The cast of HBO's The Wire has pitched in to support the Ella Thompson Fund, established by Thompson, a West Baltimore community leader, and the series's creators David Simon and Edward Burns to provide recreation programs to inner-city kids, and the Baltimore Museum of Industry, with a special auction on EBay. More than 60 items, including autographed Wire merchandise, DVDs, and soundtracks, as well as customized, limited-edition hoodies designed by Jeff Staple Studios, are available for bidding. 

"Spellbinding" says CBS Sunday Morning's film critic David Edelstein of Tim Burton's film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd. "Sondheim, our greatest living theatrical composer and lyricist," Edelstein says, "has never been so deliciously served."

The Christian Science Monitor recommends HBO's The Wire as a Pick of the Week, calling the show "a profoundly thoughtful meditation on the modern American city, its institutions, and the underclass." The New York Times concurs, calling it a "sublime epic of urban realism." Season Five doesn't get underway for another couple weeks, so in the mean time, both papers suggest catching up with Season Four, out now on DVD.

The fifth and final season of The Wire debuts January 6 on HBO, with the series' first-ever soundtracks due out on Nonesuch two days later, so now is the perfect time to tune in to The Wire Odyssey, tonight on HBO, and catch up on the previous four seasons of the Peabody Award–winning show. The half-hour retrospective takes a look back at the show Slate magazine has said is "surely the best TV show ever broadcast in America."

Filmmaker/provocateur John Waters has famously depicted his hometown of Baltimore on the big screen throughout his career. It's perhaps no wonder then that he admits to being a big fan of the Baltimore-based show The Wire. He tells the Toronto Star: "I'm addicted to The Wire on HBO. Not only is it set in Baltimore, but it's like reading a great novel."

Featured on today's Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC, New York Public Radio, is Felicia "Snoop" Pearson from HBO's The Wire. She's written a new memoir, Grace After Midnight, about overcoming an incredible set of odds and turning her life around. Publisher's Weekly has called hers "a powerful story of someone trying to find her way in a dark world ... Pearson's narrative is spare, even poetic, rendering traumatic moments all the more powerful."

HBO's The Wire has been nominated for Best Dramatic Series by the Writers Guild of America, as well as Best Episodic Drama for the episode "Final Grades," the season finale from the show's fourth season, now out on DVD. The WGA Awards will be handed out February 9 in Los Angeles and New York.

In a season already notable for next week's broadcast of Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, starring Audra McDonald and Patti LuPone, PBS's Great Performances 2007–2008 season will include a February 20, 2008, airing of the recent revival of Stephen Sondheim's Company. The series will air a performance from the 2006–2007 production of Company, directed by John Doyle, which earned a host of awards, including the Tony for Best Revival; the cast recording, a Nonesuch release, was recently nominated for a Grammy for Best Musical Show Album.

Next week, PBS offers a very different way to celebrate the holiday season when it airs the Los Angeles Opera's 2007 production of the 1930 Brecht/Weill opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. Starting Monday, December 17, Great Performances will broadcast the opera, starring Audra McDonald and Patti LuPone. John Doyle, who directed LuPone in the recent Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd, helmed this production of the work, which PBS calls a "savage and lyrical satire told in a highly entertaining blend of opera and raucous music hall songs."

Fans of The Wire in New York City this Thursday may want to head down to J&R Music across from City Hall Park: cast members from the acclaimed HBO show will be on hand to sign copies of the newly released DVDs of Season Four. Slated to be in store on December 13 at 12:30 are Chad Coleman ("Cutty" Wise), Jermaine Crawford ("Dukie" Weems), Julito McCullum (Namond Brice), and Tristan Wilds (Michael Lee).

BroadwayWorld.com and Broadway Beat have released the first of three episodes exploring the journey of Sweeney Todd from Broadway sensation by Stephen Sondheim to Tim Burton–directed big-screen blockbuster starring Johnny Depp. Hosted by Richie Ridge, Broadway Beat is a half-hour show, now in its 16th year, covering the best in New York theater. 

As we reported last week, k.d. lang recently appeared on the UK talk show Parkinson to perform the new song "I Dream of Spring," off her upcoming Nonesuch release, Watershed,
due out in February. You can now watch the performance here.