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Best Director

Michael Hall for The Loman Family Picnic at Caldwell Theatre Company

The veteran Hall has long been known for his consistent professionalism, but this time out, his direction of Donald Margulies' oddball memory play really excelled. Hall's compelling visuals were easy to spot and admire, while his subtle, beautifully paced scene work and careful coaching of two subteen actors were far more subtle but just as effective. The result was a carefully orchestrated, fully realized theatrical vision that was the highlight of the season.

Best Ensemble

John Felix, Margery Lowe, Michael McKeever, and Joanna Olsen for Seascape

This expert quartet delivered a beautiful balanced display of assured, nuanced acting in the Palm Beach Dramaworks production of this Edward Albee play. As a vacationing couple dodging fears of aging and mortality, Felix found depths of honesty and simplicity, while Olsen radiated courage and joy. As a lizard couple from the sea, McKeever and Lowe made these implausible characters thoroughly believable.

Best Supporting Actor

Michael Polak for Take Me Out

Polak's startling performance as a homophobic baseball pitcher provided a welcome jolt of menace and unpredictability to the Caldwell Theatre drama. With a rough Southern drawl and a rangy, awkward physicality, Polak was thoroughly convincing as the play's gay-hating nemesis, who suffers a frightening nervous breakdown in a memorable second-act confrontation. We don't know when Polak will play our area again, but we hope it's soon and often.

Best Supporting Actress

Kim Ostrenko for The Gulf of Westchester

As a tightly coiled Republican suburbanite in conflict with her liberal houseguests, Ostrenko's underplayed performance added dimension and empathy to a rather shallow role. Filling in the character's silences with telling subtle behavior, Ostrenko beautifully revealed a conflicted, conventional woman afraid to discover her most profound feelings.

Best Design Team

Tim Bennett and Thomas Salzman for Take Me Out

Bennett's impressive baseball-themed design on the Caldwell Theatre stage featured locker room and shower interiors, framed by a baseball scoreboard and a massive green outfield wall. Salzman's expert, evocative lighting, using pools of light and streaks of color, was equally memorable, with several scenes resembling classic sculpture. The result was stagecraft excellence.

Best New Play

Does Jesus Drum? at City Theatre

Sometimes great gifts come in small packages. Set during the Civil War, Robert Linfors' brief playlet packed a real punch, examining the anguish and fear of parents whose fired-up young son is ready to enlist in the Confederate army. Linfors' timeless dramatic dilemma clearly resonated in today's wartime environment, and City's fine cast, featuring Elizabeth Dimon as the grieving mother, made a lasting impression.

Best Fetish Museum

Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History

Let's say you have a hankering to look at hats. Or handbags. Or vintage lunchboxes. And let's say you're interested in such paraphernalia not as a consumer but as a pop-culture connoisseur in search of some context. Where do you turn? Not to the nearest mall, certainly. No, your best bet is a visit to the Museum of Lifestyle & Fashion History, which is housed, fittingly, in a 1960s storefront that was once a five-and-ten-cent store. The museum, which has its origins in a 1999-2000 sleeper exhibition of Barbie dolls at the nearby Cornell Museum, has presented shows focusing on African-American sacred music, the relocation of American Indian tribes, magazine covers with patriotic themes, and the Mohawk ironworkers who helped construct New York City's skyscrapers. It probably remains best-known, however, for 2003-04's landmark Hats, Handbags & Gloves: From Past to Present, one of the quirkiest exhibitions ever to grace a South Florida museum. Next up: Fore: The Love of the Game: Golf from the 17th Century to the Millennium. Can things get much kinkier?

Best Theater

Palm Beach Dramaworks

Even in its infancy, crammed into a tiny space on Clematis Street in West Palm, Dramaworks has always demonstrated a fidelity to quality and integrity. Now in its fourth season, the company is enjoying a new theater space and a string of superior productions. What makes the 'works work? For starters, this company doesn't talk down to its audiences; it challenges them with rarely produced classics by Sartre, Albee, and other giants. And then there's the fine array of talent, featuring some of our area's top actors and designers.

Best Cultural Provocateurs

By the Way

For more than two years, 20-somethings Yvonne Colón and her curly-haired partner, Garo Gallo, have been developing the local arts community, one rock show at a time. It was back in '02 that Colón first solicited her folks for the seed money to start BTW; since that time, she and Gallo have become the advance team -- a sort of hipster infantry -- that brings art, music, and culture to places previously renowned for lingerie shows and dollar beers. They began promoting local bands at the Fort Lauderdale Saloon, giving the ailing bar and music scene a much-needed shot in the arm, and continued with forays into Broward's less-than-glamorous underbelly. The Las Olas Art Center, the Salt Box, and venerable titty bar Gum Wrappers have all benefited from their insight and effort. As of this writing, the promotion duo continue trailblazing with their latest venture at Karma on Riverwalk, hoping to revive a once-thriving dance club as a live music mecca. You gotta wish them luck -- the harder they work, the better the scene for all of us.

Best Cultural Turnaround

Fort Lauderdale Saloon

Before April of last year, the Fort Lauderdale Saloon was just another cinder-block and plywood rat trap on Federal Highway. Sure, the place had charm (and a laundry machine), but it was of the "let's go slumming" variety, hardly a draw to anyone other than aging drinkers and long-time regulars. Then during spring and summer of last year, a tiny but significant renaissance occurred. Affable owner Walter Ciuffini partnered with local promoters By the Way to bring favorite local acts into the joint -- bands like AC Cobra, Humbert, and Southern Flaw. Soon, it became clear to all that good shows bring hip folks, and hip folks drink a lot of beer. Eureka -- there's money in that there music! BTW has moved on, but Rock Bottom Hip-Hop Nights have taken its place on a nearly weekly basis. Now Friday nights mean breaking b-boys, graffiti in the parking lot, and rappers from all over South Florida strutting their stuff. All this killer music, and the Saloon still offers cheap beer and chicken nuggets. Now that's true South Florida culture.

Best Of Broward-Palm Beach®

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