ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT >>

• BEST ACTOR (FEMALE)
  Her work can run the gamut from manic to imperious and from opaque to exposed—often in the same scene—and her name on a playbill in 2005 usually guaranteed the prospect of a fresh and unique performance. Early in the year, she played Dionyza in the weird Pericles at the Guthrie Lab,... More >>
• BEST ACTOR (MALE)
  No one stalked the indie stage with more éclat in 2005 than Bob Malos, who utilized his imposing frame and sonorous voice to provide characters who were tortured by their own greatness and dogged by the Reaper's impending embrace. In May he starred as Capt. Larsen in Hardcover Theater's... More >>
• BEST AM RADIO PERSONALITY
  Does anyone even know when T.D. Mischke is on the air anymore? The geniuses running KSTP-AM (1500) have twice shifted his time slot in the last three years, first to late nights and now to drive time. The 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. shift is an odd fit for Mischke's strange, hilarious, truth-bending... More >>
• BEST AREA PREMIERE
  Mixed Blood's production of Richard Greenberg's baseball drama Take Me Out saw Darren Lemming (Lindsay Smiling), a rich, arrogant, and handsome young baseball pro, declare his homosexuality to the world. Amid the controversy, his team sank in the standings; then backwoods pitcher Shane Mungitt... More >>
• BEST ART CINEMA
  Oak Street: 1995-2006. R.I.P. More >>
• BEST ART GALLERY
  Not everyone who shows at Outsiders and Others is completely self-taught. Perennial fave Grant Hart, for one, dropped several grand on his formal education before leaving MCAD's hallowed halls for a life in punk rock. What he shares with the 200-plus other artists whose paintings, drawings,... More >>
• BEST BOOK
  While not set in the Twin Cities, Louise Erdrich's The Painted Drum resonates with an understanding of the Upper Midwest as it once was (and is now), with a history of which few non-Native Americans have even the faintest grasp—unless they've read any of Erdrich's 10 preceding novels.... More >>
• BEST BUDGET MOVIE THEATER
  There's nothing quite like Dollar Tuesdays at the Roseville 4 on a humid summer night. Why this discount is such a big deal, no one knows. It's only $1 less than the price of admission on other nights, and no cheaper than at other second-run theaters offering the same deal. Yet on Tuesdays at... More >>
• BEST CHOREOGRAPHER
  Uri Sands consolidates stylistic diversity with formal rigor. He makes luscious, unpredictable, sophisticated movement, and then he knows what to do with it. Going beyond the inarticulate fusion of so much contemporary dancemaking, he creates dynamic dances with cohesive content and poetic... More >>
• BEST COLUMNIST
  We used to think that Katherine Kersten's God was a prudish and puckered sort. But that was our fear speaking—fear that we'd be smote, certainly, but also fear that once we'd admitted our need for moral tutelage, there'd be no end to the shame and self-flagellation to follow. In the months... More >>
• BEST COMEDY
  There has been a distinct and appealing vibe of crankiness emanating from the Brave New Workshop of late, and no show better captured that foul mood than this one. With Shut Your American Pie-Hole, head crank Caleb McEwen (we mean crank in the best possible way) teamed up with wife Katy McEwen... More >>
• BEST DANCE PERFORMANCE IN THE PAST 12 MONTHS
  For 20 years, Danny Buraczeski's company Jazzdance stood for artful evolution in every sense of the word. From classic modern dance to Broadway rhythms, from Benny Goodman to Astor Piazzolla, Buraczeski infused the rickety pastiche of styles known as "jazz dancing" with substance, wit, and... More >>
• BEST DANCER
  Choreographers wish for versatile dancers, for the rare movers who make it look easy to slide and glide between genres, moods, and even eras. The elegant Mary Ann Bradley possesses such talent, and, lucky for dance audiences, she has had many opportunities to display it in the past year. Last... More >>
• BEST DIRECTOR
  Theater Latté Da artistic director Peter Rothstein worked a lot last year, and the product of his efforts was of both consistent quality and fairly stunning variety. He staged Puccini's La Bohème with a stripped-down orchestra and a young cast, then pursued a collaboration with the... More >>
• BEST FILM
  In the course of teaching a 35mm production class for his Catholic home-school co-op(!), Marine St. Croix-based provocateur Jon Springer conjured this, a gorgeously atmospheric silent-film adaptation of Hansel and Gretel. (The film premiered in November at the inaugural "Fearless Filmmakers"... More >>
• BEST FM RADIO PERSONALITY
  He calls himself the Geezer, and for good reason: He was on the air in the Twin Cities when most other jocks in town were still teething. In fact, the KOOL-108 (KQQL-FM) website claims that Donovan is "synonymous with 147 years" of Twin Cities radio. His name might also be associated with the... More >>
• BEST HIP-HOP RADIO PROGRAM
  It used to be that you had to plan your week around certain specialty shows just to hear rap music on the radio in the Twin Cities. Now you have to plan your week around certain specialty shows just to hear rap music on the radio from the Twin Cities. B96 FM (96.3 FM) and KDWB (101.3 FM) play... More >>
• BEST INDEPENDENT THEATER
  Though somewhat lost amid the 2005 Twin Cities Greek Revival (we can think of five Greek shows last year, and there were surely more), Wendy Knox's The Women of Troy, a dramatic splicing of Euripides's The Trojan Women and Hecuba, was nonetheless an example of the fevered, intelligent, and... More >>
• BEST JAZZ RADIO PROGRAM
  Our collective champion returns to the winner's circle because, well, it blows the competition away. KBEM plays some great music (and some crap), as does the redoubtable Leigh Kamman on MPR's The Jazz Image, but both tend to neglect jazz with even the slightest connection to the avant-garde (by... More >>
• BEST MAKEOVER OF A TV PERSONALITY
  When KSTP anchor Cyndy Brucato returned to the Hubbard-owned KSTP-TV in late 2004, many Twin Citians didn't greet her smiling visage enthusiastically. In fact, the highway billboard of her giant head, cocked ever so slightly to appear compassionate, became the focus of spray-paint fantasies on... More >>
• BEST MOVIE THEATER
  As a model of how celluloid film exhibition could expect not only to continue but to thrive in the video-on-demand era, the Riverview's is just about perfect: huge screen, low prices ($2 or $3), cherry-picked programming, razor-sharp projection, gorgeous architecture, comfy seats, local indies,... More >>
• BEST MUSEUM
  Despite its fastidious and cultivated image, the Walker Art Center isn't without flaws. First of all, there's the issue of the building: Not only does it look like the head of a sci-fi monster that's about to devour Loring Park with one chomp of its evil window incisor, but the sterile outside... More >>
• BEST MUSEUM EXHIBIT
  In general, there's much to adore about the Minnesota History Center. For instance, it seems to be the only place in the Twin Cities that celebrates a local rock 'n' roll great—the Bermuda shorts-clad Augie Garcia, who had a minor, terrific, and impossible-to-find hit in 1955 with a song... More >>
• BEST NATIONAL TV COMMERCIAL WITH A LOCAL SOUNDTRACK
  Melodious Owl just scored with that couch commercial, and we dug it. But every time we turned on the TV last year, we started wiggling on the couch when we heard Iffy's "Double Dutch" slathered over trippy flowers and psychedelic backdrops. We're gonna hear about this one, because we can't for... More >>
• BEST PUBLIC ART
  Given the clear skies and balmy breezes last August 27, the Stone Arch Bridge would've been packed to the viewfinders even without Landmark—exactly as Local Strategy intended. The interdisciplinary art ensemble's six members designed their 24-hour celebration of our loveliest pedestrian... More >>
• BEST PUBLIC-ACCESS CABLE TV SHOW
  Mike Geronsin has the eye of the tiger: Sometimes the will of the fight reveals itself on his backyard vault before the snow has melted, or while he's hanging from the rings attached to the rafters of his garage, or while the fiftysomething, bowling pin-shaped former gymnast is somersaulting... More >>
• BEST RADIO PROGRAM AFTER MIDNIGHT
  From Echo Chamber's magisterial dub to Root of All Evil's mirthful metal marathon, KFAI pretty much owns the local airwaves after midnight—with one exception: The Rhythm Lab. True, the Current stole co-host Tarik Moody from its aforementioned competitor, where he performed similar chores... More >>
• BEST RADIO STATION
  "We're just doing whatever," the voice on the radio says. "I can't believe they're letting us get away with this." Without looking, you know that the dial is set to KFAI. What other station could it be? For 28 years, this loose experiment in freeform community radio has erred on the side of... More >>
• BEST RADIO STATION ABOUT NOTHING
  With benign political dialogue overtaking even sports radio, it seems odd that a talk-radio station about, well, nothing would even attempt to compete in a volatile market like the Twin Cities. The station's tagline is "real. life. conversation."—the lowercase and periods flung all over... More >>
• BEST SINGLE-ARTIST SHOW
  Summary is difficult with this exhibition of Chinese-born French artist Huang Yong Ping, since, like most serious things, it was at odds with itself. It was about ideas and simply about beautiful objects; deeply pissed off about historical and current imperialism, and also unusually serene;... More >>
• BEST SPORTS TALK RADIO HOST
  The problem with sports talk radio is that most of these full-time jock-sniffers only talk about...um, sports. How many hours of speculation about the fate of Daunte Culpepper or the inadequacy of the Twins' offseason moves can a psychologically healthy human being tolerate? (While we're on the... More >>
• BEST STAGE PRODUCTION
  In challenging times, artists can trump politicians and commentators (and critics) by grabbing hold of the ephemera of mood and tone that escapes concrete analysis. Live Action Set did so in this show, a freeform and elusive example of serious clowning that took on wartime tragedy with abundant... More >>
• BEST THEATER FOR DRAMA
  Last year at Pillsbury House saw an impressive variety of shows that were consistently among the best in town. Kimberly Joy Morgan's Hot Comb was a smart and compelling take on the political and social ramifications of African American women's hair, and The Story was a fast-paced and concise... More >>
• BEST TREND IN LOCAL RADIO
  One late February afternoon during drive time, Minnesota Public Radio opened the VH frequencies. For Current listeners unfamiliar with such a concept, that means DJ Mary Lucia managed to sneak in Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher" just before a rather sleepy news break. Later in the same evening,... More >>
• BEST TV NEWSCASTER
  The past year wasn't a good one for KARE-11. During sweeps month in November, the consistently top-rated station was beat out by WCCO. And in December, the channel saw the departure of anchor Frank Vascellaro and longtime meteorologist Ken Barlow and his finger-encasing black leather gloves.... More >>
• BEST TV SPORTS ANCHOR
  Ever notice how weird-looking the sports anchors are in this market? Consider Mark Rosen, veteran sports chief at 'CCO. We don't have the benefit of a medical degree in this judgment, but Rosen really ought to get checked for pituitary disorder. Over at KSTP, Rod Simons resembles a middle... More >>
• BEST TV STATION
  There's not a whole lot of local flavor left on broadcast TV these days: You get more Twin Town ambience playing "spot the neighborhood" on HGTV's Decorating Cents or watching Mary Tyler Moore Show reruns on Channel 45. So our vote is for TPT-2. Sure, there are just too many MOR music specials... More >>
• BEST TV WEATHERPERSON
  Save for a brief and unsuccessful stint in Chicago (where his Windy City rooftop weathercasts earned him the nickname "the Goof on the Roof"), Douglas has been a fixture in the Twin Cities television market since 1983. It's no mystery why Douglas has lasted so long. He is the consummate pro. He... More >>