Stage

Lengths of snowy paper cover the floor of the rectangular stage at Sydonne's Event Hall. They drift around the bedposts and the ankles of the actors. Several strips, unrolled, form a makeshift screen for video projections. I thought at first that the streamers were made of crepe paper. But, it's not - the stuff is a disposable tissue found in finer bathrooms everywhere. And the decision to use toilet paper as a stage prop symbolizes much of what is right, but also some of what goes wrong, in this production of playwright Paula Vogel's The Baltimore Waltz.

The screaming girls at Sunday night's Chris Brown concert at 1st Mariner Arena could probably have drowned out the roar of the fans at the Ravens-Colts game just down the road. And for good reason: The arena crowd saw a better show. In a tightly choreographed and expertly executed 90-minute performance, Brown displayed the dance skills, stage presence and winning personality that have set pop-culture prognosticators buzzing about his possible ascent into super-stardom. If Brown isn't yet a household name, his Up Close and Personal Holiday Exclusive Tour stop in Baltimore made a convincing case that someday he might be. Despite being on just his second major tour after he was plucked from obscurity in Tappahannock, Va., the 18-year-old controlled the stage like an old pro, opening his set by simply standing expressionless at center stage and letting the deafening peal of teenage and tween girls pour over him for a moment.

Sometimes the best live music clubs are tucked away in unlikely places. The Whiskey 1803 is one of these. Since last November, this intimate space above seafood restaurant B.F. Biggins in Annapolis has hosted some of the area's better bands. With plenty of free parking (always key in Annapolis) and rich acoustics, it's a welcome addition to the local music scene. Last year, local musician David Tieff proposed turning the banquet room upstairs into a live music venue. "I really saw this as an opportunity -- especially with owners that were willing -- right in our back yard to make a place that's not only band-friendly but music-fan friendly," Tieff said.

Salute the military and enjoy a day of star-spangled activities at the third annual Patriotic Festival in Virginia Beach today. Throughout the day, visitors can see military displays, enjoy kids' activities and hear live music. Power-pop band the Saving Graces and the eclectic band Butter play on the stage at 31st Street and Oceanfront 2 p.m.-5 p.m. The evening concerts kick off at 7 p.m. at Fifth Street and Oceanfront with new country singer Jason Michael Carroll. Headliner Gretchen Wilson belts out her hit country songs beginning at 8:30 p.m. on the Fifth Street stage.

With its concert version of Frank Loesser's "Guys and Dolls" Saturday, J. Ernest Green and the Annapolis Chorale moved into a new musical arena without leaving Maryland Hall.The singers have gone this season from Mozart to Motown, from Handel to Mascagni and now to Broadway, without sets. With the Annapolis Chamber Orchestra, the chorale and six soloists, the stage was so full that sets would have gotten in the way of the music.Green and the chorale used the minimal staging effectively, so the performance was never static.

The last time Eric Anthony Bates stood on the stage of the Lyric Opera House, he was graduating from the Carver Center for Arts and Technology. When he steps on that stage again Wednesday, it will be as a cast member of "Rugrats: A Live Adventure," the new stage version of the popular Nickelodeon TV series about the adventures of a group of diaper-clad toddlers.Speaking from "Rugrats' " stop in St. Louis, the 20-year-old Baltimore native marveled at this fortuitous turn of events. "Rugrats" is not only his first national tour, it's his professional debut -- the result of his first professional audition.

This appears to be the year "Wings" took flight in Baltimore. Arthur Kopit's insightful play about a stroke patient made its local debut at Center Stage 16 years ago and, to my knowledge, hasn't been seen again on a Baltimore stage until this season.Then in March, Fell's Point Corner Theatre presented the musical version. And now Towson University's graduate theater program has staged the original, in partnership with AXIS Theatre.Told from the viewpoint of the stroke patient, a former aviator, "Wings" has always been a challenging work for both audience and cast -- especially for the performer who plays the lead.

Deborah Henson-Conant plays the harp, but she's no angel.When she walked out on stage at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall yesterday afternoon for the first of several pops concerts with the Baltimore Symphony, conductor Marvin Hamlisch took a deep breath, wiped his brow, loosened his tie and asked about her dress -- which began at considerably less-than-shoulder altitude and ended in the middle of her black-stockinged thighs."

"Me and My Girl" is the happiest show of Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre's current season.The show is fresh, not overly done and redone here, but it also feels comfortably familiar with its 1930s Hampshire setting and catchy tunes about enduring love and keeping to your proper social niche.A big hit in 1937 London, rewritten and revived in 1984, "Me and My Girl" became an even bigger hit in 1986 on Broadway, where it ran for 3 1/2 years and captured a number of Tonys, including one for best musical.

For most of the summer, Meyerhoff Symphony Hall has looked like Miss Havisham's parlor in "Great Expectations" - except that, instead of cobwebs, the cinnamon seats have been swathed in plastic and the plastic in a patina of dust.For two months the hall has been a construction site, with a dozen projects going on at once. On July 2, the day after the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra finished its Summer MusicFest concerts, workers began tearing up the wooden stage floor and its cement and steel underpinnings.

Faith, family, friendship - not to mention sexual abuse, illness and death. These are just some of the issues that will be addressed during the 28th Baltimore Playwrights Festival, in works that cover the stylistic waterfront - comedy, drama, and the festival's first musical - and that are set in a variety of places and times, including Thanksgiving and Passover. "It's a pretty eclectic group of plays," says Bob Russell, former owner of the Spotlighters Theatre and a two-decade veteran of the festival's organizational team.

The fact that George Bernard Shaw's Candida was written in 1894 and set in London should not suggest any lack of relevance to 21st-century audiences. Shaw's sparkling wit is couched in graceful language to espouse equality of classes and sexes. Shaw is quoted as saying, "My way of joking is to tell the truth; it's the funniest joke in the world." Candida - staged by Bay Theatre through May 30 - is the story of the wife of the Rev. James Morell of East London. From the moment audience members enter Bay Theatre's intimate space, they are ensconced in a Victorian drawing room, complete with a working fireplace.

A new player will be popping up more and more frequently on Baltimore stages next season: The Almighty Dollar. As local companies prepare for the 2009-2010 theatrical season, never in recent memory has the economy played such a prominent role in determining the number and type of shows that will appear on local stages. Some theaters, including Rep Stage in Howard County, will offer fewer productions, or fewer performances of them. Some such as the Hippodrome are opting for tried-and-true crowd-pleasers instead of more adventurous fare.

You can tell a lot about the mood of the country by the kinds of stories we tell ourselves through our popular culture. And there is no better measuring stick than TV with its huge audiences and minute-by-minute measurements of those viewers. In what has otherwise been a lackluster season in terms of programs and audience interest, there is one story that we cannot seem to get enough of - and that means Hollywood is going to be telling it more and more in coming days. In fact, as we enter the final month of the network TV season, it is the only story that audiences seem passionate about.

When tragedy struck, comedian Dane Cook turned inward for inspiration. Reeling from the deaths of both his parents, who passed away within a year of each other, Cook pulled back from arena gigs and refocused his routine. He came up with a set of intensely personal jokes - some that deal with the death of his mother - and performed in front of only 20 people at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles. The Laugh Factory show was filmed for his new special, An Isolated Incident, which airs May 17 on Comedy Central.

The actress with the refined features and tentative smile takes us by surprise every time. No matter how often we've watched Deborah Hazlett on stage, we never see it coming. She excels in portrayals of sensitive, intelligent, brittle women in their 40s, and in productions from Hedda Gabler to S ight Unseen to Rabbit Hole, there's usually a moment when these characters have been stressed beyond endurance. Suddenly, explosively, the characters break down. Such is the strength of Hazlett's commitment that she seems almost dangerous - at least, to herself.

In the national touring production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang currently running at the Hippodrome Theatre, a car takes the final bow. And that's fitting. Though the production is based on the beloved 1968 film and features a cheery, family-friendly plot, an insistently catchy score and a cast with unusually strong voices, the show's true star is the auto that floats and flies. Grumble all you want about how chandeliers that plunge from the ceiling (as in Phantom of the Opera) and helicopters landing on stage (a la Miss Saigon)

This one's pretty easy to deduce, even though it's a shame to have to diminish one person's accomplishments to elevate another's. Nevertheless ... If Cal Ripken Jr. had done what he did in the same year Michael Phelps won his eight Olympic gold medals, who would earn the SI Sportsman of the Year honors? The answer is as simple as the answer to this: Which is bigger, major league baseball or the Olympics? There is no grander stage than the Olympics, and doing what Phelps did on that stage, against the best in his sport, with the eyes of the world on him, eclipses even Ripken's record.

New York - The branches are from Connecticut, but Martha Clarke is in hell. Or, she's in paradise. Sometimes, it's hard to tell the difference. On stage, half a dozen dancers preparing for a new staging of The Garden of Earthly Delights wave bare tree branches aloft, then twirl together in a circle. A highly anticipated revival of the groundbreaking 1984 production, based on a 1504 painting by Hieronymus Bosch, opens Wednesday off-Broadway. "Stay as close together as you can, girls," says Clarke from the audience, holding her arms in front of her, and then sweeping her palms inward.

They won't even get a fig leaf. Next month, virtually the entire cast of the baseball drama Take Me Out will spend 10 long minutes on stage each night in the buff. Ten of the 11 actors - all volunteers, average Joes with day jobs like fixing computers - won't have the benefit of towels, strategically placed props or artful lighting. It's enough to give even the most dedicated of thespians stage fright. "When I heard that I got the part, my first reaction wasn't hesitancy, exactly, but 'Oh no, how am I going to do this?"