BEST NEW HANDOUT

Working Class Theatre Northwest

Over the years, I've seen plays in a lot of found spaces from a lot of folding chairs. Seldom has the payoff for that spine-wrenching sacrifice been as enjoyable as A Life in the Theatre, a jagged take on David Mamet's affectionate two-hander. Aside from a limited preview last November, this production marked the maiden voyage of Working Class Theatre Northwest, a project spearheaded by Christina Hughes and Tim Samland. This new troupe is devoted to intelligent material presented at no cost to its audience, and that's a hard price to beat. Watch for WCTNW's next show, a modern spin on Molière's The Misanthrope called School for Lies, arriving in mid-September, followed by productions of Enron and The Sunset Limited. - Christian Carvajal

BEST SELECTION OF PLAYS

Lakewood Playhouse

Technically, I'm not supposed to be choosing "Best Play" and TECHNICALLY, I'm not ... because I'm not just choosing one. Hands down, Lakewood Playhouse chose the best VARIETY of plays this past season, as they have for the last several years. Instead of just pandering to a specific demographic, they pick productions that appeal to a wide variety of theatre goers and then they thoroughly knock each production out of the park. With a fine mix of comedies Arsenic and Old Lace, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Pride and Prejudice, The Odd Couple, and Spamalot contrasted with the drama 12 Angry Men and the radio drama War of the Worlds, and the family show The Chronicles of Narnia, Lakewood Playhouse had a production for everyone. John Munn and company truly deserve this pat on the back for yet another season well done. If you missed these shows, there's always next season! - Joann Varnell

BEST PART TWO ART SHOW

The Monumental Pruzan Collection

Part II of the "Pruzan Collection" (Part I was featured in last year's Best Of) was a monumental collection of the best works from the Northwest featuring, among many other outstanding works, Fay Jones' strangely fabulous painting "Big Fish - Small Pond." And Sherry Markovitz's "Double Donk," a painting of two donkey heads, one in brown on a light blue-green background and one in white on a red background. The repetition and classical balance lend power to this image. I also loved Michael Burns' "Family Portrait." It's a pop art takeoff on a typical family photo with children perched on mama and papa's knees. Their heads are all white with barely visible faces drawn in what looks like graphite. The colors in their clothing dance across the canvas in a most entertaining way. More than 100 examples of excellence in Northwest art were featured in this show - a perfect example of why T-town is lucky to have Tacoma Art Museum. - Alec Clayton

BEST BLOCKING/USE OF SPACE

Lakewood Playhouse

I may have a bit of a theatre geek crush on Lakewood Playhouse. Lakewood Playhouse is the only theatre I've been to in the Tacoma/Lakewood area that has a thrust stage. This setup has the audience on three sides instead of the more common proscenium stage with the audience on one side. The challenge this creates is to make sure the actors play to all sections rather than have one group be subject to just watching the actors backsides. Every show I've reviewed at Lakewood Playhouse has been skillfully blocked to give each side equal face time from the actors. The movements of the actors added comedic or dramatic energy and interest to the performance. Possibly the most standout example of blocking was their Pride and Prejudice. The graceful movements mirrored the underlying tensions of the characters and made the audience feel they were truly apart of the play. - JV

BEST GOOD VIBES

In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play)

Each Christmas, I name my "Carvy" award nominees, chosen from the best of Olympia theater, but I'm usually obliged to leave the re-praising of Tacoma and Lakewood to other critics. This season, however, I saw pretty much everything, so I can assert with confidence that the play of 2013-2014 in Lakewood/Tacoma was a $12 college production. Director Sara Freeman, a University of Puget Sound alum, was able to bring delicacy, detail, passion and compassion to UPS's staging of Sarah Ruhl's In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) last November. It sounds tawdry. It wasn't. Cassie Fastabend was especially relatable in the lead role of Mrs. Givings, the frustrated wife of a 19th-century gynecologist, but the whole, well-costumed cast was on point. No top-dollar production this year made me think or feel more. - CC

BEST FRIGHTENLY FUNNY EXHIBIT

Otto Younger's Natural History of the Surreal

Otto Younger's sculptures in the Handforth Gallery at the downtown Tacoma library spilled out of the gallery space to inhabit sections of the entire gallery, first and second floor, and even the windows above the main entrance. They were big, bold, hysterically funny and insightfully satirical. What Youngers has created is a parody of museum diorama with fantasy creatures - dragons and dinosaur-like skeletons, many of them wearing boxing gloves and Dutch-style wooden shoes. Younger's sculptures are all made from reclaimed wood. Much of it is left in a natural finish and is roughly carved, giving the pieces the look of chainsaw sculpture or primitive craft. Many of the pieces are huge, taking up large sections of the library, such as "The New & Improved Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" on the first floor, which comprises of menacing skeleton men riding giant wooden horses. They would be frightening if they were not so funny. - AC

BEST FILM RIVALRY

Tacoma Filmmakers and the 253 Film Collective

Tacoma is slowly becoming a film town. We have a unique perspective and artistic vision unlike anywhere else; we have a plethora of fresh locations in which to shoot; we're situated between L.A. and Portland to the south, and Vancouver, B.C., to the north; and we have the raw talent to make it happen. Nurturing that talent are two rival filmmaking groups, Tacoma Filmmakers and the 253 Film Collective (full disclosure: I'm a member, and on the executive committee, of the Tacoma Filmmakers). Ohhh, sure! They pretend that there's no rivalry but if these two groups ever found themselves facing each other in an alleyway with switchblade knives. ... Well, it wouldn't be pretty. The two groups have different operating methods with different goals, but in the end, it's local filmmakers who are the winners. The loser? Whoever has to clean that alleyway. - John Kephart

BEST FACE-TO-FACE EXHIBIT

Exploring Self-Identity at TAM

This little exhibitions of portrait art from here at home and around the world at Tacoma Art Museum included more than 60 paintings, drawings and photographs by artists such as Pierre August Renoir, Chuck Close, George Luks, Mary Randlett, Gilbert Stuart and Andrew Wyeth, plus some sculpture and jewelry. It was an intriguing show juxtaposing historical paintings and ultra-modern art. Randlett, a Northwest treasure, was represented by a group of handsome, black-and-white portrait photographs including a great shot of Mike Spafford in his studio. One of the more fascinating works in the show was Raphael Soyer's lithograph "My Studio," which shows the model behind a screen apparently getting ready to disrobe and the artist with his back to her working on a painting. It is voyeuristic and it shows the strange connection/disconnection between artist and model. And it is a beautiful composition of dark and light contrasts. Overall it was an enjoyable show with wide ranging looks at the human face and body over time and across gender, age and ethnicities. - AC

BEST WORST TREND

Warning: it might be you

I first noticed it at a performance of The War of the Worlds at Lakewood Playhouse. Granted, that company's new movie-style seats are incredibly comfortable, so even I have been tempted to drift off. Even so, the stentorian snores emanating from front-row theatergoers seemed awfully aggressive. At one point I charged the mic and yelled to wake people up. In succeeding shows all over the South Sound, I watched as inconsiderate audience members dumped trash, spilled sodas, even shattered glasses. Now patrons converse in every day volumes, exchange texts, refuse to silence their phones, and shout insults at innocent actors. A damnable decline in cinema etiquette has crossed over into live performance areas. Not for nothing, Gritty Citizens, but play nice from now on! - CC

BEST AMENITIES

Tacoma Musical Playhouse

While Tacoma Little Theatre, Lakewood Playhouse, and Tacoma Musical Playhouse all offer snacks and signature (boozy) drinks, only one of these really stands out in the necessities department (although, honorable mention does go to Lakewood Playhouse for allowing patrons to bring their popcorn into the theatre since 2011). Let's talk about the women's restrooms ... the powder room, potty, loo, john, can, and various other, more crass, euphemisms for that sweet, refuge that patrons run to during intermission. Two out of the three theatres sport adequate and private restrooms but Tacoma Musical Playhouse has the Taj Mahal of Tacoma theatre loos. There are a plethora of stalls, a kitchy black and white tile floor, rich paint, multitude of sinks and a chaise lounge chair to rest while you wait in the very fast moving line. Did I mention the plethora of stalls? Kudos to TMP for the loveliest loo in town. - JV

BEST EXHIBIT TO SHOW PATHA'S PATH

Camille Patha's "Punch of Color"

The Camille Patha retrospective at Tacoma Art Museum was stupendous. Patha is a Seattle artist who has been recognized nationally as a proto-feminist painter lauded for, first, surrealistic paintings loaded with feminist and sexual symbolism, and more lately for large abstractions with hot, vibrant color. This show was fascinating for two reasons: first for her unique and intelligent views on feminism and art history, viewed through a slightly twisted surrealistic point of view; and second for the outstanding use of hot, vibrant color. These paintings, especially the wall-sized more recent ones, fairly screamed with burning hot color. As a retrospective, the show offered a clear view of Patha's development from the early sixties, through Magritte-like experiments with space and surrealistic and symbolic self-portraits to her later abstract works free from, yet including, all earlier influences. Curator Rock Hushka said she was virtually unparalleled in the region," and this show proved him right. - AC

BEST BAD TUMBLR

Lights, camera, embarrassment

As in many fields, we theater folk aren't opposed to ruefully celebrating our own failures. If you enjoy basking in humiliation, especially ours, a great place to start is the PR photos troupes shoot in rehearsal to provide rags like ours. That's where Show Nuff (PRisDifficult.tumblr.com) comes in. It collects the best in awful American publicity photos. Scroll down far enough, and you'll see a photo from Tacoma Little Theatre's spring production of Bye Bye Birdie, in which actor Steven Wells seems (rightfully) appalled by DuWayne Andrews, Jr.'s rockabilly wig. I've seen other local photos making the rounds, too, including one of me - and I'm OK with that. As the site manager notes, even Idina Menzel appears on Show Nuff, and she's Adele Dazeem. Let It Go, TLT. - CC

BEST DISCOVERY AT AN ART SHOW

"Wet" and expressive at B2 Fine Art Gallery

The exhibition called "Wet" and subtitled "Abstract Expressionism in fluidity, movement and space" at B2 Fine Art was a retrospective of work by Chuck Smart with some works by other well-known artists thrown in - like Yakime Brown, who is beginning to make a splash in New York; Judy Hintz Cox, a regular at B2 who had four excellent paintings in this show. And just for good measure there were a few glass vessels by Dale Chihuly. I was not previously aware of Chuck Smart. How could I have missed him? As an artist and musician, Smart has earned recognition throughout the world. He passed away in 2008. I was astounded at his ability to work in many different styles and media with obvious skill and vision in each, from highly expressive digital and mixed media imagery combining abstract and figurative elements - a blending of Jasper Johns, Rauschenberg, de Kooning, a hint of Kenneth Patchen and a big dose of Jean-Michael Basquiat - to simple, pop-related imagery with flat but vibrant color application (no visible brushmarks), to soft-focus and blurred photographs of faces and urban scenes. Eclectic? You bet. And in a most delightful way. Most of all it was the haunted and fearsome faces glaring at the viewer and his broken, staccato line that makes this work so powerful. - AC

BEST BOOSTERS

The O'Kelleys

I could just as easily write about Meredith and Tom O'Kelley in our Best of Olympia issue, because those two get around. I've seen them front and center at theaters all over the South Sound. Are there patrons who donate more money to help local troupes pay the bills? Probably. I don't know, and it's none of my business. What I do know is once we exclude all the frequent theatergoers who act or otherwise make theater themselves, I can't think of a more vocal cheerleading squad for live stage performance than this charming, tie-dyed pair of neo-hippies. (I doubt they'll be insulted by any of that.) Until they retired, both worked for Tacoma Public Schools, but now they're all over Facebook drumming up business for deserving shows. I should also tell you that from this critic's perspective, they have excellent taste. I look forward to seeing them at every opening night gala, and so do theater artistic (and business) managers. Meredith and Tom O'Kelley, this standing ovation is for you. - CC

BEST WIN FOR PRESERVING FILMS

The Grand Cinema's New Projectors

I worked, for a time, as a projectionist at The Grand Cinema. There was something loving and blessedly tactile about stringing film through the cogs and inner-workings of a projector; of hearing the ca-chunk sound the splicer would make when joining reels. If it were up to me, real film would never go the way of the dodo. Unfortunately, one has to move with the times, as The Grand Cinema learned. Thankfully, they held a wildly successful campaign to raise the funds necessary to bring digital projectors to Tacoma. It'll always be a bittersweet thing for me, that such measures had to be taken, but anything to keep great films coming to our city will always be worth it. - Rev. Adam McKinney

BEST PLACE TO EAT YOUR LUNCH IN A CONE

Hot Lunch Fridays

I bet you think the best thing with a cone is double-dip, Baskin-Robbins' Peanut Butter ‘n Chocolate. But you're wrong. That's way down in third place right behind Madonna's bra (yes, I'm old). The best thing with a cone is the Museum of Glass, where you can sit in the Hot Shop Amphitheater and watch world-class glass artists thrust burning liquid glass in the Glory Hole. No one should go to his or her grave without having witnessed such a spectacle while eating a grilled cheese sandwich. Fridays at noon, MOG hosts Hot Lunch Fridays where you can watch some of the region's hottest talent create artwork from molten glass while enjoying a boxed lunch from Choripan by Asado, as long as your order is in before 5 p.m. Thursday. I'm here to tell you Choripan's white and yellow cheddar sandwich will make your mother re-analyze her life. 1801 Dock St., Tacoma - Ron Swarner

FRESHEST CLASSICAL MUSIC SERIES

Classical Tuesdays in Old Town

For classical music fans who want to hear something other than the 12,655th performance of Beethoven's "Fifth Symphony," the Classical Tuesdays in Old Town series every second Tuesday between October and February offers rousing performances of accessible music by classical guitarists, sitar musicians, hip young string players and opera in the Slavonian Hall. Artistic Director Pamela Ryker has set the dates for next year, which is good news for those who enjoy a fresh approach to something old. - RS

SEE ALSO
Other 2014 Best of Tacoma readers' poll winners and Weekly Volcano staff picks