2025 Bay Bridge Run 10K (Sunday)

The Bay Bridge Run returns this Sunday morning, marking the only time all year the bridge is open to pedestrians.

The race runs across the eastbound span — that’s the two-lane one.

Runners, friends and family are invited to an afterparty on the Eastern Shore side of the bridge after the race.

Annapolis Jazz & Roots Festival

This weekend is the first of two that make up the Annapolis Jazz & Roots Festival.

The event features around a dozen acts in various venues around Annapolis.

The first act Friday night is an Eva Cassidy Tribute by Alexis Tantau. Saturday afternoon brings the Art, Music and the Muse interview and exhibit by Jabari and J.C. Jefferson. The latter’s quartet will also perform afterward. Sunday brings a soulful funk and rock concert by the Michael McHenry tribe.

The schedule, venues, and tickets can be found on the festival’s website.

Taste of Fall on West Street

This ticketed event is put on by the Inner West Street Association to help fund some of its other festivals.

Attendees will be able to try season-appropriate offerings from several West Street restaurants like Stan & Joe’s and 49 West. There will also be desserts, cocktails and live jazz music.

Tickets are on sale for around $50 on Eventbrite.

Shrek the Musical at Severna Park High School

Severna Park High School students are opening their fall production this weekend, Shrek the Musical.

Shows on Friday and Saturday begin at 7 p.m., while the Sunday show begins at 2 p.m.

It follows the same plot as the 2001 animated movie starring William Steig’s beloved green ogre. The original production went up on Broadway in 2008.

Tickets are $10 for students and $15 for everyone else.

Interested in seeing your event on this list? Contact Benjamin Rothstein at brothstein@baltsun.com, 443-928-1926.

So, Austin acknowledged, she had to mount the adaptation at her own Compass Rose Theater, the professional teaching theater where she was named artistic director in June.

It just so happens that this year marks Austen’s 250th birthday. (She was born Dec. 16, 1775.) And that the playwright, Emma Whipday, is named for the heroine of another Austen work.

Whipday, an English playwright and lecturer at Newcastle University specializing in Shakespeare and Renaissance literature, said she was exposed to Austen’s work from a young age.

“I think it was one of those novels that my mum pressed on me and just said, ‘You have to read this,’” Whipday said. “The thing that I really fell in love with about her work is the combination of really beautiful, moving love stories that are tightly plotted and keep you page turning to find out what happens to the central characters, but combined with this fully realized social world where every character sort of leaps off the page through their dialogue, and you feel like you’ve just stepped into this other time and place.”

She added her appreciation for Austen’s family dynamics and the intricate, clockwork-like quality her plots have. Before “Pride & Prejudice,” Whipday also adapted her namesake book, Austen’s “Emma” and “Sense and Sensibility.”

“Pride & Prejudice” follows Elizabeth Bennet as she discovers love and navigates social mores, all the while surrounded by her four sisters, mother and father. Caleigh Riordan Davis plays the character in Compass Rose’s upcoming run.

“Part of it was just, selfishly, I wanted to … get to step inside the novels that way, and get the privilege of living alongside those characters,” Whipday said. “I don’t think I felt like the adaptations that exist are lacking in any way … but I suppose I wanted to see if it was possible to create an adaptation that would be able to follow the plot, follow the characters, and keep as much of the spirit of the original alive, so that audience members who came to it for the first time had what they experienced as the novel brought to them.”

Whipday said some other adaptations take liberties to work onstage, like combining two of the sisters into one, so Whipday made it a goal for herself to keep those elements intact. She also focused on ideas like the meaning of home, family relationships, and how one’s role within the family develops.

She also felt that Austen tried to see the best in her characters and wanted to make sure that came across in her script.

“Mrs. Bennet is often played as an overbearing mother trying to marry her daughters off. I think I brought this sense of, ‘Gosh, the stress of having five daughters in a world where women couldn’t earn a living.’ That’s terrifying. ‘How can you equip your girls to be OK in the world?’” Whipday said. “The central love story, because we see it so much from Lizzie’s perspective in the novel, Mr. Darcy has to seem quite unlikable to the reader, because that’s how we’re seeing it, but obviously, on stage, you can see them both and see what they’re both going through. And so I wanted to give a little bit more of his awkwardness, his introversion, his difficulty in being in groups.”

Austin said that, on top of the humor, the adaptation skillfully makes the story more digestible for modern audiences.

“It really cut to the heart of the novel,” Austin said. “Sometimes there’s a lot of exposition, and I thought it was interesting how Emma could cut some of the exposition, but it [still] smoothly followed the characters, so you could know ‘who was this,’ ‘who was that,’ and that you could follow the plot line easily, even if you had never read Jane Austen before.”

Looking back on Austen’s 250th birthday, both Whipday and Austin expressed that they wished she had been able to write more before she died at the age of 41. Despite having written only six books, with one more left unfinished, Austen’s impact as an author can still be felt to this day.

“The other thing that’s really exciting to me about how Austen’s novels are being celebrated in this way and are enduring in this way is that they are romantic. I think romance novels tend to be the bottom of the pile in terms of people’s judgments of them, especially if people have a literary background,” Whipday said. “And yet, Jane Austen is at the heart of the academic establishment, and everyone recognizes how wonderful she is.”

“Pride & Prejudice” at Compass Rose Theater opens on Nov. 14 and runs through Dec. 14. Tickets are available on Compass Rose’s website.

The theater just wrapped up a production of “Annie,” which was nominated for a Helen Hayes Award, which recognizes theater excellence in the Washington, D.C., region. It’s the ninth nomination the theater has received. It will produce “Rent” and a cabaret show in the first half of next year to close out its 2025-26 season.

Have a news tip? Contact Benjamin Rothstein at brothstein@baltsun.com, 443-928-1926.

Thomas Modly, a former acting secretary of the Navy and a former professor at the Air Force Academy, said the Navy prioritizes occupational experience over advanced education, so it might be difficult to find qualified sailors and Marines in some academic fields.

“You have to cultivate that type of person within the military, within the Navy and Marine Corps,” said Modly, a Navy grad who served as the 33rd undersecretary of the Navy and chief management officer for the Department of the Navy. “And so if you’re not cultivating that, and you’re not rewarding people for choosing to do that, if that limits their career, that’s not going to be an attractive thing for them to do.”

Civilians have been in the crosshairs of the Defense Department this year, even before this past month, when the civilians, who make up about half of the Navy faculty, have been furloughed during the government shutdown.

The Trump administration announced plans earlier this year to lower the number of civilian employees across the Department of Defense by around 50,000 to 60,000, and in July, Naval Secretary John Phelan indicated that would include civilian staff at the Naval Academy.

The moves have prompted debate among academy graduates. Former Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro argued last month that reducing civilians’ teaching role would harm the midshipmen’s education as well as the lethality of the Navy and Marine Corps.

Modly, who graduated from the Naval Academy the same year as Del Toro, 1983, sees more potential upside in increasing the role of military faculty.

“I’m supportive of having instructors who are great instructors that are qualified to teach midshipmen about the things they need to know, given the challenges of this century,” Modly said. “That can be done with civilians or with military, but … having more military people there would mean that the Navy would have to invest more in … educating their officers, and I think that would be a good thing in the long run.”

Modly also served as the acting secretary of the Navy from November 2019 to April 2020. He served as a professor of political science at the Air Force Academy, which has a higher ratio of military in its faculty than the Naval Academy does. He said he feels it is beneficial for midshipmen to have professors who have used the knowledge learned from these subjects in their own service experience.

“It’s sort of random to say, well, a 50% faculty is better, or 100% faculty is better. I think there’s a balance somewhere in between,” Modly said. “In some fields, you probably want to have some civilians who are dedicated academics. And in some other fields, I think it’s fine to have military officers who also have advanced degrees who can help demonstrate to the midshipmen the applicability of what they’ve learned to what they’re going to be doing when they’re in service.”

In July, Phelan sent a letter to the acting assistant Navy secretary for manpower and reserve affairs, Scott Duncan, advocating for a shake-up of the academy’s structure, faculty, admissions, and curriculum. He also established the Naval Higher Education Review Board, meant to look over academy material.

Another of their duties was to appoint a new dean with military experience to replace the current dean, Provost Samara L. Firebaugh, a civilian, as well as increase the number of permanent military professors, academic heads and department heads. However, while testifying before the Senate in March, then-Superintendent Vice Adm. Yvette Davids said that the 50/50 split was necessary to maintain expertise on the academy’s STEM-heavy curriculum.

The Department of Defense declined to comment, deferring to the Naval Academy. The Naval Academy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Modly said he is concerned about the number of military, or Navy, faculty who are actually out there to hire, arguing the Navy does not encourage education in the same way that other branches do, and that the Navy harbors a bias toward operational experience over education.

“Most of the professors at the Air Force Academy … before you can go back there and teach, you have to get a master’s degree, at minimum, and of the best ones of those, they sponsor them to go get Ph.D.s, and they come back and they become department chairman, and so on and so forth. … They don’t really do that that much at the Naval Academy,” Modly said.

He noted, however, that making that change would be a massive shift for the Navy. Though, if the Naval Academy is able to find faculty members who are qualified and have the experience, Modly thinks it would not be a bad thing.

“The idea that we want to constantly review these institutions to see if they can get better or improve them for the changing circumstances that we’re in. … People shouldn’t be afraid of that,” Modly said. “They should say, ‘OK, well maybe we did it this one way for so many years, but maybe it’s time to do something different.’”

Have a news tip? Contact Benjamin Rothstein at brothstein@baltsun.com, 443-928-1926.

The building is fully occupied and is currently home to businesses like FastSigns of Annapolis and the office for Third Eye Comics, whose three stores are around the corner.

“This well-maintained asset offers tenants a unique mix of warehouse and showroom space not commonly found in the submarket,” John Faus, director of investments in Marcus & Millichap’s Washington, D.C., office, said in a statement. “As a result, the average tenant tenure in the building was more than 12 years. The Annapolis Design District continues to function as a robust business hub supporting the growth of the greater Annapolis area.”

The building is just over 41,000 square feet, is two stories tall, and sits on 1.65 acres. The buyer was not disclosed.

Have a news tip? Contact Benjamin Rothstein at brothstein@baltsun.com, 443-928-1926.

The stores will be operated by Go! Retail Group, popular for the calendar stores by the same name.

“Toys R Us is an iconic brand that so many of us grew up with, and we’re thrilled to see those memories come full circle as parents and grandparents share that magic with a new generation,” said Gene Condon, general manager at Arundel Mills, in a news release. “This new store will be a standout addition to our lineup and a destination for families just in time for the holiday season.”

The store will be located across from the T.J. Maxx inside the mall.

The store’s return was announced in September, after all of its locations were closed in 2018.

Have a news tip? Contact Benjamin Rothstein at brothstein@baltsun.com, 443-928-1926.

Annapolis Opera’s ‘Don Giovanni’ (Friday)

“Don Giovanni,” an opera scored by Mozart, is being performed for two shows this weekend on Friday and Sunday. The Sunday show has already sold out, but there is still room at Friday night’s performance.

Annapolis Opera describes the show as a mix of comedy, drama and the supernatural. It will be performed in Italian but will feature English subtitles.

The opera says this is the first time “Don Giovanni” has been performed in Annapolis in 23 years.

The Colonial Players’ ‘Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors’ (Friday and Saturday)

For those who need their last-minute Halloween fix, the Colonial Players, a local theater company performing in Annapolis for over 75 years, will continue their run of “Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors” this weekend.

The play is described as a 90-minute Monty Python-style retelling of the novel “Dracula” featuring a gender-bent version of hunter Jean Van Helsing.

It started last week and is set to continue through Nov. 15. Sunday’s matinee is already sold out, but plenty of tickets are still available for the Friday and Saturday night shows. Both begin at 8 p.m.

SoFo Fall Greenscape (Saturday)

If the multitude of candy wrappers you go through on Halloween inspires you to offset your carbon footprint, SOFO Annapolis, representing (So)uth (Fo)rest Drive, will be holding its Fall Greenscape event.

The group is inviting SOFO members, neighbors and local businesses to come help beautify the area.

The event runs from 9 a.m. to noon. The group will meet up in the Truist Bank parking lot on Hillsmere Drive.

They ask that those participating bring gloves and tools, with SOFO providing the supplies

Last First Sunday Arts Festival (Sunday)

It’s your last chance this year to catch the First Sunday Arts Festival on West Street. The festival features products of all types created by local artisans.

If you miss this one, you’ll have to catch the festival when it returns next May.

That being said, there will be plenty more to do on West Street as the year comes to a close, like the Taste of Fall food event, the Chocolate Binge Festival, and more.

Interested in seeing your event on this list? Contact Benjamin Rothstein at brothstein@baltsun.com, 443-928-1926.

On Oct. 29, 2024, police responded to the Snow Cap Court in the Mountain Ridge Apartment Complex at around 7:40 p.m., when they found the 30-year-old Harris on the ground. She was taken to the University of Maryland Baltimore Washington Medical Center, her workplace, where she was later pronounced dead.

In February, police confirmed that the shooting took place at Harris’ parents’ apartment complex. Now, Anne Arundel County Police have confirmed that they have a person of interest in the case; however, they are still seeking additional information or evidence to move the investigation forward.

“Our investigators have found that, over time, relationships and attitudes change, and someone holding on to information, including the person who committed this act, may now wish to come forward and allow this case to move forward, potentially providing some closure for the grieving family,” Marc Limansky of the Anne Arundel County Police Department wrote to the Capital Gazette in an email.

Harris’ colleagues from the medical center organized a moment of silence and a candle lighting ceremony to remember the postpartum nurse on the anniversary of her death.

“I am deeply moved by and supportive of how our team members have chosen to honor the memory and legacy of Natasha Harris, RN. These acts of remembrance reflect the best of who we are — demonstrating our shared values of compassion and excellence, and our mission of always caring for our community,” Kathy McCollum, president of University of Maryland Baltimore Washington Medical Center, wrote in a statement to the Capital Gazette. “Natasha’s contributions to our patients and our organization are deeply missed. … [H]er impact continues to be felt by all who knew her.”

For her co-workers, Harris’ compassion defined her.

“Natasha Harris, RN, was a phenomenal postpartum nurse whose compassion and dedication touched the lives of so many women, children and families in our care. She had a true heart for service — always giving of herself to others, both inside and outside the hospital,” wrote Kendra Coles, director of women’s & children’s services at the hospital. “Her patients loved being cared for by her and often shared how deeply they felt her kindness and warmth. She will always be remembered as a dedicated nurse, a beloved colleague and a woman whose caring spirit continues to inspire us all.”

The Capital Gazette was unable to reach a family member Wednesday.

Police ask anyone with information to call detectives at 410-222-4731 or leave an anonymous tip via the Anne Arundel County Police Tip Line at 410-222-4700. They can also contact Crime Stoppers at 866-7LOCKUP or metrocrimestoppers.org/submit-a-tip.

Have a news tip? Contact Benjamin Rothstein at brothstein@baltsun.com, 443-928-1926.

The Stevensville vineyard boasts half a dozen varieties of wine on its website at the moment but teases more for the future. These include the Eastern European white wine Grüner Veltliner, and two different concentrations of Barbera Rosé, a mix of Barbera and Chambourcin wines.

The vineyard covers around 30 acres, each growing between 1 and 4 tons of grapes every harvest. When the vineyard had some surplus grapes in 2023, owner Selvin Passen thought it was the perfect opportunity to give wine-making a try, according to his daughter, Dorie Passen.

In partnership with Windridge Vineyards, which is west of Baltimore, five vintages were made that were later entered into this year’s Maryland Wineries Association Governor’s Cup, where local vineyards and wineries go head-to-head with the best wines they can for a panel of judges. The 2024 Chardonel Reserve took gold, while the others took silver.

When Passen realized he wanted to get further into the winery business, he enlisted his daughter, a self-proclaimed “educated consumer” of wines, to help set up the tasting room and in-person sales operation.

“We were doing some wholesale stuff, but while we were doing that, we realized we really needed a tasting room, and at that point, [Selvin Passen] asked me if I could help him. He’s not really a wine drinker,” Dorie Passen said. “It’s kind of been a dream of mine to do something like this, and the timing was right.”

Sales started outdoors earlier this year, with the tasting room opening around two months ago. The business is holding a ribbon-cutting event for the tasting room and wine operations this week.

One consideration that Chesapeake Manor, as well as other vineyards, must take into account when growing grapes for wine is the climate. It is for this reason that, among several varieties of grapes, the vineyard has embraced the Chardonel, a lab-made hybrid between an environment-picky Chardonnay grape and a Seyval Blanc grape. Dorie Passen said the latter provides environmental resistance without sacrificing the flavor of the former. Cornell University, which is responsible for creating the hybrid in the 1950s, characterizes Seyval Blanc’s genetic contribution as “winter hardiness.”

Dorie Passen says that they have managed to cultivate high-quality grapes at the vineyard. Only half is put toward the vineyard’s own wine; the other is purchased by other local wineries.

Though the selection is limited at the moment, she said that the vineyard is continually trying out new varieties of grape that could find their way into Chesapeake Manor wines in the future.

The vineyard is open every weekend: noon to 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and noon to 7 p.m. on Sundays.

Have a news tip? Contact Benjamin Rothstein at brothstein@baltsun.com, 443-928-1926.

The funeral for James will be held in Windsor, Connecticut, on Saturday, according to the obituary posted by Carmon Community Funeral Home. It will be available to stream on the funeral home’s website, carmonfuneralhome.com. A foundation has also been established in his honor to benefit students of color at his alma mater, Whippany Park High School in New Jersey.

James was born in New York and, at a young age, moved to Whippany, New Jersey, where he grew up. His goal was to eventually join the Marine Corps, according to the obituary.

Articulate from an early age, he was encouraged to speak his mind, was outgoing and had a positive attitude, his family wrote.

In high school, he often found himself the only Black child in his classes, but that didn’t stop him from becoming a leader, according to the obituary. He served as captain on his varsity cross-country and track teams, section leader for his school’s marching band and vice president of the school’s Asian-American Cultural Club. He was inducted into the National Honor Society.

“He took full advantage of every opportunity presented to him and worked to leverage all his abilities. Kyle was a friend to all, compassionate and kind, always willing to help, and for all these qualities, he was appreciated beyond measure and was grateful for all that was given to him,” his family wrote. “Kyle’s friends and supporters spanned all different walks of life. He loved them all, and in return, they all loved him. Their closeness was a true testament to his huge heart.”

His achievements caught the attention of U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, who nominated James for the Naval Academy. While there, he studied history and sang in the USNA Gospel Choir.

The funeral home, in collaboration with Treasured Memories Community Funding, has established the Kyle Philbert James Memorial Scholarship Fund, which will be awarded to students of color at Whippany Park High School, where James graduated. The family asks that memorial contributions be made there. The fundraiser ends on Nov. 30.

James is survived by his mother, Dyane James Solon; his father, Virdin Philbert and step-mother, Aldika Jones-Philbert; and a brother, Joseph William Philbert. His extended family ranges across Connecticut, New York, Maryland, St. Lucia and Barbados.

Visitation will run from 11 a.m. to noon Saturday, with the homegoing service beginning at that point. A graveside service will take place on Monday, Nov. 3, at 10 a.m.

Monday’s graveside service will include military honors rendered by the U.S. Navy.

James had been reported missing the night before his body was discovered.

When contacted Monday, the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said the case was still pending. A cause of death has not been announced.

Have a news tip? Contact Benjamin Rothstein at brothstein@baltsun.com, 443-928-1926.

And chasing those memories is part of what pushed the three millennials to visit Kako Claw in the Annapolis Mall on Friday afternoon.

“Every single time I would try to win something,” Hill said. Hill and Cohen, who were spending time together, won nothing Friday, but Meyers later scored a plush capybara on her fourth try.

Nostalgia by millennials (and others) for the age before social media has become a trend and a powerful draw for local businesses. From claw arcades to a ’90s-themed bar to renewed interest in roller skating, enterprises are seeing promise in the past.

“Consumers are looking for nostalgia more than ever. We live in a world where so much of our entertainment exists on screens, and there’s something deeply satisfying about a physical, tactile experience,” said Kevin Soulivong, Director of Operations for Kako Claw.

Kako Claw opened its Annapolis Mall location earlier this year. Still, it is already preparing to open another at Arundel Mills in Hanover, and several more in malls across Maryland and other states.

But Soulivong acknowledged that creating a feeling of nostalgia is about recreating the past as the consumer remembers it, not how it actually was.

“We’re all wired to seek comfort, and the familiar, and Kako Claw just happens to deliver that through play,” he said. “With regard to nostalgia … there’s a cognitive bias, where we remember the past more fondly than what it actually was, rosy retrospection, and we hold on to the highlights and filter out the frustrations.”

Hank Boyd, assistant dean for civic engagement at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, said that adapting a business to modern conveniences, with features like mobile payments and social media integration, along with intentional retro aspects like theming and music, goes a long way to pull up the good memories rather than the bad ones.

However, Boyd noted the increase in demand for nostalgia could be due to outside influences, such as political polarization and inflation.

“When those stressors rise, what is the natural play? How can you get that anxiety to go down, or reduce it, or mitigate it? Well, nostalgia helps, so that connection to the past is very important,” Boyd said.

According to data cited by Forbes, 91% of people seek an escape from our “age of overwhelm” from time to time.

Like Soulivong, Boyd noted that the nostalgia doesn’t have to be authentic. He mentioned his teenage daughter’s current infatuation with record collecting, adding, “For Gen X [and] boomers, it’s a real reconnection to their youth. It’s part of that inner child … that never dies.”

Boyd said nostalgia can take hold for people who didn’t live in the era, too. But that nostalgia isn’t necessarily legitimate, rather born of stories from older generations, photographs and other media, he said.

“Now, for Gen Z, millennials and even Gen Alpha, they are trying to make this connection to nostalgia that’s kind of maybe a faux-stalgia. It’s not the real deal. They romanticize something in the era they never lived in. And yet, for now, it seems to work,” Boyd said.

One restaurant working hard to get it right is GameOn, an arcade and bar that started in Annapolis in 2022 but has since expanded to Columbia, Baltimore and, just recently, Washington, D.C.

Casey Linthicum and her husband, Eli, started the business when they wanted to open a bar that offered more than just drink. But quickly, they found themselves buying into the aesthetics of the ’80s and ’90s.

“We try to keep everything really retro. We use tokens instead of [using] cards for the games,” Linthicum said. “All of our drinks are ’90s themed, and then we have cool graffiti artwork with a lot of throwback [decor], too.”

The most popular of those nostalgia-fueled drinks is the so-called “Adult Capri Sun.” Linthicum said that the sights, sounds, games, and tastes all take customers back in time.

Earlier this month, another nostalgic business, Skate Zone, expanded to Odenton. At the time, owners Wendy and Rob Sherman spoke of the power of a generational activity like roller skating.

Boyd stressed that nostalgia needs to be used authentically and earnestly.

“When you try something that feels hokey or contrived, [customers are] like, ‘Ah, not going to fall for it,’ and you might alienate them,” he said. “You might actually make them angry, in some sense. So you want to make sure you get it right.”

Have a news tip? Contact Benjamin Rothstein at brothstein@baltsun.com, 443-928-1926.