Per MCPS: The curtain is rising on fall theater productions throughout the school system, at middle and high schools. Plan now to see these great performances, which run into early 2023. From “Once Upon a Mattress” and “The Hallelujah Girls to “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Marie Antoinette,” there’s something for everyone. See the schedule below:
Winston Churchill, “Matilda” Nov. 4, 5, 11 and 12, 7 p.m. Nov. 6, 2 p.m.
With Hocus Pocus 2 being released on Disney’s streaming service, Disney+, we wanted to revisit the [not so strong] MoCo connection from the popular original 1993 film– Bethesda native Sean Murray in his role as Thackery Binx.
Hocus Pocus follows teenager Max Dennison (Omri Katz), who after moving to Salem, Massachusetts, explores an abandoned house with his sister Dani (Thora Birch) and their new friend, Allison (Vinessa Shaw). After dismissing a story Allison tells as superstitious, Max accidentally frees a coven of evil witches (Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy) who used to live in the house. Now, with the help of a magical cat (Binx) the kids must steal the witches’ book of spells to stop them from becoming immortal.
S.P.I.E.S. 2: Flight of the Hawk is the follow-up to S.P.I.E.S. & The Lost Treasure of Atlantis, which was an online hit for Imagination Stage in the winter of 2021. DC Theatre Arts praised it as “a fantastically entertaining conglomerate of action, adventure, suspense, and pure silliness.”
The new adventure (which doesn’t require any knowledge of the first one) is now in-person, with the live audience of children ages 5+ taking on the role of spy cadets being taught by the hilariously bungling live facilitator, Pat. During the cadet training, Pat is contacted and told that an award ceremony for Spy Team 7 has gone awry with the villainous Winnifred Veil putting in motion her plan to dominate the world. It’s Pat and the cadets to the rescue, providing key information and making crucial decisions to assist the spies, who are beaming in on the big screen.
Every week, Takoma Park Middle School teacher, Maura Moore, highlights one student in each of her classes that has done something noteworthy (kind to a classmate, shown perseverance with an academic struggle, exemplary work, etc.) by giving them a raffle ticket that could win the a students a “meep” to keep. A meep (photos below) is a crocheted emotional support orb. Moore started making the meeps in March of 2018 when she was going through a difficult time in her life and wanted to show that you could turn a tough time into something beautiful.
She made over 1,000 maps in a little over 6 months (approximately 250 of them were for staff and students). In the last 4 years she had made several thousand meeps, spending her own time and money, so that she can brighten other’s day. When she made her first meep, before it had a name, it was just a gesture to say to someone “I see you struggling, and I want you know I am here and I care.” Just this summer she made 600 of them and recently she has made meeps available for purchase through her website, AllYouMeepIsLove.com
The Arts Parade starts at 10 a.m. at the intersection of Grandview and Ennalls avenues. It will move down Georgia Avenue, around the Wheaton Triangle Business District and will end at the festival site adjacent to the entrance of the Wheaton Metrorail Station.
Marian Fryer Town Plaza is located at 2424 Reedie Dr. in Wheaton.
Owen Knight, originally from Bethesda (now residing in New Orleans), will be a cast member on the upcoming 43rd season of Survivor, which premieres next Wednesday, September 21 at 8pm on CBS. Owen was born in Korea and adopted when he was four months old. He grew up in Bethesda and graduated from Walt Whitman High School in 2010, where he was on both the football and rowing teams. During this time Owen also swam for the Montgomery County Swim League and worked at Bethesda Row’s Georgetown Cupcake. After high school Owen went on to study business administration at Tulane University, where he now works as the Director of Admission Engagement.
Owen tells us, “I am very privileged to have grown up in Montgomery County! My parents moved away when I was in college, but I still get to visit multiple times a year for work. I still go out of my way to eat at Ledo’s and Bethesda Bagels, and ironically, one of my family’s favorites growing up was Louisiana Express.”
Cynthia Addai-Robinson stars as Queen Regent Tar-Míriel in Amazon Prime’s highly anticipated The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. She was born on January 12, 1980, in London; her mother is from Ghana and her father was a U.S. citizen. She moved to the U.S. when she was 4 and was raised by her mother in Silver Spring, where she graduated from Blair High School in 1998.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premiered last week with its first two episodes. The rest of the eight-episode first season is running until October 14. The show’s time period is before the events of The Hobbit and the original The Lord of the Rings.
Utkarsh Ambudkar was born in nearby Baltimore, but was raised in Rockville while his parents worked at NIH in Bethesda. The 38 year old actor graduated from Wootton High School and is well known for his roles in Hulu’s The Dropout, the male lead in hit CBS sitcom Ghosts (which he stars in with fellow Wootton alumnus Richie Moriarty), Donald in Pitch Perfect, Rishi in the Mindy Project, Skatch in Mulan, and a lot more. In season 2, episode 5 of the CBS series Secret Celebrity Renovation, Ambudkar comes home to MoCo to renovate his parents’ home.
The episode starts off with views of Gaithersburg, where his parents currently live, leading into Ambudkar and the show’s host, Nischelle Turner, driving through MoCo on their way to his parents’ home. While home he visits friends who are still in the area and heads over to Wootton High School where one of his childhood friends, Nick Hitchens, is currently the assistant principal at the school. He stops by the theater where it all started and credits one his former directors, Harriet Mittelberger, for changing the course of his life by convincing Utkarsh’s mom to let him pursue acting.
Ken Mease, who is recognized by many from his time as a sportscaster with WUSA9 from 1986 until 2003, has passed away at the age of 80. He is survived by his wife, Paulette Mease, 79 , and sons Kert, 48, Bart, 46, and Blake, 38, all of Gaithersburg. Per an obituary written in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Mease was Robert Morris University’s athletic director from 1975-78, where he oversaw the Colonials’ transition from a junior college to a Division I athletic program. He was a sportscaster on and off in Western Pennsylvania from the late 1960s through the mid ‘80s KDKA-TV and WPXI-TV before making the move to the DC area to work for WUSA9.
Per WUSA9, “Ken readily admitted he was not a “flashy” kind of guy when it came to doing his sportscasts. However, Ken’s knowledge of sports and the people who participated were top-notch. He had a delivery style that was easygoing, and he was known for his great storytelling and writing style. Ken also had one of those laughs that just filled a room and a sportscast. At the end of every broadcast, Ken would sign in American Sign Language, ‘I love you.’ His son, Kert, tells us that his father passed away at 1:43 on Monday. The three numbers are also sometimes used in instant messaging as an abbreviation for the phrase ‘I love you.'”
CNN’s “Reliable Sources with Brian Stelter” came to an end on Sunday night after the company announced Thursday that it is ending the media analysis show that has aired in various iterations for 30 years (Stelter has hosted for nine years). Stelter is a native of Damascus, MD, where he was born and raised, graduating from Damascus High School in 2003.
After graduating from college in May 2007, Stelter joined The New York Times as a media reporter at the age of 22, making him one of the youngest staff members at the time. In November 2013, he became the new host of CNN’s Reliable Sources and also chief media correspondent.
This comedian (pictured above in the middle with his mother and siblings), born Anthony Reed in Greenville, Mississippi, was seen by millions weekly when he became an original cast member on Fox’s In Living Color. At just 18 months old, he was abandoned in the trash before being rescued by the woman who became his adoptive mother. His parents changed his name to what he’s known by now when they adopted him. His adoptive parents divorced when he was five years old, and his mother and the children moved to Washington, D.C. before later moving to Montgomery County where he lived in Wheaton, the neighborhood of Rosemary Hills in Silver Spring, and then Takoma Park. He attended Rosemary Hills Elementary School, Sligo Middle School, and Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School (with a short amount of time at Mark Twain in Rockville).
After graduating in 1981, he studied communications and interned at the radio station of the University of the District of Columbia for one semester. While in the area he held jobs across MoCo, including in the kitchen of the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, cleaning at Roy Rogers, bussing tables at an IHOP in Wheaton, and working in Prince George’s County at the storeroom of Hechinger in Hyattsville.