Arts & Entertainment >>

• Best Approximation of Love Story by a Boulder Author
  God-Shaped Hole
  Tiffanie DeBartolo
  God-Shaped Hole, Tiffanie Debartolo's tale of star-crossed love - born in the classified ads, played out beneath the artificial glow of Los Angeles life -- has all of the elements of pure romantic noir: The lead character, Trixie, has a love affair with the dreamy and intense Jacob, a writer for... More >>
• Best Place to Watch The Simpsons
  William's Tavern
  When The Simpsons come on at William's Tavern, all activity stops. The eclectic jukebox (it's got everything from The Cramps to Hank Williams to Motown) clicks off and patrons hunkered at the bar and sitting in the church pews pay their respects in the House of Simpson. Regulars know to arrive... More >>
• Best Dance Club for Dancing ­ Before the Roof Fell In
  Vinyl
  Yeah, we know Vinyl is no more: The great blizzard of 2003 tore the roof off the place, literally, while completely demolishing Floyd's Barbershop next door. But owner Regas Christou has vowed to rebuild, and we hope he hops to. Although Vinyl lacked the flash of the high-profile Church right... More >>
• Best Dance Club for Dancing During Reconstruction
  Starline Lounge
  The Starline Lounge has been dealing with the best kind of identity crises in the past year. While owner Curt Simms has slowly sallied forth with plans to open the former Denver Buffalo Company space as an upscale Mexican food restaurant called Cielo, the club portion has been cookin' for... More >>
• Best Dance Club for Looking Up
  Club Purple
  Don't wear a short skirt to Club Purple unless you're feeling flashy. The floor that separates the first and second levels is all glass, which means that ground-dwellers can get a good look at the stylish throngs dancing and drinking above. But even at right-side-up angles, the crowd is an... More >>
• Best Dance Club for Hooking Up (1 Comment)
  Alley Cat Night Club
  If you're enough of a hep cat to gain entrance into the Alley Cat Night Club - finding its darkened doorway in a Glenarm Street alley is a feat in itself -- you'll be within purring distance of some of the city's most purebred socialites. The VIP room is an A-list extravaganza, where singles... More >>
• Best Place to Pick Up a Guy
  Diamond Cabaret
  A strip club seems ridiculous until you figure the guy/girl ratio, which is strikingly similar to that of Breckenridge. Most gents come to the Diamond Cabaret with a pimp roll to spend -- but they're grateful to see women they can touch or talk to without management stepping in and without it... More >>
• Best Place to Pick Up an Artist
  Funky Buddha Lounge
  Art rules Tuesday nights at the Funky Buddha. Each week the popular lounge features works by a different local artist, making these opening-night parties a great foray into Denver's creative class. And if you've had your eye on someone, trust in one of the town's most gracious hostesses,... More >>
• Best Sonic Makeover
  The Church
  We like the clubs, the clubs that go "boom." Which is to say we respect power in a sound system. But we respect precision even more. We want to hear the highs just as clearly as we feel the ribcage-massaging bass. Which is why we recognize the Church's new 100-grand main sound system as... More >>
• Best Club DJ
  Josh Ivy
  Josh Ivy has been typecast as a trip-hop DJ, better known for laying out cerebral, chilled-out grooves than sweaty, banging dance sets. But while Ivy is arguably the best down-tempo DJ in the city, the kid can also rock a party at 140 beats per minute. Peering out over the decks from behind his... More >>
• Best Club Night
  Velcro Kitten
  The Snake Pit
  Under the guidance of Buffalo Exchange co-owner Todd Colletti, DJ Quid has returned to the Snake Pit alongside DJ Wyatt Earp, bringing a trunkload of the electro sounds of artists such as Miss Kitten, Peaches and Fischerspooner. Who knows how long the sound will last? Who cares? For now, the... More >>
• Best Traveling Gay Theme Night
  Denver Guerrilla Queers
  Call it a social experiment. Borrowing an idea born in San Francisco, the Denver Guerrilla Queers and their leader Billie Trix have just one mission: Each month, they round up gay clubbers, mix them into a straight establishment...and shake well. Usually, everyone winds up dancing, drinking and... More >>
• Best Gay Bar for Straight Men
  Charlie's
  Contrary to popular belief, straight men love to be ogled by gay men. But going from "God's gift to women" to "God's gift to all mankind" can be difficult, even for the most cocksure heterosexual. Most of the gay clubs make the mistake of blasting their diva ballads so loud that an honest man... More >>
• Best Gay Bar for Gay Men
  Oxygen
  La Rumba
  In an increasingly fractured world of clique-catering clubs, now is the time to celebrate La Rumba for bringing far-flung splinter groups together. Every Friday night, the club that is famous for its salsa, tango and merengue dancing plays host to 0/2 (Oxygen), and it truly is a breath of fresh... More >>
• Best Summer Bar for Gay Men and Women
  Fox Hole Lounge
  The Fox Hole deserves more than a Best of Denver award. It deserves to be made a national historic landmark. The proud and blessed gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered and questioning people of Denver also know it as a World Heritage Site and Universal Spiritual Power Center. Not just for... More >>
• Best After-Hours Club
  Enigma Afterhours
  In the heart of LoDo rather than up in that slightly scary warehouse district, Engima Afterhours is 21st-century fresh, not '90s stale. The decor is a notch above the basic black-paint-on-wood look found at many other late-night locales, and this newish addition to Denver's club index pumps out... More >>
• Best New Club
  Butterfly
  Occupying the remodeled space formerly known as Sanctuary is the officially unnamed club every glow-stick waver in Denver is calling "Butterfly" because of the chrysalis symbols on the club's fliers and the giant butterflies suspended above the dance floor. Whatever its appellation, we just... More >>
• Best Heavy-Metal Club
  Bottoms Up Tavern
  The past year saw several venues abandon original heavy metal, forcing bands and fans to run for the hills -- or the suburbs. Fortunately, Bottoms Up was waiting in Aurora. With a new name, new owners and a newly renovated interior, the bar formerly known as Heimmie's Pub quickly established a... More >>
• Best Place to Bang Your Head
  House of Rock
  Heavy-metal fans, leather up and break out the earplugs. House of Rock's black-clad lineup of head-banging hard rock and metal proves that angry music never dies -- it just fades from radio airplay. House of Rock operates from a nondescript warehouse building in Northglenn and features original... More >>
• Best Country-Western Club
  Grizzly Rose
  All the cowboys in cowtown know that for the best country music, you've gotta go where the rose is grizzly. Even the Country Music Association named the Grizzly Rose one of the top clubs in the country. The huge complex offers free dance lessons on Wednesdays, weekly performances from local C&W... More >>
• Best Jazz Club
  Dazzle Supper Club
  What more could a world-weary, bop-starved jazzaholic ask for? At Dazzle, a cozy and stylish boîte in Capitol Hill, the management provides a broad array of fresh talent -- local and national -- every week, along with a superb sound system, beautifully made cocktails and excellent saloon... More >>
• Best New Jazz Club
  Dulcinea's 100th Monkey
  Dulcinea, what did we do before you were born? Stellar live jazz, blues and funk blare -- or sometimes ooze -- from this Colfax lair six nights a week. A laid-back, hip Capitol Hill crowd helps give Dulcinea's the pervasive feeling of comfort; there's no pretension, just casual cool among the... More >>
• Best Rock Club
  Herman's Hideaway
  It's not the most high-profile club in Denver, nor the biggest. Still, when local bands snag that first weekend slot at Herman's, they know they've reached a benchmark in their careers. One of the few clubs outside LoDo to offer -- and need -- valet parking, the Hideaway has helped launch the... More >>
• Best New Rock Club
  Larimer Lounge
  Many of the lofts in the Ballpark neighborhood sit empty, casting a ghost-town pall over the area during daylight hours. Still, upper Larimer Street got a considerable jolt of life late last year when the Larimer Lounge opened as a music venue with a formidable calendar. After taking over the... More >>
• Best Small Club
  Lion's Lair
  The Lion's Lair might be just a cub in Denver's club kingdom when it comes to size. But in terms of character, it's elephantine. Whether the live music is punk, alt-country or straight-up rock, expect the experience to be intimate. On packed nights, patrons are often within spitting distance of... More >>
• Best Midsized Venue in Denver
  Bluebird Theater
  There probably are people who miss the Bluebird Theater's days as a porn theater, but we doubt many of them are music lovers. Unlike skin flicks -- which arguably should be viewed in the privacy of your home, trailer or motel room -- the live-music experience is genuinely enhanced by a proper... More >>
• Best Midsized Venue in Boulder
  Boulder Theater
  The Boulder Theater is not the kind of place you go to get loaded on cheap beer and talk through a performance. Audiences in the palatial, deco-style hall come to actually listen to music, and for good reason: The Theater's schedule is so eclectic and well-rounded, there really is something for... More >>
• Best Bar at a Local Music Venue
  The Balcony Bar The Gothic Theatre
  Perched high in the Gothic Theatre's cavernous rafters, the bar at the back of the balcony is the optimal place to quaff a drink at a show. Its lofty location allows for a near-bird's-eye view of the stage as well as the theater's lively art-deco interior. The atmosphere is cozy and unlike that... More >>
• Best Musical Addition to the Denver Skyline
  Universal Lending CityLights Pavilion
  It's a tent! It's a theater! It's a fully modular, collapsible, portable music venue, planted smack dab in the middle of the Pepsi Center parking lot during warmer months. Replicating a seasonal venue that's been successful in Boston, CityLights was unfolded last spring as a joint partnership... More >>
• Best Place to See Chicks Fight
  Carioca Cafe
  Carioca Cafe, also known affectionately as "BAR," after its generic neon sign, squats on the desolate corner of 21st and Champa. The astoundingly cheap drinks and great Tuesday-night DJs Chuck and Brian attract a strange mix of clientele: scooter folk, indie rockers, Joe Hundredaires and, of... More >>
• Best Place to Sing Along Drunkenly to Marvin Gaye
  Streets of London Pub
  Every Thursday night at Streets of London Pub, DJs Rob Hostetter and Dan Shattuck spin the sweet, deep sounds of '60s soul music. Shattuck focuses on the Jamaican strains of rocksteady and ska, but Hostetter specializes in northern soul -- the stomping, exuberant, dance-inducing style of... More >>
• Best Place to Sing Along Drunkenly to Piano Music
  Charlie Brown's Bar & Grill
  Saddle, stumble or slump on up to the piano in the corner at Charlie Brown's. Even if you've overindulged in the bar's strong cocktails -- that's what people do at Charlie Brown's, after all -- Pauly Lopez's playing will only sweeten the buzz. A veritable ivory-tinkling encyclopedia of Tin Pan... More >>
• Best Place to Perk Up With the Blues
  Acoustic Cafe
  People can get their groove -- and their buzz -- on at Nederland's Acoustic Cafe. This funky coffee shop, founded by state representative Tom Plant, attracts both yuppie skiers and hippie townies. The diverse clientele comes not only for the beans, but also for the beats. Most Friday and... More >>
• Best Place to Make Fun of Hipsters Making Fun of Yuppies
  The Red Room
  Yuppies go to the Red Room to feel edgy and urban, not to mention partake in a kick-ass selection of microbrews. Hipsters go to the Red Room for the amazing appetizers and $1.75 cans of Old Milwaukee...and, of course, to make fun of the yuppies. The rest of us go to the Red Room to comment on... More >>
• Best Winterized Lounge
  The Ginger Bar at Funky Buddha Lounge
  The see-and-be-seen bar that is the Funky Buddha has an equally fancy-pants upstairs lounge that keeps its cocktail-toting patrons nice and toasty, even in the heart of a snowstorm. In the summer, the plastic eaves roll down, and the place transforms into Denver's most beatific rooftop patio --... More >>
• Best Smoker's Paradise
  Charlie Brown's Bar & Grill
  As Boulder's goody-two-shoes influence spreads insidiously across the Front Range, more and more smokers are forced to find public spaces that still allow the open practice of their vice. At Charlie Brown's, smoking is not only allowed, it's practically encouraged. Four people settling down to... More >>
• Best Men's Room in a Bar
  Sancho's Broken Arrow
  For a bathroom to be considered "the best," it must reek more of personality than of your drinking buddy's puke. The men's restroom at Sancho's may not be the cleanest in Denver, but like the tie-dyed audience at a Phish show, hygiene is not central to its appeal. With elaborately airbrushed... More >>
• Best Women's Room in a Bar
  Gabor's
  A women's restroom must always give a little bit more. For the ladies, it's a place not only to take care of business, but to seek refuge when the guys are going over the score of last night's Avs game for the umpteenth time. Gabor's offers a collage-crazy restroom that mostly resembles an... More >>
• Best Social Melting Pot
  Sundown Saloon
  It's hard to believe that one can actually find a bar with some diversity in a town teeming with rich white frat boys. Everyone from toothless locals cadging ciggies in the penalty box (smoking room), to burly Air Force guys out for some rugged homo-social bonding, to poor graduate students... More >>
• Best Club Doorman
  Larry Daniel
  Larry Daniel is the unflappable gent who has been running the door and deejaying at the Climax and its predecessor, the Raven, since the locale's disco heyday. He's also been putting up gracefully with hordes of punk brats and drunk scenesters since the venue started hosting rock shows in 1994.... More >>
• Best Soundman
  Mike Maloney
  Golden's historic Buffalo Rose is one of the state's better music rooms. What makes it so special? A split-level roadhouse layout and soundman Mike Maloney. The always-accommodating Maloney finesses the Rose's full-sized P.A. to perfection, thrilling listeners with a sound that's big but never... More >>
• Best Rock-and-Roll Bartender
  Ronnie Crawford
  Ronnie Crawford could probably bench-press more than all of the young rockabilly kids who sidle up to the Skylark Lounge's long bar combined. At sixty, the stylish, sunny barkeep pulls pints and chats up the retro and twang-loving crowd that frequents the Baker neighborhood watering hole with a... More >>
• Best Musical Lawyer
  Kelly David
  The idea of a lawyer for Qwest -- a company that just saw four of its executives indicted on a variety of nasty charges -- making new-age music in his spare time makes perfect sense: Who in such a position couldn't use a little stress relief? But considerably more unexpected is the fact that... More >>
• Best Grammy Winner
  India.Arie
  While Norah "Where the hell did she come from?" Jones went home with an armful of awards after the 2003 Grammy awards in New York City, Denver-reared India.Arie managed to grab two of her own. The soulful singer snagged statues for Best Urban/Alternative Performance for the song "Little Things,"... More >>
• Best Changes in Programming
  Swallow Hill Music Association
  Change, especially the easygoing kind, takes time. But after a while, it starts to show. Such is the case at Swallow Hill, where in the few years since the venue moved to its present space and Jim Williams took over as director, the concert hall/music school has quietly turned into an entrenched... More >>
• Best Underground Party Series
  Beats and Bowling
  Elitch Lanes
  Taking the Rock 'n' Bowl concept to a higher level, the Beats and Bowling underground parties at Elitch Lanes offer glow-in-the-dark bowling 'til 5 a.m., with a continuous underground party-music soundtrack, for the imminently justifiable cover charge of fifteen bucks (which includes all... More >>
• Best Spoken-Word Series
  Cafe Nuba
  Gemini Tea Emporium
  You'd be wise to arrive at the Gemini Tea Emporium early on the last Friday of every month; by 10 p.m., the bright, lovely Gemini spills over like a too-filled teacup. Packing them in is Cafe Nuba, a performance-poetry series that draws the most energetic, passionate and politically infused... More >>
• Best Rock-and-Roll Game Night
  Pinball Challenge
  Climax Lounge
  Most evenings at the Climax Lounge, the game area in a back room is open to everyone. But every Thursday night, novices are advised to step aside and let the experts do their thing. Boasting one of Denver's only competitive p-ball competitions, the Lounge has become a sporting destination for... More >>
• Best Blues Musician
  Otis Taylor
  In 2002, Otis Taylor was named Best New Artist at the W.C. Handy Awards -- the Grammys of the blues field. Of course, Taylor is anything but a new artist, having been part of the Colorado music community since the '70s. But this acknowledgment, as well as a pair of nominations for the 2003... More >>
• Best Roots Musician
  Tony Furtado
  When Tony Furtado first moved to Colorado, he was known as a bluegrass banjoist -- but the tag soon proved far too restrictive for such a talented player. American Gypsy, Furtado's latest CD, is as eclectic as it can be, touching upon folk and acoustic styles from across town and across the globe. More >>
• Best Trad-Country Vocalist
  Halden Wofford
  Halden Wofford's authentic bray is a vocal time machine, a stirring, nasally joy that yanks traditional country fans back to the days of Hank Williams and other classic country singers. It sends chills down the spines of listeners and gives Halden Wofford & the Hi Beams a huge, genuine-article... More >>
• Best Bluegrass Band
  Open Road
  In the pre-O Brother, Where Art Thou? years, many bluegrass musicians felt that the music they loved would appeal to a wide audience only if they changed it in substantial ways. But Open Road, which calls Fort Collins home, makes no such compromises on Cold Wind, its latest release on the... More >>
• Best Band to Get Sweat All Over By
  The Risk
  Now don't get us wrong: On stage, every member of the Risk (bassist Nick Anderson, drummer Greg Wildermuth and guitarist Nathan Marcy) burns more calories than Bush did death-row inmates. But this group's prince of perspiration is definitely singer/guitarist Joaquin Liebert, whose sweat glands... More >>
• Best Supergroup
  Line of Descent
  Screw Audioslave. Featuring past and present members of celebrated Denver punk groups like Four, Deadlock Frequency, the Messyhairs, Crestfallen, Still Left Standing, the Facet, Contender and Pariah Caste, the newly formed Line of Descent has a Mile High pedigree a mile long. The group recently... More >>
• Best Sunday Church Service Without the Church
  Reverend Leon's Revival
  Reverend Leon's Revival calls to those who believe that the Sabbath day should be reserved for peace, quiet, and reflection...in order to recover from Saturday night's hedonism and the inevitable hangover. The Revival offers a wicked, campy combination of sin and salvation that hasn't been seen... More >>
• Best Band That Sounds Like a Vacuum Cleaner
  Bright Channel
  Picking up influences from My Bloody Valentine and Swervedriver, Bright Channel plays the kind of music that was once called "shoegazer": melodic guitars buried under thick, swirling drones of digital effects and noise. Echoes swell and static rattles throughout every song, sounding for all the... More >>
• Best Country Act
  Dalhart Imperials
  Think Denver's twang torch-bearers can't cut it next to those of, say, Texas? Pardner, soak up a set by the Dalharts and see the error of your ways. Singer Les Cooper and his mates are the best of Colorado's kingly country crop, a honky-tonk/Western-swing act that can rule alongside the best... More >>
• Best Band Name
  Alan Greenspan Project
  Faster than a nose-diving stock quote, able to leap plummeting interest rates without crying like a diaper baby, the Alan Greenspan Project sounds like the last of the big spenders. In fact, you can have 'em for a song. More >>
• Best White-Trash Jukebox
  The Lancer Lounge
  As novel as it is to see a jukebox full of Nick Drake and Modest Mouse, sometimes you just want to go to a bar and drown your coolness in a steady stream of bottled Bud and sweet classic rock. When that feeling hits, the Lancer is your oasis. Decorated like the wood-paneled den of one of your... More >>
• Best Jukebox
  Don's Club Tavern
  In the era of digital boxes networked into 100,000-song libraries, mood is half the battle, and sadly, some places just don't have that good jukebox vibe. But the beer-soaked, retro aura at Don's is a perfect match for the music in its box, with discs ranging from the Beatles' "Abbey Road" to... More >>
• Best Local Recording
  Survival Guide for the End of Time Heavyweight Dub Champion
  Electronic alchemists Resurrector and Patch enlist an impressive crew of Denver and Boulder-based artists -- Apostle, Wailer B., Elon, Stero Lion, Vill, Totter Todd, and DJ Hot Daddi 36-0 -- to create a shamanistic wall of hip-hop dubtronica that aims to topple the foundations of modern-day... More >>
• Best CD Title That Sounds Like a Primary-School Joke
  X Would Rather Listen to Y Than Suffer Through a Whole C of Z's
  The Czars
  The Czars have long specialized in dreamy, abstract, melancholic music, and the inspiration for their album titles over the years seems to come from an equally surreal place. Now comes further proof that the Czars are simply playing with us: Witness the lighthearted wordplay of X Would Rather... More >>
• Best Recording by a Newcomer
  Dreams of a Lost Tribe
  John Davis
  After a few years of toiling in the music shadows, Dixie transplant John Davis has finally treated the local music consciousness with his unique take on American roots music. Dreams of the Lost Tribe is a lush, layered masterpiece of deep-fried Americana that's equal parts Flannery O'Connor,... More >>
• Best Spinoff Album
  Wovenhand
  Wovenhand
  David Eugene Edwards is the grandson of a Nazarene preacher, and like a chip off the old block (or in this case, brimstone) he offers up his solo debut side project Wovenhand. The presentation sounds as though it has gathered some dust, probably because it is largely derivative of his band 16... More >>
• Best Compilation
  Undead in Denver
  No matter how mainstream and mall-ready punk rock gets, there's always a new batch of bands lurking in dirty bars and warehouses tearing out the type of hot-wired, four-chord rock that launched the genre almost thirty years ago. On Undead in Denver, compiler Timmy Gibb and producer Bart McCrorey... More >>
• Best Classical Recording
  Tchaikovsky's Symphony #4/Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture
  Colorado Symphony Orchestra
  Under the leadership of music director Marin Alsop, the Colorado Symphony Orchestra released a new CD this year through the Naxos imprint. Recorded live at Boettcher Hall, the disc offers a unique take on two of Tchaikovsky's more popular symphonic compositions. So far, Naxos has distributed... More >>
• Best Internet Success Story
  Accidental Superhero
  Despite their collective name, the members of Accidental Superhero have worked hard in their seven years, making their own success instead of waiting around for a record-label deal. The Internet-savvy Colorado Springs outfit racked up close to a million downloads through MP3.com, repeatedly... More >>
• Best Local-Music Web Site
  www.HigherListening.com
  The minds behind HigherListening.com -- Dan Vigil, Kelly Beckwith, Nate Weaver and Trish Baird -- have done a fine job in the past few years, moving from a mere message board to what is now a comprehensive online resource for those interested in local performers of all stripes. Offering a local... More >>
• Best Music Software
  UltraPlayer
  Louisville-based UltraCo Inc., once a darling of the Boulder-area high-tech economy, has since fallen on harder times. Founded in 1999, the company rebuffed a few acquisition attempts, only to see its business model fizzle after the dot-bomb. But UltraPlayer media software, with its customizable... More >>
• Best Animal Encounter
  The Flaming Lips
  Paramount Theatre
  November 21, 2002
  At a show that recast the Flaming Lips as a backing combo for Beck, bandleader Wayne Coyne enlisted nearly thirty local fans to join the band on stage, cloaked in full animal-suit regalia. More >>
• Best Concert
  Sigur Rós
  Ogden Theatre
  November 16, 2002
  The Ogden Theatre isn't exactly a quiet room. On most nights, the music is loud and so is the crowd, the members of which angle for position, and cocktails, on the floor and in an upper balcony. But when the Icelandic dreamspace outfit Sigur Rós performed for a sold-out show in November,... More >>
• Best Children's Tea
  Harry Potter Meet & Greet
  Oak & Berries Tearoom
  Tea and Harry just seem to go together, like frogs' eyes and newts' toes. And nearly 200 million books sold worldwide doesn't hurt, either. So Oak & Berries Tearoom owner Roxanne Mays hosts Harry Potter teas each November for kids of all ages to get together over a cuppa to discuss the newest... More >>
• Best Place to Soak It In
  Rocky Mountain Tea Festival
  The Dushanbe Teahouse rarely needs to coerce anyone to sip or dine there. With its folkloric Tajik craftsmanship, the teahouse is a magnificent place to sit, especially when it's open to the summer breezes like an airy, sun-filled tent. And once it year, it's even more enticing with its... More >>
• Best Coffeehouse With a Player Piano
  The Vanilla Factory Coffee Co.
  This coffeehouse opened last May and quickly became the social epicenter of the Curtis Park neighborhood. The building has seen many uses since it went up in 1885, including as a Prohibition-era speakeasy and a 1950s vanilla factory -- hence the name. Today the coffeehouse has plush sofas and... More >>
• Best Outdoor Folk Bash
  Swallow Hill Folk Festival
  Swallow Hill's annual picnic is a glorious celebration of all things acoustic. The 2002 event featured a high-flying collection of the nation's best singer-songwriters and performers in a wide range of genres. That these electrifying and, typically, electricity-free artists are showcased... More >>
• Best Free Entertainment
  Denver Skatepark
  Dude! There is nothing cheaper than free, and free is one concept that truly befits the sport of skateboarding, which, at its best, has no rules -- except, perhaps, those agreed upon by the boarders themselves. And that's exactly how things work at this 60,000-square-foot, city-built facility,... More >>
• Best Annual Festival -- City
  Colorado Performing Arts Festival
  A local staple for eleven years, the Colorado Performing Arts Festival offers locals an opportunity to revel in homegrown arts, whether it be music, theater, dance, or something a touch more avant-garde. Visitors to the 2002 event, held in late September at the Denver Performing Arts Complex,... More >>
• Best Annual Festival -- Mountains
  Colorado BBQ Challenge
  This annual celebration of hickory-smoked meats and serious sauce (sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbecue Society) is the high country's best family-style blowout. Visitors sample 'cue from more than seventy of the nation's best grill and smoker masters, making the array of meat and sauce... More >>
• Best Place for Pasty Poets to Get a Tan
  Ink!
  We know, we know. Poets and sunshine go together like peanut butter and broken glass. But if you ever tire of pouring your heart out from some ratty couch in some dim, cloistered coffee shop, why not give Ink! a try? First off, they brew up some mean java, grinding beans from all over the planet... More >>
• Best New Paperback Writer
  Erika Krouse
  In a time when a collection of short stories is as de rigueur for debut authors as the tell-all publishing roman a clef, Erika Krouse's Come Up and See Me Sometime, a novel in thirteen stories, is refreshingly honest and well crafted. In fact, the Boulder writer's collection of independent young... More >>
• Best Novel About a Car Saleswoman
  Up
  Lisa Jones
  Life, love and used-car lots. It's the stuff of vanity presses. In Up, we find Becky Pine, a recent CU graduate, looking for a life (surprise) as she picks up and moves to Los Angeles. A used-car lot takes her in, and Pine gets schooled on love, life and being a newly outed lesbian. It's a... More >>
• Best Sophomore Non-Fiction Book
  Blood Diamonds
  Greg Campbell
  Greg Campbell knows a bit about adventure and horror. The Fort Collins freelance writer and dad was held at gunpoint and hung with the boys of Soldier of Fortune for his first book, The Road to Kosovo. But he upped the danger quotient in 2002's Blood Diamonds, his investigation into the Sierra... More >>
• Best Young-Adult Book
  Crispin: The Cross of Lead
  Avi
  Our very own single-name artist, Avi, finally won the coveted Newbery Medal this year with his fiftieth adventure novel, Crispin: The Cross of Lead. The Brooklyn-born writer dabbles in many genres, but in Crispin, he combined historical and young adult fiction, portraying the life of a... More >>
• Best Shelf Life for an Arts Support Group
  Rocky Mountain Women's Institute
  Women have been trying to balance life and art since before Virginia Woolf longed for a room of her own and Tillie Olsen traded her ironing board for a typewriter. And for the past 27 years, Colorado women looking to fend off the mundane for twelve glorious months have turned to the Rocky... More >>
• Best Book Event
  Writers Respond to Readers
  Tattered Cover Book Store
  There was an international flair to the fifth annual "Writers Respond to Readers" event at the Tattered Cover, where aspiring scribes and readaholics rubbed bookmarks with known authors in a small group setting. Esmeralda Santiago, Francesca Marciano, Lynn Freed and Simon Winchester made up the... More >>
• Best Introduction to Small-Town Culture
  Artwalk Longmont
  The Old Firehouse Art Center in Longmont really knows how to throw an artwalk. The community celebration, held along the town's main drag, includes a slew of art openings, live music, artist and vendor booths, dancing, and art workshops for kids. There's the inevitable street food, of course --... More >>
• Best Poker Night
  Casino for a Cause
  Breckenridge Brewery
  It's time to cut the cards -- aces high and seven-card stud. And just $10 will get you in the game every Friday night at Breckenridge Brewery. You can spin the wheel, but you don't have to worry about losing the rent or your pink slip: Once you're in, it's all Monopoly money. The door charge is... More >>
• Best Movie Theater for Comfort
  Colorado Center Stadium 9
  With good screen size and projection, state-of-the-art sound and the latest in stadium-style seating, the Colorado Center rates just fine in our theater-comfort category. But what sets it apart from the many other stadium-theater venues is the consistent helpfulness of the staff, good access... More >>
• Best Movie Theater for Food
  The Mayan
  While taking in the latest indie romance or taut French thriller at the Mayan, why not take something good into your body, too? The concession stand is well stocked with upscale delectables, including the Alternative Baking Company's new vegan cookies, in Peanut Butter Persuasion or Phenomenal... More >>
• Best Movie Theater for Programming
  Madstone Theaters at Tamarac Square
  The arrival of the New York-based Madstone chain on Denver's art-film scene is most welcome -- especially in the affluent, educated southeast quadrant of town, where the theaters are located. At the slickly redecorated complex that was once the Tamarac 6 multiplex, Madstone unspools an... More >>
• Best Locally Produced Documentary
  Chiefs
  Documentarian Donna Dewey is the only Denver-based filmmaker to win an Academy Award, and last year she put her heart and soul into producing a moving non-fiction film called Chiefs, which chronicles two seasons of play by a high school basketball team on Wyoming's impoverished Wind River Indian... More >>
• Best Movie in the Denver International Film Festival
  Rabbit-Proof Fence
  In 2002, Australian director Phillip Noyce returned to top form with two films -- a dark adaptation of Graham Greene's disturbing Vietnam novel, The Quiet American, and the movie that set last October's Denver Film Festival abuzz, Rabbit-Proof Fence. It's the heroic story of three half-caste... More >>
• Best Hollywood References to Denver
  About Schmidt
  In About Schmidt, Alexander Payne's black comedy about a retired insurance man's reassessment of his bleak life, Jack Nicholson's Warren Schmidt sets out from sleepy Omaha in his huge motor home and takes I-80 to Denver, where he hopes to prevent his daughter's wedding to a dopey waterbed... More >>
• Best Cinematic Save
  The Denver Jazz on Film Series
  Last year, hard times killed the Denver Jazz on Film Festival at age four. But from the ashes rose the Denver Jazz on Film Series, a slightly shorter, but no less syncopated, bow to a great American art form as interpreted by moviemakers around the world. Thanks go to the new Starz FilmCenter on... More >>
• Best Specialty Film Festival
  Denver Pan-African Film Festival
  Most of the movies that clog area theaters fall into predictable categories: comedies, dramas, action-thrillers, idiocy. But the Denver Pan-African Film Festival, sponsored by Starz FilmCenter, offers cineastes a tasty alternative. Last year's event featured a hefty menu of fifty flicks, ranging... More >>
• Best Free Film Series
  Tattered Cover Film Series
  Once housed at the venerable bookstore's LoDo events space, the long-running Tattered Cover Film Series moved to the Starz FilmCenter this year without amping up the price. Curated by critic Howie Movshovitz, the series uncovers both obscure gems and the occasional classic, such as Casablanca.... More >>
• Best Snarky Movie Reviews
  Reconstructed Bellybutton
  Wanna know who wins the Worst Parent or Guardian in a Movie award for 2002? What about Actor Who Should Have Known Better? Or Worst Attempt to Act Smart? Abby Winter and her partner, Laura Peterson, will happily slag off -- even at industry favorites. The roommates use amusing photos of their... More >>
• Best Dance Workshop
  Frankie Manning "Nothin' But Swing" Weekend
  Karen Lee Dance International
  Each spring, lindy hop king Frankie Manning returns to Denver, like the swallows to Capistrano, for a weekend of dance, dance and more dance. The octogenarian's history as a dancer dates back to the heyday of the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, where he helped invent the original lindy moves. When... More >>
• Best Hippie Dance
  Middle Eastern Peace Dance
  Mercury Cafe
  The Mercury Cafe's indomitable life force, Marilyn Megenity, has seen it all -- good, bad and ugly -- in the many years she's been running the place. So if she personally endorses something, it's gotta be good. Right now she's touting the Middle Eastern Peace Dance, which is held the last... More >>
• Best Ballroom Dancing Party
  Sharp Images Singles Dance
  Continental Hotel
  First of all, there's no need to arrive single, but if you do, there's no need to be shy. Nor do you have to be accomplished on the dance floor, though you'll see plenty who are. Known for its friendly regulars and non-threatening atmosphere, the forty-and-over Sunday-night Sharp Images dance... More >>
• Best Swingers' Club (1 Comment)
  Golden Circle Social Club
  Wife-swapping is dead? It simply ain't so. If you've always wanted to have group sex with a charming, friendly group of people -- and do a little drinking and dancing beforehand -- you've just hit the jackpot. Formed in 1969, the Golden Circle is Colorado's oldest and most legitimate swingers'... More >>
• Best Trading Club
  Art Trading Card Swap
  Core New Art Space
  Collecting art has never been an inexpensive hobby. But even the poorest aesthete can build up a cachet of original works at an Art Trading Card swap, where painters, drawers and doodlers convene to barter tiny masterpieces. The cards are only two by three inches -- about the size of your... More >>
• Best Big Museum Exhibit
  Retrospectacle
  The homegrown blockbuster Retrospectacle, which opened last fall at the Denver Art Museum, has been described as a "Dianne Vanderlip lovefest." That's because it highlights Vanderlip's 25 years as curator of the museum's modern and contemporary art department, a job that was created specifically... More >>
• Best Bicultural Exhibit
  POPjack: Warhol to Murakami
  After World War II, American pop culture hit Japan like a tsunami. Tokyo, for example, is filled with Yankee Doodle standards like skyscrapers, neon signs and McDonald's. This influence extends to the arts, as well, and Cydney Payton, director of Denver's Museum of Contemporary Art, tapped into... More >>
• Best Local Gallery Show -- Solo
  Emmett Culligan
  Denver sculptor Emmett Culligan made a splash when he first emerged on the scene a few years ago, and since then, he's gotten relentlessly better. His latest efforts were featured in Emmett Culligan, at Judish Fine Arts in February. The fabulous monumental sculptures on display had... More >>
• Best Local Gallery Show -- Duet
  Salient GROUND
  If your ideas about Western art are limited to bronze statues of cowboys and Indians, Salient GROUND at Robischon would have quickly dispelled them. In this show, two great Colorado painters translated the familiar tradition into something new. Don Stinson romanticized the ruins of motels, gas... More >>
• Best Local Gallery Show -- Group
  Four Year Anniversary Show
  It's hard to believe it's already been four years since William Havu opened his flashy gallery in the Golden Triangle, and even harder to remember that the neighborhood -- now an urban enclave - was simply a deserted mess. For his anniversary last fall, Havu dedicated an exhibit to some of his... More >>
• Best Historic Art Show
  Colorado Collections II
  The growth of modern painting from 1900 to 1950 as it played itself out in Colorado was the topic of the impressive Colorado Collections II, which hung in the Denver Public Library's Vida Ellison Gallery. All of the big names from that time were featured, including Birger Sandzén, Vance... More >>
• Best Show by an Emerging Representational Painter
  Bob Koons: Nearness of Distance
  The quirky and elegant paintings in the Bob Koons exhibit Nearness of Distance at Carson-Masuoka Gallery were fresh off the easel -- and they looked it. Koons, who showed related work earlier at Edge Gallery, transforms old master paintings into contemporary ones. After choosing a landscape from... More >>
• Best Show by an Emerging Abstract Painter
  John R. Morrison
  While kids right out of art school can often score a co-op gig if they're lucky, they almost never wind up at a top gallery -- especially one like Judish Fine Arts, a stunning space in a Victorian stone church in northwest Denver. But that's precisely what happened to John Morrison, who made his... More >>
• Best Show by an Emerging Sculptor
  Continuum
  Young Boulder artist Joseph Shaeffer has some pretty wild and extreme concepts -- like using the attractive and repellent properties of magnetic fields to make sculptures. In Continuum, at the now closed and sorely missed Andenken Annex, Shaeffer employed magnets to keep his sculptures together... More >>
• Best Sculpture Show -- Masters Division
  Manuel Neri
  The breathtaking Manuel Neri at Robischon Gallery was a stunning display of works by one of the greatest Bay Area artists ever. Neri has used the figure as a taking-off point for his sculpture for almost fifty years, ever since his first child was born to the first of his five wives. Although... More >>
• Best Installation Show
  Visual Itch

  Artyard Gallery

  The informal space in the front of Artyard took on an elegant formality when Rokko Aoyama's solo, Visual Itch, was on display. Though Aoyama lives in Colorado, she was born and raised in Japan, and the island country's taste, materials and subject matter dominated this show. The Japanese snack... More >>
• Best Photo Show -- Solo
  Betty Hahn
  When the Colorado Photographic Arts Center was founded in 1963, the art crowd held photography in disrepute. But times change, and the medium now has an assured place in the visual arts. To celebrate its fortieth anniversary, CPAC did something special: It mounted the exhibit Betty Hahn, which... More >>
• Best New York Photo Show
  Street Level
  Even though Street Level was all about New York, it was organized right here in Denver by Simon Zalkind, who saluted his former home town by painting the gallery walls a yellow the exact shade of the mustard at Nathan's on Coney Island. More >>
• Best Photo Show -- Duet
  Two Men, One State of Mind...Colorado
  Roach Studios has been a fixture on Broadway since the 1970s, but the enterprise itself dates back to 1936, when the late Otto Roach established it in Lakewood. The specialty of the house then -- as it is today -- was custom photo enlargement. In 1958, Roach sold the business to his young... More >>
• Best Photo Show -- Group
  An American Century of Photography
  The unforgettable An American Century of Photography was presented last summer at the Denver Art Museum, and the sprawling twentieth-century survey included some of the most important images ever produced. Curator and connoisseur Keith Davis made selections from the heavy-duty collection of... More >>
• Best Print Show
  Universal Limited Art Editions
  The Rule Gallery's Universal Limited Art Editions, which opened in February and is still on display, showcases fine prints by a who's who of contemporary artists. The top-drawer New York printmaker of the exhibit's title provided its fine prints, including some by Jasper Johns, Robert... More >>
• Best Ceramics Show -- Solo
  Jun Kaneko
  Ceramic artist Jun Kaneko has pushed the clay vessel to the limits, throwing pots that are much, much larger than he is -- many of them towering more than ten feet tall and weighing thousands of pounds. This fall, Carson-Masuoka partner and gallery director Mark Masuoka organized a major show of... More >>
• Best Ceramics Show -- Group
  Veterans of Clay
  Most of the exhibits at the Lakewood Cultural Center are organized by guest curators, and, oddly enough, the modestly supported place often lucks out. A prime example was last summer's Veterans of Clay, a brief survey of Colorado ceramics that was ably assembled by the studious Tom Turnquist, a... More >>
• Best Historic Ceramics Show
  One Hundred Years of Van Briggle Pottery
  In 1901, Artus and Anne Van Briggle opened a pottery factory in Colorado Springs, and their work immediately gained worldwide fame. Van Briggle pottery is displayed in museums in New York, London and Paris. As might be expected, however, the biggest horde was kept in the potters' home town, at... More >>
• Best Show in a Warehouse
  hEMLOCK rOW
  It was certainly a surprise to find a museum-quality show in a run-down warehouse near the National Western Stock Show Complex, but there it was: Stephen Batura's hEMLOCK rOW. For this show, Batura did paintings in casein on wood, with subjects found in old photos from the Denver Public Library,... More >>
• Best New Gallery
  Studio Aiello
  The husband-and-wife team of Tyler Aiello and Monica Petty Aiello has big dreams of establishing a full-tilt art center, with an exhibition space, classrooms, studios, foundries and even a coffee shop. Most of it is still pie-in-the-sky, but the couple already owns a large building and adjacent... More >>
• Best New Arts Building
  Newman Center for the Performing Arts
  It's early to really start crowing, since the doors of the Newman Center aren't yet open to the public, but this building is a beauty, built for the ages from Indiana limestone and decorated with bas relief frescoes and a gorgeous carved-stone window. The crowning jewels of this new home to the... More >>
• Best Art News for Santa Fe Drive
  Fresh Art
  After cutting her director's teeth for a few years on a small storefront operation on Broadway, Jeanie King moved her Fresh Art Gallery over to the ever-changing Santa Fe Drive arts district. She's created an enormous and smartly appointed complex that, in addition to a huge exhibition space,... More >>
• Best Art News for the Suburbs
  Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design
  The Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design recently announced that it is moving out of Denver, but the news is a lot better than it sounds. The school has been in a group of ugly buildings at the corner of East Evans Avenue and South Oneida Street, but in June it will move into the old Jewish... More >>
• Best Wishes for a Fond Farewell
  Carol Dickinson
  Foothills Art Center just celebrated its 35th anniversary, but the real milestone lies with the impending retirement of longtime director Carol Dickinson. When Dickinson took over Foothills more than a decade ago, the center was a genuine backwater; with little more than her will, she... More >>
• Best Theater Revival
  Federal Theatre
  The dust that lay mostly undisturbed for years in this old Federal Boulevard movie house has begun to fly. The Industrial Arts Theatre Company, homeless after the demise of its latest roost at the Denver Civic, is tearing down walls and reconfiguring seats in the eighty-something building in an... More >>
• Best Theater Promotion
  Two-for-One Thursdays
  Chip Walton and his Curious crew have already made a name for themselves as a troupe, consistently staging quality fare for Denverites seeking something beyond the offerings of the big boys at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. And now they're making it even more enjoyable, with... More >>
• Best Theater Promotion for Seniors
  ElderPlays Series
  The DCTC knows its audience, and in a kind attempt to thank and keep its blue-haired patrons, the organization offers discounted tickets to selected matinee productions throughout the season. This year's series included a diverse theatrical palette, from Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth... More >>
• Best Theater Company Season
  Denver Center Theatre Company
  There's no getting away from it. It's not just that the Denver Center has the resources to ensure a certain level of consistency; it's that the company also has the integrity to put on a solid roster of plays, including those of Shakespeare, Pinter and such modern wonder boys as Martin McDonagh... More >>
• Best Season for a Small Company
  The LIDA Project Experimental Theatre Company
  We're going to go out on a limb here. Any company that has the guts and vision to evoke the bleak, war-torn Europe of Family Stories: Belgrade, the sinister fairy world of Caryl Churchill's The Skriker and the bad acid flashback that Manson Family Values represents is doing the kind of serious... More >>
• Best Production
  Bernice/Butterfly: A Two-Part Invention
  In staging Bernice/Butterfly, the Denver Center did exactly what a major regional theater should do: It mounted an original play that, in part, celebrates the history of the West, cast it with respected local actors and asked the author to direct. The acting was superb, the technical values... More >>
• Best Inventive Production
  Lost Soles
  This one-man show written and performed by the multi-talented Thaddeus Phillips was funny, soulful, brilliant and sweet as it followed a young tapper's education, progress through life and enforced exile in Cuba. Phillips himself is a prodigious tapper, a terrific actor and an iconoclastic... More >>
• Best Original Script
  Nagle Jackson
  Bernice/Butterfly: A Two-Part Invention
  This play celebrates the kind of vanishing small-town eatery that once functioned as the heart of its community. Nagle Jackson's script was smart, literate, absorbing and feelingful. But part of its success laid with the actors, Kathleen M. Brady and Jamie Horton, for whom Jackson specifically... More >>
• Best Theater Ensemble Work
  Manson Family Values
  The LIDA Project Experimental Theatre Company
  The LIDA Project developed this play through improvisational exercises, and the result was a hallucinatory and grimly humorous exploration of a feverish time in North American history and politics. You could see the months of rehearsal in the way the actors worked together on stage, strong in... More >>
• Best Tragic Gay Love Story Playing at a Punk-Rock Club
  Hedwig and the Angry Inch
  After a run at the Wave nightclub, the East German misfit who married an American G. I. belted out the borscht about the inequities of the rock-star life at the Climax Lounge, one of Denver's newest independent music venues. Do those angry young men and women dancing in the aisles know how far... More >>
• Best Actor in a Musical
  Christian Anderson
  The Full Monty
  Usually when Americans mess with anything British, we ruin it. But this musical version of the award-winning 1997 film stayed true to what really is a generous-hearted fairy tale with perceptive and thoughtful things to say about the human condition. And among an excellent and well-seasoned... More >>
• Best Actress in a Musical
  Mary Louise Lee
  Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill
  Mary Louise Lee's evocation of doomed, legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday was the kind of performance that stays with you for weeks. She shouted out her jokes and awarded them her own raucous laughter. She communicated raunchiness, pain and vulnerability. Her voice was smooth as glass, her... More >>
• Best Supporting Actor in a Musical
  Geoffrey Nauffts
  The Full Monty
  We first met Geoffrey Nauffts when his character, Malcolm, was attempting suicide. Once resuscitated, Malcolm remained as swoony, strange, dreamy and off-kilter as when his car's exhaust was working on him. And his coming-out love affair with a fellow worker melted your heart -- at the same time... More >>
• Best Actor in a Drama
  Charles Weldon
  Jitney
  Charles Weldon gave Jim Becker, the uptight protagonist of August Wilson's play about life in a cab company, paternal gravitas and a rare, generous smile that seemed to forgive the sins of the world. Then -- just in case anyone thought this performance was a fluke -- he seduced the audience of... More >>
• Best Actress in a Drama
  Mare Trevathan Philpott
  The Skriker
  Mare Trevathan Philpott is always a joy to watch, and in Skriker, she got to strut almost all her stuff in one evening. The Skriker is a strange, shape-changing, atavistic fairy creature who talks nonstop in a mix of puns, metaphors, rhymes and allusions. She manifests herself differently to... More >>
• Best Supporting Actor in a Drama
  Harvey Blanks
  Jitney
  Harvey Blanks has given two brilliant performances in plays by August Wilson this year, and he wins for his work as the strange, affable, dangerous Turnbo in Jitney. Blanks can be incredibly funny or full of emotion. Whatever the sentiment, he gives it everything he's got -- heart, soul, voice... More >>
• Best Supporting Actress in a Drama
  Roslyn Washington
  Bourbon at the Border
  Roslyn Washington played the kind of best friend every woman wants: warm and empathetic, full of dumb, endearing jokes. And her humorously faked orgasm was far richer and funnier than Meg Ryan's gasps and twitches in When Harry Met Sally.... More >>
• Best Actor in a Comedy
  Jamie Horton
  Bernice/Butterfly: A Two-Part Invention
  Horton was amazingly funny as a self-important academic in Bernice/Butterfly, smirking at his own witticisms, indulging in professorial chuckles and hand rubbings, writing decisively on the blackboard. He took the role right to the edge of absurdity, but stopped at the brink to remind us of his... More >>
• Best Actress in a Comedy
  Jessica Austgen
  Comic Potential
  You rarely come across a genuine original, especially a truly original performance, but Jessica Austgen is one: sort of pouty, very precise in movement and speech, capable of both absolute gooniness and breathy seduction. I've never seen anything like her lean, mustached Sir Andrew Aguecheek in... More >>
• Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy
  John Hutton
  Love's Labor's Lost
  In Love's Labor's Lost, Don Adriano de Armado is almost always played purely as a buffoon, and an endlessly talkative one at that. So, like many of Shakespeare's extravagantly comic characters with their time-bound puns and word games, he tends to be more annoying than amusing. But in this... More >>
• Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy
  Jadelynn L. Stahl
  Twelfth Night
  Unlike most actresses who play Olivia, Jadelynn Stahl has no time for the character's usual posing and passivity. Instead, her Olivia is a luscious, black-haired beauty with a melodious voice and a gift for farce who seizes life by the scruff of the neck and shakes it till she gets the love and... More >>
• Best Couple in a Comedy
  Ed Baierlein and Sallie Diamond
  Greek Treats
  When you've got either Baierlein or his wife, Sallie Diamond, on stage, you've got fine theater. Put them together as Bill and Betty, the hospitable couple in Greek Treats, and the result is an evening of pure pleasure. Entranced by their mythical off-stage friends, Jason and Medea, Bill and... More >>
• Best Relative Newcomer on the Denver Center Stage
  John Sloan
  Love's Labor's Lost
  John Sloan played the romantic, caustic, moody Berowne in Love's Labor's Lost with energy, wit, youthful exuberance and a genuine understanding of the language. His performance confirmed the expectation raised last year by his irrepressible Mairtin in A Skull in Connemara that this was an actor... More >>
• Best On-Stage Coming of Age
  Heather Nicolson
  Collected Stories
  As Collected Stories begins, a worshipful young writer comes to a famed and brilliant older author for advice. As the play progresses, the novice matures into a poised young comer, a surrogate daughter to and ultimate betrayer of her mentor. Heather Nicolson brought charm, vitality and... More >>
• Best Raunchy On-Stage Orgasm
  Margot Kidder
  The Vagina Monologues
  Many a bold-faced name have given performances in Eve Ensler's original Off-Broadway hit, but it was Margot Kidder who brought it to life in Denver. She gave one of the wildest, most raucous and also most generous-spirited performances ever to grace an area stage, giving new meaning to the... More >>
• Best Professor You Wish You'd Had
  Susan D'Autremont
  Wit
  In her first appearance as Professor E.M. Ashford, Susan D'Autremont was appropriately chilly and forbidding. But she brought an almost radiant kindness to her second appearance, at the bedside of her protegé Vivian Bearing, finally calling on Shakespeare's "flights of angels" to see the... More >>
• Best Interpretation of a Difficult Play
  Terry Dodd
  Wit
  For Wit, Terry Dodd coaxed nuance and passion from a play that -- though it reliably reduces audiences to tears -- has always struck us as thin and smug. Her production created a connection to a deep and ancient sea of inner sadness that even Emma Thompson and HBO couldn't accomplish. We found a... More >>
• Best Reinterpretation of Shakespeare
  Titus Andronicus: The Musical
  I'd venture to guess that no one, but no one, would attend a production of Titus Andronicus except under duress, but this version is inviting and howlingly funny. Five actors played all of the roles, the set was a cunningly fitted-out van in the middle of an empty space, the death score was kept... More >>
• Best Director
  Israel Hicks
  King Hedley II
  Hicks has been working with August Wilson's work for so long now that he almost seems to breathe these plays' silences, words and rhythms. For King Hedley II, he brought together a fine group of local and out-of-town actors, elicited generous, full-hearted performances from them and balanced the... More >>
• Best Choreography
  Crazy for You
  The dancing in this show provided all the customary joys of synchronized kicking and tapping, along with loads of wittily unexpected moves. In "I've Got Rhythm," which served as the first-act finale, everything and anything became a musical instrument -- miners' helmets, pizza pans, a plunger... More >>
• Best Set -- Big Budget
  Michael Brown
  Love's Labor's Lost
  Michael Brown's set for Love's Labor's Lost provided all kinds of sweeps and nooks for playing areas, as well as embracing both the romantic and the rational. The outdoor scenes were all dappled, gray-green shadow, framed by beautifully twisting trees; inside, there were shelves of books and... More >>
• Best Set -- Small Budget
  Kenn Penn
  Alchemy of Desire/ Dead Man's Blues
  Kenn Penn created a gutsy, complex setting for Alchemy of Desire -- one of those archetypal, steamy, swampy bayous, with vines reaching everywhere. Even the weathered wooden steps and platforms reached out into and divided the audience. More >>
• Best Costumes
  Lamecia Landrum
  When Pigs Fly
  From the pieces of furniture worn by the actors in one number to the hanging rubber pullets and clock headdress of another, the costumes for When Pigs Fly were wildly, exuberantly over the top, a pure visual expression of the evening's liberating energy. More >>
• Best Celebration of Gayness
  When Pigs Fly
  When Pigs Fly was a collection of songs, puns, bits and skits performed by a collection of men in drag and directed by the estimable Nicholas Sugar. It was not only bring-down-the-house funny, but also a brave and poignant affirmation of the gay lifestyle and the joys of being out. More >>
• Best Use of Water in a Musical
  Singin' in the Rain
  For the famed title number in the Boulder Dinner Theatre production of Singin' in the Rain, director Ross Haley provided a kind of monster play pool for actor Brian Norber to stomp, sing and dance in. Front-row audience members were given slickers, and they and Norber enjoyed a mutual good time... More >>
• Best Overall Production Values
  Pierre

  Denver Center Theatre Company

  Though the play itself was hard to embrace at times, a combination of Jacobean revenge tragedy and nineteenth-century melodrama that almost worked, Pierre's production values were impeccable. Vicki Smith's set design was elegant and expressive, and Pierre was worth attending just to watch the... More >>
• Best Illustration of the Primacy of Language
  Behind the Broken Words
  Broken Words is a collage of poetry and prose put together and performed by actors Anthony Zerbe and Roscoe Lee Browne. The result is a magnificent evening that includes the words of Seamus Heaney, Dylan Thomas, Derek Walcott and W. H. Auden, among others. Both actors are relaxed and consummate... More >>
• Best Children's Theater
  A Christmas Carol
  Though it was warm and celebratory, this Christmas Carol also gave Dickens's melancholy depiction of poverty in Victorian England its due. The set was ingenious, the costumes sparkled, the child actors were appealing, and Randy Moore gave Scrooge a wistful edge. Take a child this year. More >>
• Best Evening of Comedy
  New Work 2002
  First came Patty Dobrowolski and Nancy Cranbourne in Mrs. Schwartz and Dober, a series of overlapping improvised monologues about the actresses' lives, including Cranbourne's bitter-comic re-enactment of her mother's increasing dementia and her own incomprehension. Then there was the truly... More >>
• Best Place to Get Your Five-Minute Freak On
  Freak Train
  Freak Train is a wild ride through good, bad and ugly forms of personal expression. Rappers, poets, aspiring bards, monologists, puppeteers, karaoke kings and every other permutation of performer turn up to meet, greet and, in some cases, confound the Bug Theatre crowd, which is usually composed... More >>
• Best Magical Evening of Theater
  Cloud Tectonics
  A pregnant woman enters the house of a kindly trucker, and instantly time stops. The couple embarks on a night that's outside time and outside what we know as reality. Eventually, there is only the image of Celestina and Anibal holding each other in a glowing otherworldly bubble as rain and... More >>
• Best Quietly Intelligent Evening of Theater
  Talking Heads
  Talking Heads was an exquisite production of two monologues by the wryly enigmatic Englishman Alan Bennett. The acting, by Chris Tabb and Ann Rickhoff, was pitch perfect, as was Richard Pegg's direction. Everything about the production felt right, from the brown leaves drifting into a pile... More >>
• Best -- and Most Missed -- Theatrical Inspiration (2 Comments)
  Ernestine Georgianna
  The Boulder Rep is still vivid in the minds of most Boulder theater aficionados. Founded by Frank and Ernestine Georgianna in 1974, the company mounted challenging, exquisitely staged contemporary plays and acted in a variety of around-town venues through the year 2000. Frank was a visionary... More >>