Theatre Hopkins

At some point in A.R. Gurney's What I Did Last Summer, just about every character proclaims that the play is about him or her. But in a sense, director Suzanne Pratt's production is also about Theatre Hopkins - a theater that is currently without a home. This strong production - mounted for a brief two-weekend run in temporary quarters at Johns Hopkins University's Swirnow Theater - is the latest reminder of how much this fine community theater deserves a place it can call its own. Gurney's play is set in a Canadian resort town on the shores of Lake Erie in 1945.

On a freezing February night, being transported to a boathouse on the Fourth of July should come as a welcome relief. But Theatre Hopkins' production of Lanford Wilson's Talley's Folly, which takes place in Missouri on that day in 1944, isn't as delightful a respite as it could be. The boathouse -- the gazebo-like "folly" of the title -- isn't the problem. William Roche has designed an enchantingly rustic set, decked out with props including an old tennis racket, ice skates, wicker picnic basket, etc. But the sense of enchantment, that is, chemistry, between the two people in the boathouse could stand a boost.

Theatre Hopkins has opened its 2000-2001 season with Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 play, "A Streetcar Named Desire." Cherie Weinert stars as faded Southern belle Blanche DuBois, and Jim Gallagher is her crude brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski, under Suzanne Pratt's direction. The play marks the theater's first Williams drama in more than 20 years. Here's the rest of the season: "Faith Healer," by Brian Friel (Feb. 23-March 25); "She Loves Me," by Joe Masteroff, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick (April 20-May 20)

`Travesties' The lowdown -- James Joyce, Vladimir Lenin and artist Tristan Tzara meet in 1917 Zurich in Tom Stoppard's Travesties, which opens tomorrow at the Johns Hopkins University's Mattin Arts Center, produced by Theatre Hopkins and directed by Tim Fowler. The play includes numerous references to Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. Referring to Stoppard's approach to Wilde's comedy, Theatre Hopkins producer Suzanne Pratt says, "I liken it to his use of Hamlet in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead."

A successful production of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" should make the audience feel as uncomfortable as the two guests who find themselves trapped in a three-hour, scorched-earth, drunken brawl of a late-night cocktail party.And indeed, Theatre Hopkins' current production, under Suzanne Pratt's direction, creates the effect of being held hostage. It's an effect so palpable that, even knowing it was impossible, I kept wishing the guests, a clean-cut young couple named Nick and Honey, would manage to escape so the audience could also be freed of Albee's relentless torment.

"Heartbreak House" is George Bernard Shaw's vision of the British upper classes fiddling while the world burns.It plays like a drawing room comedy, except that it is set against the outbreak of World War I, to which its lovestruck characters are blithely oblivious. The contrast between their silly romantic entanglements and the bombs bursting over their heads is Shaw's ironic way of saying: "Worry, don't be happy."And yet, in Theatre Hopkins' current production, directed by Suzanne Pratt, that irony is muffled by staging that frequently seems static and posed.

A dying breed of upper-middle-class WASPS trying to adjus to New Wave values that rub against the grain of their inflexible, traditional souls lies at the core of A.R. Gurney's witty play "The Cocktail Hour," on stage at Theatre Hopkins through May 26.This outstanding production, excellently directed by Suzanne Pratt, is a droll, sophisticated work that is as tender as it is funny. Amusing references and comparisons to T.S. Eliot's "The Cocktail Party" are sprinkled throughout.A contemporary drawing-room comedy, the show is essentially autobiographical in nature reflecting Gurney's difficult relationship with his father.

The Devil's Disciple" is a play in which the great George Bernard Shaw latched onto the lowly form of melodrama and had his way with it.This sounds like a can't-miss combination: The tried-and-true devices of melodrama peppered with Shavian wit and wisdom. Something for everyone.But it's easy to go wrong with melodrama. If you overdo it, it quickly becomes ludicrous.There's no danger of that in Theatre Hopkins' current production, directed by Suzanne Pratt. You realize the production is on firm ground as soon as Mark E. Campion makes his commanding entrance.

Judging from David Mamet's "Glengarry Glen Ross," the generation of salesmen that has come after Willy Loman doesn't believe that being well liked is what counts.What counts is closing the sale -- period. Closing it any way you can. If that means acting friendly, so be it. If it means using outright deceit, that's OK, too.One of the best scenes in Theatre Hopkins' production of this indictment of the real estate industry comes when hotshot salesman Richard Roma joins forces with his mentor, Shelly "the Machine" Levene, to hoodwink a client.

"The Devil's Disciple" is a play in which the great George Bernard Shaw latched onto the lowly form of melodrama and had his way with it.This sounds like a can't-miss combination: The tried-and-true devices of melodrama peppered with Shavian wit and wisdom. Something for everyone.But it's easy to go wrong with melodrama. If you overdo it, it quickly becomes ludicrous.There's no danger of that in Theatre Hopkins' current production, directed by Suzanne Pratt. You realize the production is on firm ground as soon as Mark E. Campion makes his commanding entrance.

At some point in A.R. Gurney's What I Did Last Summer, just about every character proclaims that the play is about him or her. But in a sense, director Suzanne Pratt's production is also about Theatre Hopkins - a theater that is currently without a home. This strong production - mounted for a brief two-weekend run in temporary quarters at Johns Hopkins University's Swirnow Theater - is the latest reminder of how much this fine community theater deserves a place it can call its own. Gurney's play is set in a Canadian resort town on the shores of Lake Erie in 1945.

Wanna put on a show, but having trouble finding props and costumes? Theatre Hopkins could have the answer to your problems. Forced to vacate its longtime home in the Merrick Barn at the Johns Hopkins University to make room for the university's undergraduate theater courses, Theatre Hopkins is holding a sale of costumes, props and memorabilia from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday in the Mattin Center's F. Ross Jones Building on the Homewood campus, 3400 N....

Clifford R. Jarrett Jr., an actor who was the first producer of Maryland Public Television's The Critics' Place, died of cancer Friday at Coastal Hospice at the Lake in Salisbury. The former Bolton Hill resident was 62. Born in Baltimore, he attended Gilman School and went into radio broadcasting on the Eastern Shore in his late teens. He recalled being on duty in March 1962 while a major storm lashed Ocean City's Boardwalk and destroyed numerous buildings. During the later 1960s through early 1970s, Mr. Jarrett worked at WJZ-TV as a producer and floor director for news, prime time and public affairs programming, including Family Counselor, which was syndicated and received an Emmy from the Washington Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

In William Nicholson's play Shadowlands, when British writer and philosopher C.S. Lewis and American poet Joy Davidman Gresham meet for the second time, she asks if he's ever really been hurt. By the end of this affecting play, Lewis - best known as the author of The Chronicles of Narnia, including The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - has not only experienced greater hurt than ever before, he's also experienced romantic love for the first time. Under Suzanne Pratt's direction at Theatre Hopkins, Robert Riggs portrays Lewis' elation and suffering with genuine feeling and also with the subtlety that befits his character, a pensive man who was surprised by love in midlife.

Mark E. Campion, a lumber mill foreman who had leading roles in community theater productions and appeared in television commercials, died of surgical complications related to cancer Nov. 11 at University of Maryland Medical Center. The Govans resident was 58. Born in Baltimore and raised in the Westgate area of Baltimore County, he was a 1964 graduate of Mount St. Joseph High School. After serving in the Army, he earned a bachelor's degree in 1976 from what is now Towson University. As a 15-year-old, he began working part time for Walbrook Mill and Lumber Co. on West North Avenue.

Long-winded is a term that could justifiably be applied to George Bernard Shaw -- but not at Theatre Hopkins. That's because director Suzanne Pratt has put together an anthology of Shaw shorts, or as she's calling them, Shaw: Four Starters. The program consists of prologues and/or first acts of four Shaw plays, from the familiar (Arms and the Man) to the semi-obscure (Too True to Be Good). There's a degree of timeliness to Pratt's selections -- war, leadership and health care (even the efficacy of flu shots)

In William Nicholson's play Shadowlands, when British writer and philosopher C.S. Lewis and American poet Joy Davidman Gresham meet for the second time, she asks if he's ever really been hurt. By the end of this affecting play, Lewis - best known as the author of The Chronicles of Narnia, including The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - has not only experienced greater hurt than ever before, he's also experienced romantic love for the first time. Under Suzanne Pratt's direction at Theatre Hopkins, Robert Riggs portrays Lewis' elation and suffering with genuine feeling and also with the subtlety that befits his character, a pensive man who was surprised by love in midlife.

After more than 60 years in the Merrick Barn on the campus of the Johns Hopkins University, Theatre Hopkins - one of the city's oldest and most distinguished community theaters - is searching for a new home and facing an uncertain future. In May, the university informed Suzanne Pratt, the theater's director, that the Barn would be turned over to the undergraduate theater program, revived three years ago by actor and alumnus John Astin. The decision came as a surprise to Pratt, whose theater co-produced Our Town last season with Astin's acting company, now called the Johns Hopkins University Theatre.