Romeo And Juliet

A largely nonverbal interpretation of a Shakespearean tragedy, co-produced by a Bulgarian puppet theater and a New York movement theater company? It's quintessential avant-garde Theatre Project fare. Yet Romeo & Juliet, co-directed by Joanna Sherman, of New York's Bond Street Theatre, and Tsvete Yaneva, of Bulgaria's Theatre Tsvete, is an accessible and, in many instances visually beautiful, work. What it lacks, surprisingly, is substantive political commentary. The reason this comes as a surprise is that the two companies clearly have a political agenda.

Irving P. Krick,89, a pioneering meteorologist who issued the crucial weather forecast that scheduled the Allied D-Day invasion of Normandy in World War II, died June 20 at his home in Pasadena, Calif.He established the Meteorology Department at the California Institute of Technology before leaving in the early days of the war to become a colonel in the Army. He headed the Weather Information Section of U.S. Strategic Air Forces in Europe. His forecasts were necessary to enhance the success of Allied bombing runs.

If it weren't for unfortunate timing, Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet might have been a comedy. No kidding. If Romeo had received the letter telling him Juliet wasn't really dead ... or if she'd awakened a moment sooner - before he drank poison. These are big "ifs," but they make the difference between happily ever after and a body count. So, there's justification for director Pat Diamond's decision to emphasize the comic elements in the first half of his Baltimore Shakespeare Festival production.

Jerusalem -- "Romeo and Juliet" has come to town. Shakespeare, always fond of a good blood feud, would doubtless approve of the casting.Romeo and his clan of Montagues are played by Palestinian Arabs. Juliet and her rival Capulets are portrayed by Israelis. And no one will miss the irony when the young Palestinian playing Benvolio says, in Arabic, of his Hebrew-speaking foes, "If we meet, we shall not escape a brawl. For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring."The play is scheduled to open tomorrow, but who knows for sure?

When Andre Braugher walked in the theater, the 18 high school students in the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival's workshop didn't miss a beat. They kept right on with their warm-up exercises -- shaking their bodies like limp spaghetti, and repeating nonsense syllables like "Bitty, bitty, bitty, bitty" -- as the acclaimed actor took a seat in the back.Most of these students were attracted to last weekend's workshop by the chance to work with Braugher, best known as Detective Frank Pembleton on NBC's "Homicide."

"Split Decision," a fantastic work that had its premiere by the Ballet Theatre of Annapolis last weekend, was a demanding tour de force for each of the four male dancers it showcased. An exciting contest of classical and jazz movements well suited to contemporary French composer Claude Bolling's music, the choreography by artistic director Edward Stewart asked a lot of Dmitry Malikov and Andrey Shevaldin, who are new to the ballet this season from Moscow; principal dancer Dmitry Tuboltsev; and soloist Jeffrey Watson.

'Terminator' returnsMOVIES "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" starring Arnold Schwarzenegger is a sequel to the film he did in 1984. This one is not as good as the first. It may be longer. You can see where the $80 million (that's Schwarzenegger's figure) went, but most of the film is car, bike and truck crashes and special effects. The former are spectacular and the latter are awesome, but the film is not all that exciting. In the original film, Schwarzenegger was the bad cyborg, out to kill the woman who would give birth to a future savior of mankind.

The latest Baltimore Symphony Orchestra program offers music by composers who had something to prove. Tchaikovsky was far from fame when he decided to condense Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" into a single-movement orchestral piece. Dvorak had not yet been accepted as a legitimate composer by the supreme arbiters of culture at the time, the Viennese, when he produced his Symphony No. 6. And Schumann, already inching toward the mental illness that would soon claim him, may have been attempting, at least subconsciously, to show the world that he still had his artistic faculties by writing a concerto for violin.

Annapolis Opera looks up at the sky and finds romance this weekend in a program called "Music Under the Stars: Songs of Love in the Night."The open-air concert will be Saturday at the Charles Carroll House, a historical showplace, and patrons are invited to arrive early and tour the house and grounds.Admission is $18 for seating on the grounds or $20 for seating on a chair under a tent ($18 for a tent chair to Annapolis Opera season ticket-holders or Carroll House members).Bring a blanket and picnic on the grounds.

Theatre on the Hill, a mainstay of summer theater in Carroll County, has canceled its 2002 season because of renovations to Alumni Hall at Western Maryland College. The professional theater company typically stages five productions throughout the summer, with professional actors from Baltimore, New York City and Washington. Theatre on the Hill has 600 subscribers. The decision to temporarily suspend production was difficult, said Ira Domser, producer and one of the founders of the Westminster-based company, but renovations to the 500-seat main stage are long overdue.