Best Actor in a Drama 2005 | Brett AuneInventing Van Gogh | Best of Denver® | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Denver | Westword
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Best Actor in a Drama

Brett Aune
Inventing Van Gogh

In a luminous portrayal, Brett Aune made Vincent van Gogh an essentially gentle and guileless man, a little uncomfortable in his own body. Aune possessed an arrogance that stemmed from the artist's bone-deep understanding of the rightness of his work, coupled with the insecurity of someone who has laid bare his heart and received only contempt and indifference in return. The image of Aune's van Gogh wandering into the night with four flickering candles on his hat remains indelible.

Best Actress in a Drama

Laura Norman
Angels in America

Angels in America's Harper is a pill-popping young Mormon wife who spends half her time yearning for her faithless husband and the other half in a fantasy. She could easily seem fey or just plain irritating. But Laura Norman moderated Harper's dopey ethereality with a wry humor and a sense of groundedness. Her interpretation was potent, but also wonderfully unassuming.

Best Supporting Actor in a Drama

Christopher Leo
Inventing Van Gogh

Christopher Leo gave two confident star turns in Inventing van Gogh -- as an unscrupulous art authenticator named Bouchard, and as the painter Paul Gauguin. Bouchard was self-mockingly mannered, effete in the most amusing way, while Gauguin was arrogant and thick-skinned. Both characters possessed a juicy vitality that served as a perfect foil for the other actors' lower-key interpretations. Leo was obviously having a lot of fun on stage, and his enjoyment was infectious.

Best Supporting Actress in a Drama

Denise Perry-Olson
Old Times

Harold Pinter's Old Times is a bleak, enigmatic play, but Denise Perry-Olson's sensual energy and radiant smile animated it. Her Kate -- sophisticated, sexy and well-traveled -- flirted equally with onetime best friend Anna, and with Anna's husband, Deeley. It sometimes seemed she was about to stride off with Bas Blue's entire production.

Best Musical

Cabaret

Many regular customers of Boulder's Dinner Theatre stayed away from Cabaret. The show's seedy settings, writhing dance numbers and uncomfortable focus on fascism clearly set it apart from most BDT fare. But in a just world, it would have attracted dozens of people who normally never set foot in a conventional dinner theater. Director Michael J. Duran's production was a visceral treat, with fantastic music, deft staging and vivid, all-stops-out performances. Brian Mallgrave, with a fresh take on the familiar Emcee character, and Alicia Dunfee as Sally Bowles were especially good.

Best Actor in a Musical

Nicholas Sugar
Bat Boy: The Musical

Bat Boy: The Musical is based on a character in the Weekly World News, a bat-human creature found in a cave. In this musical, he's discovered by some teenagers, one of whom he bites. Nicholas Sugar -- an actor we should be seeing a lot more of -- plays the role full-tilt. He's weird, comic, scary, athletic and pathetic. He squeaks and gibbers, scuttles about the stage and hangs upside down from furniture. Sugar is particularly funny in the show's My Fair Lady takeoff, as he's taught to speak with a BBC accent and to drink his tea with his pinky primly raised.

Best Actress in a Musical

Shelley Cox-Robie
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Dulcet-voiced and warm, Shelley Cox-Robie is always a joy to watch. As Joseph's narrator, she was the constant presence that stitched together all of the jokes and wild goings-on in the Boulder's Dinner Theatre reading of this early Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Cox-Robie's empathetic work with the children in the large ensemble cast was particularly charming.

Best Supporting Actress in a Musical

Lucy Roucis
Guys and Dolls

Most people remember Guys and Dolls' Adelaide as the chanteuse (or chantoosie) who sings "Take Back Your Mink" and "A Bushel and a Peck." PHAMALy's Lucy Roucis delivered these songs with sass and sang the famous "Adelaide's Lament" so feelingly that you didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Either way, you were riveted.

Best Singing in a Musical

Sheryl Renee
Hi-Hat Hattie

Hi-Hat Hattie was a sentimental, one-dimensional piece of theater, but Sheryl Renee made it work. She's a fine actress, but it was her vocal abilities that transfixed us as she sang a mix of blues, funk and show music. At times, Renee's voice emanated from the depths of her being; at others, it soared operatically high. Her phrasing was sophisticated, and she could be funny, silkily seductive or downright tragic at will.

Best Actor in a Comedy

Randy Moore
A Christmas Carol

Randy Moore's Scrooge was pinch-mouthed and mean, but he was also an aging child, with a child's unconcern for decency and politeness, as well as a vulnerability. Although Moore has played the role for several years, this was his most joyous and deeply felt performance. When the reformed Scrooge humbly asked the charitable couple he had turned away in the first scene, "Will you come and see me?," all the loneliness of his empty, money-grubbing days yawned beneath the words. When he took a deep breath and said, "To be alive...," the next words could just as well have described his performance: "It's glorious."

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