Story: Lampooning the hallowed Arthurian legend, Monty Python’s Spamalot details in irreverent fashion the story of England’s King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table and how they might have come to be.

Story: Charley Wykeham, an undergraduate at Oxford, is in love with Amy Spettigue, niece of the officious Stephen Spettigue. Jack Chesney, Charley’s pal and another Oxford undergraduate, is in love with Spettigue’s ward, KittyVerdun. The young men long to express their feelings to their respective heart-throbs, and use the excuse of a visit by Charley’s aunt, Donna Lucia D’Alvadorez, a wealthy widow in Brazil who plans to see her nephew for the first time, so that Donna Lucia can serve as the young ladies’ chaperone.

Story: Ruby has decided to live her life by experimenting with polyphasic sleep, a term coined by early 20th century psychologist J.S. Szymanski. Instead of sleeping eight hours straight, otherwise known as monophasic sleep, she is determined to sleep just 20 minutes at a time, six times per day.

Thirty shows. Five venues. Five days. Em Piro, founder of the St. Lou Fringe Festival, has upped the ante for the second annual extravaganza in midtown St. Louis, which will occur from Thursday, June 20 through Monday, June 24.

LN’s 2013 Charity Awards had something new this year: an online system that offered readers the opportunity to nominate individuals and organizations for their community service. Congratulations to our winners!

Story: Bishop Alfred Bridgenorth and his wife, Alice, are preparing for the marriage of still another of their many daughters, this time the nuptials of young Edith. This morning, their Chelsea home is overflowing with guests, including the bishop’s military bachelor brother Boxer and Alice’s friend, Lesbia Grantham.

Story: Novelist George Schneider has recently returned from a vacation to Europe, which he had taken to help ease the grief he experienced at the death of his wife. George hasn’t yet come to terms with that death, which followed what he considered an idyllic 12-year marriage.

Story: Lear, the elderly king of Britain, has decided to retire and to divide his kingdom among his three daughters. Goneril, the eldest, and middle daughter Regan are overly effusive in expressing their love for Lear, but young Cordelia simply says that she dutifully loves him as a daughter should love a father. Angered by Cordelia’s low-key approach, Lear disinherits her. When his faithful lord Kent tries to reason with him, Lear banishes Kent from the kingdom.

Story: Five intrepid sisters from Iowa, driven by youngest sibling Effie’s desire to write, produce and star in her own shows, decide to take their self-made act on the road following the death of their widower father, “Pops.” Effie, her slow-thinking sister Ella (kicked in the head by a mule at age 5), the ‘beautiful one’ Lizzie, the ‘matronly’ eldest Jessie and the would-be comedienne Addie soon are performing around Iowa in the 1890s, hopeful of breaking into vaudeville.

Story: Wealthy art dealers Flanders and Ouisa Kittredge have invited an important contact named Geoffrey to their swank New York City apartment to hopefully make a tidy $2 million profit on a Cezanne they’re selling. While the three of them converse, a young black man knocks at the door. He tells Flan and Ouisa that he is a classmate of their children at Harvard and that he’s in town awaiting the arrival of his dad, noted actor Sidney Poitier, who will be directing the film version of Cats.

Story: Louise Seger, a Houston homemaker with a husband and two children, becomes an instant fan of rising young country singer Patsy Cline when she hears the latter perform on The Arthur Godfrey Talent Show on CBS in 1957. She soon pesters the local disk jockey regularly with requests for tunes by Cline. In 1961, when she learns that Cline will be performing at Houston’s Esquire Ballroom, she and her husband and boss arrive 90 minutes early for the concert.

Alas, I am once again forced to do what I have been doing each time M. Night Shyamalan releases a film: document the staggering downward spiral of a man once thought of as the next Steven Spielberg. This time, it’s After Earth, a witless, banal, tedious, melodramatic special-effects fest that is disappointing from the opening sequence until the credits role, thankfully just 100 minutes later.

Marsha Mason’s horizons have expanded significantly from her childhood in St. Louis. The one-time Catholic schoolgirl attended Holy Rosary grade school in North St. Louis and later Mary Queen of Peace when her family moved to Crestwood. She became interested in theater while attending Nerinx Hall High School and the Conservatory of Theatre Arts at Webster University before embarking on her illustrious stage and film career.

Stories: In Il Tabarro, barge owner Michele works his small crew hard but also shows compassion. He could get by with one fewer stevedore, but doesn’t want to put Luigi out of work. Michele deeply loves his wife Giorgetta, but feels that a distance has grown between them since the death of their child a year earlier. He suspects that Giorgetta is taking comfort in the arms of another man, and vows revenge when he finds out who that alleged lover is.

Story: Dorothy, an impressionable and idealistic girl growing up with her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry on a farm in Kansas, finds her life turned upside down, literally, when she is swept away by a tornado. She ends up in a magical kingdom where her house has landed on and killed the Wicked Witch of the East.

Story: Writer Charles Bukowski (1920-94) lived most of his life in Los Angeles, and derived inspiration for many of his works from the City of Angels. He wrote during the same period as many of the Beat Generation writers, including poet Allen Ginsberg and novelists Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs.

Story: A poet enters the theater and ascends to the stage. He walks over and introduces himself to a musician seated off stage left. He returns to center stage, turns around and views a triptych of sorts that has an ancient look to it. There’s also a chalkboard that the poet uses to drive home certain points, a simple table and chair, a briefcase and a trunk that contains the tools of his trade.

If you are not in the mood for car chases, gun battles, nuclear threats or absurd premises, then I suggest you stay home and rent Silver Linings Playbook. When a Tom Cruise-driven, alien-invasion, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it extravaganza grosses $5 million opening weekend, you know there are some movies out there resetting the bar. So if you are craving salty snacks, an overpriced soda and some state-of-the-art computer-generated imaging, you won’t be disappointed…And, action!

When it comes to summer fun, St. Louis makes it easy to be a kid—or stay young at heart. Follow this family-friendly guide to the city’s best summer attractions for kids—and their parents.

The middle-school years are tough, even under the best of circumstances. That's when kids are most susceptible to negative influences, with some easily falling prey to drugs, alcohol and gangs.

Story: Viola is washed ashore in Illyria after being shipwrecked with her twin brother Sebastian and others, whom she believes have died. Endangered in a strange land, she masquerades as a young page named Cesario and becomes employed by Orsino, Duke of Illyria.

Story: Jeffrey is 10 years old and a bit too headstrong for his parents’ liking. So, they enroll him in Mrs. Helen Kirk’s manners class at their local YMCA in Steubenville, Ohio. It’s 1967, so Jeffrey and the other students in “Mrs. Mannerly’s” class dress in spiffy fashion which, after all, is part of being properly groomed and presented.