Best Actor in a Wry Comedy 2008 | Jim HuntThe Gin GameParagon Theatre Company | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Actor in a Wry Comedy

Jim Hunt
The Gin Game
Paragon Theatre Company

Jim Hunt has turned in some fine performances over the years, but in The Gin Game, his portrayal of an angry, agitated, aging man was his best yet — deep and committed, with every thought and emotion given its due. In the Paragon Theatre production, it was fascinating just watching the conflicting feelings traveling across his face, heart-rending to see this bluff, hale man fighting the increasing decrepitude of his own body with profoundly ill grace.

Best Actress in a Comedy

Patty Mintz Figel
My Old Lady
Miners Alley Playhouse

The old lady of My Old Lady comes with the dignified Paris apartment the protagonist has inherited and has to share with her until she dies. Now in her nineties — and with no intention of going anytime soon — the woman has led a life of culture and adventure, was for many decades the mistress of the protagonist's father, and can't understand why he's being such a big American baby about it. Neither could the audience, when Patty Mintz Figel brought this woman to wise and enchanting life.

Best Actress in a Drama

Karen LaMoureaux
Squall
Modern Muse Theatre Company

Cordelia is utterly demented, way out in la-la land most of the time. But there's one marvelous moment in Squall when she's forced into something approaching sanity. It happens when the supposedly sane woman she's been stalking seems to flip into madness, and in a sudden reversal, Cordelia tries to comfort her. This is a role that's hard to play and could easily become monotonous to watch, but Karen LaMoureaux's performance in the Modern Muse production was so honest, naked, sad and frightening that we remembered it long after the play was over.

Best Actress in a Musical

Gina Schuh-Turner
John and Jen
Nonesuch Theater

As Jen, the sister in the two-person musical John and Jen, Gina Schuh-Turner turned in a wonderfully committed performance. She not only acted well and sang beautifully, but she brought a particular subtlety to the stage — at times heart-meltingly tender, at others hilariously funny. And in one memorable song, she morphed into a loud, shrewish sports mom, screaming out instructions as her young son struggled through a Little League game.

Best All-Ages Venue

Marquis Theater

Michael Emery Hecker
The thought of sending naive teenagers into the heart of the Ballpark neighborhood can be daunting for parents. But thanks to Soda Jerk Presents' Mike Barsch and Ben Davis, such apprehension is unfounded when it comes to the Marquis Theater. Although all ages are welcome, the longtime promoters, who successfully put on all-ages shows at Tulagi and Rock Island for years before taking over here, clearly cater to the underage set. Barsch and Davis consistently put together stacked bills of emerging acts that appeal to the MySpace generation. Younger fans are ushered into a massive area in front of the stage that has clear sightlines and is completely separate from the space occupied by folks of legal drinking age — and the shows end well before the witching hour.

Best Art Gallery Near the Denver Art Museum

Denver Public Library

The hoopla over the new DAM complex shouldn't drown out the props due to the downtown library as a vibrant art source all its own. Quite apart from the permanent offerings in and around the DPL that have survived the endless construction next door — Daniel Lipski's little horse on a big chair, the Edward Ruscha murals — the library continues to offer an impressive roster of exhibitions at its Western Art Gallery and Vida Ellison Gallery. Recent shows have featured the work of George Elbert Burr, Herndon Davis and Frank Mechau; fresh perspectives on Native American and Chicano artists; a host of offbeat art and children's books; exhibitions devoted to the work of the DPL's own staff; and, early last year, the 120-foot scroll manuscript of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, accompanied by some revealing photos of Denver during the Beat era. DAM the titanium torpedo, the library keeps on rolling.

Best Art History Lesson

Marecak Diptych
Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art

Twenty years ago, Colorado art from the 1950s and '60s was more often seen in thrift shops than in galleries or museums. But times have changed, and in the past ten years, many people, especially curators, scholars and collectors, have become interested in artwork from this period. Hugh Grant of the Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art is now the leading advocate for the forgotten Colorado artists, two of whom, Edward and Donna Marecak, were the subject of the large and thoughtful Marecak Diptych. Edward was a painter working in figural abstraction, while Donna was a premier modern potter. Although they sometimes collaborated, their respective styles were very different. At Kirkland, these artists live on through their work long after they're gone.

Best Arts Community Builder

Kim Harrell
East End Applied Arts

Talented silversmith, gallery owner with an eye for good design, community arts organizer, Aurora politician: Kim Harrell is a walking work of art. As the Aurora Art in Public Places Commission Chair, she helped bring work by local artists to the suburb's depressed downtown and East Colfax corridor. And in 2006, she took her mission one step further, founding the East End Artists Association, which sponsors periodic district art walks.

Best Assault With a Deadly Rhythm

Red Orange Yellow
www.myspace.com/redorangeyellow

When Devon Shirley left his post as drummer for the Photo Atlas, he could hardly wait to resurrect this project. Watching the baby-faced, monkey-limbed percussionist perform with guitarist Holland Rock-Garden of Machine Gun Blues and keyboardists Nick Martin and Kyle Gray, it's easy to see why. Shirley brings the same lightning-fast precision and grace under pressure that made his playing in the Photo Atlas so mesmerizing, but in Red Orange Yellow, he infuses it with jazzy subtlety, mathematical complexity and plenty of animal aggression. Gray comes unglued, Rock-Garden broods and Martin seems eerily calm, but all eyes are on Shirley as he treats the audience to an intricately woven and diabolically premeditated pummeling. The band's expiration date is imminent, as Martin plans to move to Japan this summer, so get your beating soon.

Best Back-to-Nature Songwriter

John Common

Performers are often said to boast natural talent when their artistry is neither heavy-handed nor overly self-conscious — and in that sense, John Common has plenty of natural talent. But a more literal interpretation also applies to his latest recording, Why Birds Fly. Throughout tunes such as "Moonlight" and "Unseen Things," Common weaves traditional instrumentation with the sort of found sounds heard in forests at night: the ambient noises of creatures that creep, crawl or take wing. These subtle touches make his work seem natural in every sense of the word.

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