Arts and Culture (All)

Your guide to Chesaeake Country's freshest produce and more!

Arts and Culture (All)

Article - Theatre Reviews; by Jane C. Elkin - 10/27/11

Lost in Yonkers

Plotting a course to triumph

The new Compass Rose Studio Theater in Eastport’s Bay Ridge Shopping Center has hit on a winning strategy for success, debuting with Neil Simon’s Pulitzer Prize winning play, Lost in Yonkers. That strategy: deliver family entertainment starring student-child actors alongside seasoned professionals, and watch them grow. It’s inspirational on a human and artistic level.
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Article - Theatre Reviews; by Davina Grace Hill - 10/20/11

Grace and Glorie

A clichéd pairing of opposites turns dying into a Hallmark production in this Bowie Community Theatre effort

Dying is one drama we all star in. This makes it an irresistible subject for playwrights, actors and directors. Grace and Glorie, now playing at Bowie Community Theatre, has death and dying as its focus and personal relationships as its theme.
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Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 10/20/11

The Ides of March

George Clooney is mad as hell, and he’s going to make a movie about it!

Steven Meyers (Ryan Gosling: Drive) is on the fast track to political supremacy. He’s the social media director for the presidential campaign of Governor Mike Morris (George Clooney: The American). Morris seemed to be a long shot, but his rhetoric of hope and change has struck a chord with Americans sick of their government.
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Article - Theatre Reviews; by Jane C. Elkin - 10/13/11

An Undignified Dramedy

Logistically challenging, Dignity Players’ attention to detail shows.

Sordid Lives, a black comedy about white trash, rode a wave of financial and critical success for over a decade, from L.A.’s theater scene to film and TV credits. Playwright Del Shores did it by playing on stereotypes that feed social discord, from homophobia to fundamentalism, from the country club to the trailer park. His characters are as big as Texas, comic diversions of tragic proportions....

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 10/13/11

Real Steel

Father and son come together over the clash of steel in this charming robotic boxing film

You guys, in the future Rock’em Sock’em Robots are intense. In the latest CGI opus from director Shawn Levy (Date Night), the year is 2027, when blood-and-guts boxing has been replaced by the more brutal sport of robot boxing.
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Article - Theatre Reviews; by Davina Grace Hill - 10/6/11

Bay Theatre Company’s Wit

Two hours to ponder the bearings on which a life rests

In Wit, Bay Theatre Company tackles a heartfelt and erudite play about a woman coming to terms with cancer.
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Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 10/6/11

50/50

Something funny happened on the way to chemotherapy

Cancer isn’t inherently funny. Yet somehow 50/50 maintains a Mel Brooksian level of levity in the face of tragedy without cheapening the struggles of those battling cancer.
Not bad for a Seth Rogen movie.
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Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 9/29/11

Killer Elite

A trio of killers leaves a bloody path and a pretty entertaining movie in their wake

Let’s get this out of the way now: Killer Elite is not high art. Though veiled under the pretense of a globe-trotting spy thriller, the movie is basically an excuse to watch attractive men beat the heck out of each other.
And that’s fine. In fact, it’s pretty fun.
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Article - Books; by Elisavietta Ritchie - 9/22/11

Life's Stories

In two new local novels, truth wears the thin disguise of fiction

Captivity, corruption, escapes, flights in truth and fantasy, murder, messages from the dead, revenge, suicide …
The stuff of thriller fiction. But in the lives of authors Donald Shomette, Helena Mann-Melnitchenko and Eugene Melnitchenko, such events were terribly real.
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Article - Theatre Reviews; by Jane C. Elkin - 9/22/11

Colonial Players’ Unexpected Guest

Even the actors don’t know whodunit in this appealing mystery

The works of Agatha Christie, the queen of murder and reportedly the best-selling author of all time, are timeless because her characters transcend their settings. The privileged classes, it seems, are no happier than the rest of us, so we adore their frailties as much as the grandeur that surrounds them....