January 4, 2006

With their burgundy uniforms and studied poise, the young singers have become a familiar presence on the streets of Harlem, venerated like celebrities and cherished for their determination to surmount daunting odds. But come Jan. 31, the Boys Choir of Harlem will become a globe-trotting chorale without a home. After more than a decade based at a public school at Madison Avenue and 127th Street, where it helps run the Choir Academy of Harlem, the Boys Choir and its lesser-known sister chorale are being evicted by the city's Department of Education for what the agency describes as a host of financial and managerial improprieties. Although it has always had difficulty raising funds, the choir now faces its most serious crisis since it was founded in the basement of a Harlem church nearly four decades ago.

New York Giants and player Tiki Barberprepare to face Carolina Panthers in playoff game; photo (M)

Even the most ardent fans of the Southern California football team would struggle to identify Dennis Slutak and Christie Uribe. The same can be said for Texas fans and Cleve Bryant. But it is Slutak, the director of football operations, and Uribe, Coach Pete Carroll's assistant, who quietly help the Trojan football machine run smoothly. That means everything from Slutak's arranging sideline passes for the actor Henry Winkler, a big Trojans fan, to Uribe's organizing the thousands of items that Carroll autographs every week for charity.

Even as the Nassau County executive, Thomas R. Suozzi, prepares to begin a campaign for governor this year, he is battling political brush fires on Long Island. The latest ignited on Tuesday as two fellow Democrats in the County Legislature bolted to form a coalition with the Republican minority.

No umbrella, thank you, for her rebel majesty, Mary Queen of Scots. As portrayed to a red-blooded fare-thee-well by Janet McTeer in the ripping production of ''Mary Stuart'' at the Apollo Theater here, the title character of Friedrich Schiller's 1800 drama is the kind of gal who greets a rainstorm with face to the sky, bodice open and arms outstretched. She is what you might call a natural woman. This means, in a land of court intrigue and polished public images, that she is dead meat. Spontaneity is not the key to success in a world kept spinning by spin. Ms. McTeer's sopping wet Mary Stuart, as she appears in an unforgettable scene in this stage burner of a revival, is the most spectacular embodiment of a series of characters in London theaters this season who are doomed by their refusal to be other than themselves. Mary's appearance-conscious (and umbrella-sheltered) cousin, Queen Elizabeth I -- portrayed with glittering iciness by Harriet Walter -- keeps her head, literally and figuratively, precisely because she knows ''the world thinks through its eyes.''