Arts & Style

18th century British comedy resonates still

By: Aaron Levin
18th century British comedy resonates still

In 1775, playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan found himself in Bath, England, with expensive tastes and little money, but with a very sharp pen. At the time, theater in Britain generally meant lifeless, sentimental, oppressively genteel comedies full of stock characters and tired plots.

A comic send-up of mysteries and critics

By: Michael Toscano
A comic send-up of mysteries and critics

With The Real Inspector Hound, celebrated playwright Tom Stoppard has either crafted an incisive deconstruction of society’s sense of order and individual identity or, perhaps, just whipped together a sometimes funny lampoon of hidebound murder mysteries.

A wide choice in local theatre productions

By: Carol Sorgen
A wide choice in local theatre productions

From musicals to comedies to drama, Baltimore’s theaters are jumping this month. Here’s a look at some of the offerings on local stages.

Actors excel in adaptation of Austen novel

By: Michael Toscano
Actors excel in adaptation of Austen novel

How do you adapt a venerated, 400-page novel for the stage, especially in this era of fragmented, Blackberry-addled attention spans? Fairly well, if you’re Joseph Hanreddy and J.R. Sullivan, whose version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is now onstage at Round House Theatre Bethesda.

Andy Warhol: another 15 minutes of fame

By: Carol Sorgen
Andy Warhol: another 15 minutes of fame

There’s still time to catch the Andy Warhol exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA), and it’s well worth the visit. On view through Jan. 9, the exhibition features more than 50 works the legendary Pop artist painted during the last decade of his life. Warhol died in 1987.

Ann Richards portrayal aims for Broadway

By: Michael Toscano
Ann Richards portrayal aims for Broadway

The Kennedy Center is gambling with its production of Ann, the one-woman show about the late Texas governor, Ann Richards. Gambling, first, that fading memories of the outspoken Richards will attract enough folks to make an anticipated spring opening on Broadway feasible. And gambling, second, that a one-woman show will have the drawing power to sustain a run.

Arena’s Oklahoma! redux is more than OK

By: Michael Toscano
Arena’s Oklahoma! redux is more than OK

Rerun Summer ’11 continues through sultry August, as local theater companies entice audiences into their air-cooled, usually-empty-in-the-summer confines by bringing back blasts from the past.

Art classes to inspire your inner Picasso

By: Carol Sorgen
Art classes to inspire your inner Picasso

Every Wednesday and Thursday, mornings and afternoons alike, the residents of Keswick Multi-Care Center in Baltimore have the opportunity to participate in a creative arts program that is at once both a form of recreational therapy and an artistic outlet.

Artist explores facets of female faces

By: Carol Sorgen
Artist explores facets of female faces

As a young art student, Espi Frazier belonged to a group of mixed media artists and performers dedicated to changing audience perceptions of African Americans. In her upcoming solo show at the Hamilton Gallery during November, Frazier, now 60, strives to do the same for women — one of her favorite subjects.

Artist explores geographic inspirations

By: Carol Sorgen
Artist explores geographic inspirations

Michael Economos has been a painting and drawing professor at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) for the past 46 years. Now 74, his own art is being spotlighted in a solo show, “The New York Years Versus the Maryland Years.” For 10 years, Economos commuted from New York City to Baltimore to teach at MICA. Then, in 1974, he moved to Maryland.