- many for the first time -- as performed by the Ellicott City-based Chesapeake Shakespeare Company.

The State Highway Administration is set to begin an $8.5 million construction project to improve safety and ease congestion for more than 30,000 drivers along Route 32 (Sykesville Road) between Route 26 (Liberty Road) and Macbeth Way/Piney Branch Parkway in Eldersburg. Weather permitting, the half-mile project should be completed by fall next year. As a county priority, the Carroll commissioners contributed $2.4 million to move the project forward. The project includes the installation of a full traffic signal at Route 32 and Macbeth Way to improve safety and help facilitate enhanced access to Route 32 between Macbeth Way and Piney Ridge Parkway.

The sun has set, and an overhanging canopy of trees blots out the stars. The woods are full of ominous sounds. Dark figures emerge from the shadows. It's hard not to shiver; something wicked this way comes. Oh, if only that were the case. If You Go Macbeth runs through July 22 in the meadow outside Evergreen House, 4545 N. Charles St. $15-$25. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 5 p.m. Sundays. 410-366-8596 or go to baltimoreshakespeare.org.

Symphony circus The lowdown -- Combine the fun of a circus with the music of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at Cirque de la Symphonie. Watch aerial feats, strongmen, contortionists and jugglers while listening to classics such as Dvorak's Carnival Overture and Khachaturian's "Sabre Dance." If you go -- The event is at 8 tonight at the Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, and at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, 1212 Cathedral St. Tickets are $30 at Strathmore; $25 for adults and $12.50 for children at the Meyerhoff.

The year isn't half over, but it's already a banner one for the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival. In January, the small professional theater company received an anonymous $1 million donation. Last month, on Shakespeare's birthday, it chalked up its first National Endowment for the Arts grant. The $25,000 matching grant from the NEA's Shakespeare for a New Generation Program put the Baltimore festival in good company. Among the 34 other theaters honored with this round of grants were the Tony Award-winning Oregon and Utah Shakespeare festivals as well as Washington's Shakespeare Theatre Company.

`RENT' IS DUE The lowdown -- Rent, the late Jonathan Larson's Pulitzer Prize-winning musical adaptation of La Boheme, returns to the Lyric Opera House tomorrow for five performances. Modeled after the practice in New York -- where Rent is the seventh longest-running show in Broadway history -- seats in the first two rows are available for $20 each. These tickets must be purchased at the box office, two hours before curtain time on the day of the performance, for cash, and are limited to two tickets per person.

Helen Mirren has such a strong physical presence that it's hard to isolate her voice from the rest of her acting. The unconventionality of her jutting nose makes her gorgeously proud, and her alert face even more beautiful; her body is all business, whatever the business at hand. Yet when you hear her voice on the phone from Los Angeles, her personality comes across in every sound she makes, from the zesty, womanly curiosity of her "Oh, really?" or "That's very interesting" to the declarative romance of "I love that."