So much has been written about shade gardening. I think there's even a shade gardening forum here.

My favorite is astible. I love the color when it blooms and when it's finished blooing, it still looks nice.

Agree try Shade forum.

We don't have enough information regarding "design" issues--in terms of what should be by the front entry and where, or not, what sizes and shapes, for framing, welcoming--what to use and what to avoid.

But when you say "brighten," you may want to go to nurseries and look in the shade sections and see what makes you happy. Often that means variegated or color contrasts. You can decide if you like splashes of yellow--like variegated aucuba--or silvery colors, like Ghost fern, lamiums--or gray green and white, like pittosporum. Most flowering shrubs will not bloom well in very deep shade, as you can see with even azaleas and camellias, so a lot depends on whether you get some sun, or none. But you can get a lot of mileage out of foliage.

In your zone, if you want long-lasting bright in the summer, use shade annuals--a drift of white impatiens, white caladiums, etc with some ferns and hostas will look good for 5+ months and beat anything you can arrange with just perennials, if space is limited. If area is dry and you don't water much, white begonias and lamiums and other drought-tolerant plants. I say white for "brighten," but you may mean hot pink or red or any cheery color.

The thing is that an entry area is not going to be just about plants.

The design issues at an entry can be influenced by so many factors--roof lines, paint or siding colors, window treatment, adequacy and aesthetic quality of porch, patio, or stoop at doorway, sidewalk (if needed), style of home...

Hard to say whether it might or might not be more effective to carefully review these other matters before trying to fix the problem through the choice of a perfect plant combination.

Perfect plant combos rarely achieve their potential if the real issue is something else.

That being said, here are some of my favorite plants for the shade:

Actea simplex (formerly, cimicifuga) Dramatic structural plant for the shade. Needs plenty of water, particularly first year or so. I like the dark form. Sends up 4 to 5 foot fragrant plume-like flower scapes in late summer.

Heuchera Many new cultivars. Could probably find foliage in just about any shade desired, including pink, purple, lime, orange, chartreuse, and combinations. Many forms are "evergreen", which doesn't really happen for me in 6b, but might work better where you are. These are rounded or mound shaped perennials and mine sort of come in two sizes--the type that gets to be about 10" tall and the type that gets about 18" tall. The flowers, which I sometimes clip off, often rise high above the foliage.

Brunnera 'Jack Frost' Really catches the eye of those visiting my garden in flower or out. Leaves are whitish silver with dark green veins and edges. Forget-me-not like blue flowers in spring.

Sambucus 'Sutherland's Golden' Technically a woody shrub, not a perennial, and can get 8 to 10 feet tall. Needs shade protection, but leaves are more golden with more light, otherwise lime to light green. Feathery fern-like foliage. Fragrant flowers in spring.

I have never purchased one myself, but some of the places that describe and sell japanese maples mention varieties that are smaller than what I usually think of as standard Jap maple size. Maturing at 6' or even 4'. That doesn't mean they stop growing, but usually indicates average size at 5 or 10 years. If space is an issue, maybe that would be of interest.

Wellspring

What about winter? The hosta will have died back, and most ferns also.

If you want a BRIGHT evergreen and you have room for a good-sized shrub, consider aucuba. Green leaves with lemon yellow spots: they look as if someone had sprinkled yellow paint on them. Two cultivars are pictured at the link at the end of the post. If you've never seen one before, you'll be surprised, particularly by cultivars like mine (though I don't know which variety it is; it's more startling than the pictures I've seen so far).

I'm in 7a, and can expect to lose some leaves when there's a bad spring frost, but it recovers well, and new growth soon replaces any blackened leaves.

Mine grows in a western exposure, though it gets some winter shade. This site says it can handle full shade: http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/plants/plant_finder/plant_pages/79.shtml

I also have a BRIGHT, variegated euonymus, which is also an evergreen. It's shaded by the house in the mornings and by a huge silver maple in the afternoon; it only gets an hour of sun, but somehow it's a bright shade. I don't know if it would work in your location. Some euonymus have a creeping habit, while others are upright; there are variegated cultivars of both types. (Again, I'm not sure which cultivar I have; there are several variegated ones, both green/yellow and green/cream.)

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/consumer/factsheets/shrubs/aucuba_japonica.html