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  BEST TV NEWSCASTER

  Don Shelby

  Any savvy YouTube user can find a small archive of the venerable anchor as a young pup 25 years ago, when local news was kinder and gentler—or at least less histrionic. Certainly Shelby has gone through many a makeover since then, and outlived all sorts of talking-head challengers. Yet we pick Shelby this year not just because of his longevity,… More >>

• BEST PUBLIC ACCESS CABLE TV PROGRAM

  Black Focus

  It's been a rough year for the 23-year-old network that champions such outmoded causes as free speech and power to the people. For starters, the swapping of territories by Time Warner Cable and Comcast has essentially left MTN hanging in the balance without a solid use agreement. And Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels has filed a civil rights complaint—and… More >>

• BEST TV STATION

  TPT:Channels 2 and 17

  We can't stand it when a discussion of television prompts some would-be intellectual to sneer, "Oh, I never watch TV. I don't even own a set." Please. Do you hate novels, too, because so many of them are written by the likes of James Patterson and Danielle Steel? Okay, so 90 percent of TV programming is crap—so go find the… More >>
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  BEST TV SPORTS ANCHOR

  Eric Perkins

  We try to hate Eric Perkins. Our inner curmudgeon generally recoils at the sight of someone with such an unfailingly sunny disposition. Anyone who's that happy and enthusiastic all the time either isn't paying attention or is a bit dimwitted. But Perkins consistently foils our cynicism. His "Perk at Play" segments, while hokey as a rhubarb pie-eating contest, are unfailingly… More >>

• BEST COLUMNIST

  Patrick Reusse

  Patrick Reusse is ridiculously prolific. The veteran sports scribe churns out at least four columns a week and takes vacations about as often as the U of M wins Big Ten football titles. And that's not even taking into account the countless radio gigs that he juggles. Reusse deftly covers the full sports landscape, from the improbable Division II basketball… More >>
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  BEST SPORTS TALK RADIO HOST

  Paul Allen

  A funny thing has happened to sports radio: They don't yak about sports nearly as much as they used to. Take Dan Barreiro, the top-rated talker at the Cities' leading sports radio station, KFAN (1130 AM). The former Strib columnist lards his show with his meditations on current events and interviews with Norm Coleman, which, while modestly interesting, do nothing… More >>
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  BEST AM RADIO PERSONALITY

  Tom Mischke

  Naming the best AM radio personality is a perennial stumper. That fact is not due to any great mystery about the identity of Minnesota's best AM host. Everybody knows it is Mischke. Now in his 15th year at KSTP 1500 AM, he is among the best radio hosts in the nation, let alone our little scrap of flyover territory. No,… More >>
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  BEST FM RADIO PERSONALITY

  Bill DeVille

  Bill DeVille is not your prototypical rock 'n' roll DJ. He doesn't have the booming, hyper-enunciated delivery that's apparently pounded into prospective DJs at broadcasting schools across the nation. The Current (89.3 FM) host's voice is nasally and monotone. At first listen you'd be inclined to think that DeVille might be better suited to delivering the agriculture report at an… More >>

• BEST RADIO PROGRAM AFTER MIDNIGHT

  Radio Riot

  Contrary to the claims of last year's documentary American Hardcore, the subculture inspired by angry early-'80s punk bands such as Black Flag and Bad Brains didn't dry up in 1986. It went further underground, especially as punk and commercial rock blurred in the queasy twilight of "alternative." You can argue about where it was hiding or what it sounded… More >>
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  BEST HIP-HOP RADIO PROGRAM

  Redefinition Radio

  Still younger than the average public radio listener, rap music has gone from being a big deal within a seven-square-mile area of the Bronx to being the largest commercial force in broadcasting. So why would Minnesota Public Radio station the Current need a specialty program about rap? Because somewhere between back-in-the-day and now, a vast universe of good music was… More >>

• BEST RADIO STATION

  KFAI (90.3/106.7 FM)

  You can argue that MP3 players and podcasts and on-demand streaming audio have supplanted the radio as an all-day/every-day form of entertainment. But it's kind of a moot point as far as Minnesota's most adventurous station is concerned. The best reason to tune in to KFAI isn't to catch something you've been waiting to hear (though there's plenty of that);… More >>
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  BEST CLASSICAL PERFORMANCE OF THE PAST 12 MONTHS

  Minnesota Orchestra performing Beethoven's Fifth Symphony

  A thrilling, sometimes disorienting, effect of going to hear Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra perform Beethoven these days is how swiftly they inspire a kind of radical re-listening. We settle down for a favorite symphony, not quite aware of the way past exposures have dulled or sugared our expectations. And then within bars, we find ourselves wondering if we'd… More >>
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  BEST OPERA

  The Grapes of Wrath

  When at last the Minnesota Opera's Dale Johnson and composer Ricky Ian Gordon secured rights from the Steinbeck estate to compose an opera from The Grapes of Wrath, Gordon must have resolved then and there not to squander the opportunity on the kind of gauzy Americana that similar coups have inspired. He took to heart the meaning of opera: four… More >>

• BEST BOOK BY A LOCAL AUTHOR

  900 Miles from Nowere

  This exquisitely produced collection was assembled by St. Paul writer Steven Kinsella and published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press. It consists primarily of letters and diary entries from folks who homesteaded on the Great Plains during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Their stories are often grim—like this 1873 missive from a recent transplant to Marshall, Minnesota: "I try… More >>
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  BEST DANCE PERFORMANCE OF THE PAST 12 MONTHS

  Anytown: Stories of America

  "How beautiful the river flows and the birds they sing, but you and I, we're messier things," laments Bruce Springsteen in his song "Big Muddy." With November's Anytown: Stories of America, Shapiro & Smith Dance discovered a folk opera in Springsteen's songs, with their one-damned-thing-after-another understanding of blue-collar living. Anytown's community is a place that works hard and plays rough,… More >>

• BEST DANCER

  Karen Sherman

  This is actually a twofer since Karen Sherman is equally talented as a choreographer and a dancer. But this year we'll praise her moves on stage. The artist, who splits her time between Minneapolis and New York, is agile and fearless, no doubt a result of her training on the trapeze. But she sets herself apart with an ability to… More >>
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  BEST CHOREOGRAPHER

  Ananya Chatterjea

  It's not unusual when artists declare that they are commenting on, or responding to, the cultural forces that shape our lives. It is less common, however, when an artist states that her goal is to create "an active citizenry for dance," one that combines a populist spirit with a firm commitment to technical excellence in a creative form. It is… More >>

• BEST DIRECTOR

  Wendy Knox

  Frank Theatre queenpin Wendy Knox has been rightly lauded for bringing us works by Bertolt Brecht, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Sam Shepard in recent years—pieces that we surely wouldn't have seen otherwise. But in addition to her good taste in scripts, Knox has a directorial style that deserves praise. We've long searched for ways to describe the experience of seeing one… More >>

• BEST ACTOR

  Ansa Akyea

  The actors who captivate us are those who can carry the weight of a heavy role while communicating hints of what makes life so ambiguous and, at best, hopeful. Ansa Akyea brings a combination of dramatic heft and humane lightness to every role he touches. While he isn't particularly tall, he has such a physical presence that he could pass… More >>

• BEST ACTRESS

  Tracey Maloney

  Maloney's a familiar name to patrons of the local stage, having appeared in shows as diverse as Ten Thousand Things' jailhouse classics, Thirst Theatre's cocktail experimentation, and the Guthrie's Christmas cash cow. In person she's down-to-earth, sharp, and funny. Onstage she plays off the friction between her fresh-faced comeliness with a sense that a powerful spirit lies beneath. And while… More >>
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  BEST STAGE PRODUCTION

  Last of the Boys

  The Jungle staged Steven Dietz's Vietnam hangover with a fine mix of pain and cutting humor, drawing obvious parallels to our current national situation without leaning too hard on the obvious. The show revolved around Ben (Stephen D'Ambrose) and Jeeter (Terry Hempleman), two war buddies hanging out at Ben's place in an abandoned trailer park. (Joel Sass's ornately ramshackle set… More >>

• BEST THEATER FOR COMEDY

  Brave New Workshop

  It finally happened. In See Dick Shoot, a night of sketch comedy loosely based on our light-hearted jokester of a vice president, BNW artistic director Caleb McEwen's head exploded. Sure, he was playing a spelling bee competitor hopped up on steroids, but we knew the folly of the world was going to make his cranium pop open one of these… More >>

• BEST INDEPENDENT THEATER

  Emigrant Theater

  Emigrant is only two years old but the company has damn near established a brand name in staging hip, gotta-see area premieres. Emigrant also has a knack for luring hungry young talent to the kinds of roles that establish a performer's craft and identity. Last year the Emigrant crew tackled Jordan Harrison's absurdist impossibility Kid-Simple with appropriately goofy aplomb. The… More >>

• BEST THEATER FOR DRAMA

  Children's Theatre Company

  You'd be forgiven for not keeping up with every show CTC opened last year. Between the main stage and the Cargill stage for teen shows, the production list numbered nearly a dozen. What's startling is how many of these shows were developed for CTC: Greg Banks's high-wire adaptation of Antigone, Whit McLaughlin's Prom, Naomi Iizuka's Anon, Lisa D'Amour's Tales of… More >>

• BEST MOVIE THEATER

  Riverview Theater

  Billed upon its grand opening in 1948 as "the theater of tomorrow—today," the Riverview is now the theater of yesterday, hopefully forever. On a recent night, the place had 'em packed all the way up to the back for Dreamgirls—just the sort of old Hollywood-style entertainment that plays like magic in this 700-plus-seat room. Exactly 50 years ago, then-owners William… More >>

• BEST BUDGET MOVIE THEATER

  Roseville 4

  A while ago, we slithered out of the office for a matinee showing of the Denzel Washington time-travel thriller Déjà vu: helluva movie, believe it or not. But the real surprise was the stellar presentation at the bargain-house Roseville 4, where the old Déjà vu looked all but brand new on the big screen—sharp and vivid and free of scratches… More >>

• BEST ART CINEMA

  Oak Street Cinema - CLOSED

  Art cinema isn't curated by corporations; you don't stack up a year's worth of Publisher's Clearinghouse mailings and call it literature. And while a museum can do reasonably well by the "art" half of the "art cinema" equation, it ain't "cinema" to us unless it's seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, with popcorn in the lobby. Thus our… More >>
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  BEST FILM

  Sweet Land

  We've spilled plenty of ink on Ali Selim's period romance—the winningest indie ever made in Minnesota—since it debuted at the M-SPIFF a year ago. Suffice it to say that if you haven't seen it, well, you need to see it. Shot in southern Minnesota in 24 days (and based on author Will Weaver's "A Gravestone Made of Wheat"), Sweet Land… More >>

• BEST READING OF THE PAST 12 MONTHS

  Mark Mallman and Chuck Klosterman Kill Themselves to Live

  On a rainy afternoon last June, pop culture pontificator Chuck Klosterman came to town to read from the paperback release of his rock-death travelogue, Killing Yourself to Live. But instead of making a predictable appearance at the Edina Barnes & Noble, Klosterman showed up at First Avenue's 7th St. Entry for an unlikely collaboration: a mash-up performance with piano-pounding daredevil… More >>

• BEST LITERARY JOURNAL

  Conduit

  Running a literary journal without the support of an institution of higher learning makes about as much financial sense as running a hot-chocolate stand in July. Nothing ruins literature quite as much as financial sense, though, and Conduit— "grant free since 1993" as it says in the masthea—is another testament to bookish dreamers and their labors of love. Punkish in… More >>

• BEST ART GALLERY

  Creative Electric Studios

  The best art galleries bring art inward and outward: They attract a group of prolific oddballs and minor visionaries, develop an aesthetic, and then push that work out into to the world. Creative Electric Studios—a Northeast Gallery run by musicians Dave Salmela and Kurt Froehlich, Jenny Adams, and photographer Karl Raschke—is so inspired (and inspiring) it not only seeks to… More >>

• BEST SINGLE ARTIST SHOW

  Jaron Childs: Ruptures

  Jason Childs's 17 canvases of teary-eyed figures raised the bar (and the roof) at SOO Visual Arts Center last spring. Childs's oil technique evokes a soulful Gerhard Richter, while his seemingly straight-forward reproductions of photographs work to question authenticity in the digital age. The catharsis of crying doesn't last, nor do the source images suggest anything more than fleeting photojournalism,… More >>

• BEST MUSEUM EXHIBIT

  Kara Walker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love

  This first U.S. retrospective chronicles Kara Walker's metamorphosis from hip art star to bona fide contemporary master. Best known are her cutout silhouettes, which have been prepared for this show from original templates and attached to the gallery walls with a wax adhesive. (When the exhibition closes on May 13, each cutout will be destroyed and the template returned to… More >>

• BEST PUBLIC ARTS PROJECT

  Art Shanty Projects

  Sometimes the best art can be seen, smelled, and touched. It can be interacted with, walked into, stood on top of. It can be as much a part of everyday life as it is a welcome interruption from it. In the coldest months of winter, the Art Shanty Projects did all of that. The brainchild of photographer Peter Haakon Thompson… More >>

• BEST MUSEUM

  Minneapolis Institute of Arts

  It's usually Walker Art Center that we hold up to coastal types to prove that the Cities aren't flyover country—or at least that we're the cultural kings of flyover country. But we think any intelligent guest would be at least as impressed by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, another world-class art museum that's also a little more accessible, housed in… More >>
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  BEST TV WEATHERPERSON

  Sven Sundgaard

  A warm front moved into our high-pressure regions when St. Paul-born Sven Sundgaard left KBJR in Duluth in March 2006 to become the weekend meteorologist on KARE 11. Sven's the kind of meteorologist you want to take home to explain global warming to your mother: a sweet, young charmer who also happens to know his hygrometer from his wiresonde. When… More >>