Best Theater for Plays

Artistic director Michael Hall brought together such a disparate collection of dramas, comedies, and other compelling offerings last season that it's difficult to characterize the personality of his Caldwell Theatre Company. From the tense, prickly production of Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive to the unrealized yet maniacally funny rendition of Oscar E. Moore's King's Mare to Charles Nelson Reilly's hilarious one-man show, The Life of Reilly, the thread holding the Caldwell works together is their consistently top-drawer production values. Even something as goofy and insubstantial as Paul Firestone's Comedy of Eros received an endearing treatment, with titillating acting and a smart design. Michael Hall never undersells the playwrights he serves, and audiences benefit year after year.