Arts & Entertainment >>

• Best Local Author (2 Comments)
  Candice Millard The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey
  Bruised after his defeat in the 1912 presidential election, Theodore Roosevelt sought the rigors of a South American expedition. But the descent into an unmapped tributary of the Amazon proved to be a much more dangerous test than even a stout figure like Roosevelt could have imagined. His... More >>
• Best Book for Local Tourists
  Best Little Coffee Shops in Kansas City Sandra Martin and Isaac Alongi
  When Sandra Martin and Isaac Alongi put out their self-published Best Little Coffee Shops in Kansas City, they started what we hope will be the first in a series of travelogues for fun trips around the metro. The married writer-photographer duo's combination of straightforward prose and glowing... More >>
• Best Poetry Reading
  The Mad Hennessy's Tea Party at the Writers Place
  Mark Hennessy, former frontman for Lawrence's '90s grunge band Paw, recently returned to Kansas City as a poet, but he's no less a performer. At his late-August Writers Place reading, an event dubbed Mad Hennessy's Tea Party, the guest of honor showed up in full Mad Hatter garb: suit, polka-dot... More >>
• Best Movie Theater
  Glenwood Arts
  Any theater that showed the 2005 release of Pride & Prejudice benefited from the halo effect: Keira Knightley's cheeks could light up the dankest of movie houses. The Glenwood Arts has more going for it than sumptuous Jane Austen adaptations, though. A three-screen theater specializing in art... More >>
• Best Action Hero
  Santiago Vasquez
  Santiago Vasquez looks like a Venezuelan Michael Chiklis (The Shield). He's thick and gruff-looking, with a shaved head. But the Kansas City, Kansas, cop and aspiring actor is a good guy -- despite his filmography, which includes a role as a sexual predator in filmmaker Gary Huggins'... More >>
• Best Humble Servant of the Arts
  Jaimie Warren
  Whether she's hustling greasy goods to hungry diners at the hopping Succotash restaurant in the City Market, assisting at the H&R Block Artspace or promoting her friends' shows (not to mention her own), Jaimie Warren is one busy bee in a buzzing arts scene. Ubiquitous without being annoying, she... More >>
• Best Emerging Artist
  Mathew Krawcheck
  When we first saw Mathew Krawcheck's paintings at the Grothaus and Pearl Gallery in June, we likened his narratives to a quest like Frodo's in Lord of the Rings. The typical fantasy markers aren't there in his work, though -- no swords or dragons, and the setting is often Krawcheck's work space... More >>
• Best Artist
  James Woodfill
  James Woodfill's installations -- subtle, ruminative and luminous -- beautifully decorate the Kansas City landscape. Woodfill's art is and is of Kansas City. That includes Deuce at the Kansas City International Airport; Sky Line, the wide band of woozy blue light atop the Plaza at the Sulgrave... More >>
• Best Collaboration
  Dylan Mortimer and Davin Watne Uplifted Arms
  After winning a commission to create artwork inside the downtown loop, Kansas City Art Institute graduates Dylan Mortimer and Davin Watne combined their talents to create an installation for everyone. Using photographs of people who ride buses around town, Mortimer and Watne created sandblasted... More >>
• Best Curator
  Stacy Switzer
  We don't always understand -- or even like -- the high-concept installations at Grand Arts, which in the past year have included Aidas Bareikis' garish squadron of debris; Nadine Robinson's Revelations-inspired light sculptures; Neal Rock's large-scale, silicone abstractions; and a boat. But... More >>
• Best Experimental Art
  Petah Coyne: Above and Beneath the Skin Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
  Last fall, we encountered the mysterious and odd sculptures of American-born artist Petah Coyne in the traveling exhibit Above and Beneath the Skin, which ran through the end of November at the Kemper. Coyne operates on a subconscious level, her abstract figures embedding themselves into our... More >>
• Best New Media Show
  Brendan Meara and Benjamin Thorp: Stains, Fingerprints, Watermarks and Scars at Paragraph Gallery
  Last December and January, to celebrate the new year, Kansas City Art Institute graduates Brendan Meara and Benjamin Thorp (class of 2004) took part in a two-person show at Paragraph Gallery that was intended to examine the beauty and narrative potential of overlooked objects. This included one... More >>
• Best Photography Show
  Donald J. McKenna In Missouri at the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center
  If Law and Order: Special Victims Unit were real and Chris Meloni showed up at our office demanding that we describe someone we met once at a party a year ago, and he said that a whole investigation depended on it ... well, he and Mariska Hargitay would be sadly disappointed. Our powers of... More >>
• Best Local Solo Show
  Marcus Cain Tales of Caution at Greenlease Gallery
  It's been five years since Marcus Cain -- artist, curator, Kansas City Art Institute instructor, and former editor of Review magazine -- mounted a solo exhibition; clearly, he's been busy. But last fall he made time for Tales of Caution, a collection of paintings, drawings and two large wall... More >>
• Best Exported (Then Imported) Group Show
  Whoop Dee Doo: Kansas City's Big Night on the Town at Rocket Projects in Miami
  Back in June, several young artists made their way to Miami to celebrate the opening of Whoop De Doo, a show of works by 22 current or former Kansas Citians organized by Art Institute grads Jaimie Warren and Jon Peck. Their mission was to earn some respect for our arts community. A review in the... More >>
• Best Acquisition
  The Hallmark Photographic Collection at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
  The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art's 11-foot-wide Gajin Fujita painting, "Ride or Die": gorgeous. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art's series of Enrique Chagoya prints, "Return to Goya's Caprichos": terribly clever. But the city's best acquisition over the past year has to be the 6,500-piece... More >>
• Best Show for the Kids
  Aaron Gach The Center for Tactical Magic at Grand Arts
  Artist Aaron Gach's "Tactical Ice Cream Unit" was created last fall under activist auspices, made to dispense progressive propaganda and encourage dialogue about the military. But with the Big Brother bravado came food for thought: specifically, popsicles from the Tropicana ice-cream shop on... More >>
• Best Show to See on a Saturday Morning
  Martin Morehouse Snug Sensation at the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center
  Considering our usual post-First Friday activities (drinks, dancing, falling, more drinks, making out ... omigod, did I? I did. I threw up. In his sink. Omigod), dragging our asses off the couch and heading to an art exhibit sounded like the last thing we wanted to do on a Saturday morning. But... More >>
• Best Crushworthy Artist
  Justin Gainan
  Justin Gainan, a 2004 graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute, is one of the youngest artists to win a coveted Charlotte Street Award in the foundation's 10-year history. His prints of silk knitting, installations of piled wood and rayograms of discarded thread all explore connectivity; more... More >>
• Best Performance Art
  Michael McEachern Michael's Tailgate Extravaganza
  One thing that unites the latest generation of artists is that they've come of age in a media-saturated, celebrity-obsessed country. We see that influence, however subtle, in many of the solo exhibitions by recent graduates of the Kansas City Art Institute, but perhaps none so much as Michael... More >>
• Best Theater Company
  The Coterie
  The major companies in town all boasted at least one show this year demonstrating the measureless life left in the theater. But the Coterie stands tallest for the simplest of reasons: From stagecraft to acting, from writing to costumes, from high seriousness to the most shameless horseplay,... More >>
• Best Improv Group
  Trip Fives
  After a sudden leap in ambition and daring, Kansas City improv is no longer the refuge for people who think they're funny enough to be onstage but are too lazy to actually write something. The Trip Fives peddle the lightest, most inventive, flat-out funniest improv in town. Give Tim Lemke or... More >>
• Best Moment in a Theater
  Angela Polk in Crowns
  In a cheerier than usual season at the Unicorn Theatre, last March's Crowns was the unabashed smiliest show of all: a gospel tribute to the almighty hats donned by Southern black women at Sunday services. The show was such a hit that it's making a return engagement with the same cast in April.... More >>
• Best Theatrical Event
  The Maid's Tragedy University of Missouri-Kansas City Graduate Theatre Department
  Packing the cash and the stones required to put on the sorts of daring, experimental shows that no other reputable theater in town will touch, the University of Missouri-Kansas City's Graduate Theatre Department doles out unforgettable moments every couple of months. Of particular note is last... More >>
• Best Theater Newcomer
  Sam Cordes In This Corner
  Cast as a smart, surly teen in Ry Kincaid's latest play last May, the youngish Sam Cordes (a playwright-actor-musician who would certainly win Best Cheekbones if such a category existed) took the Westport Coffee House stage like he was Napoleon taking Europe -- just taller and with more... More >>
• Best Actor in a Bad Play
  Scott Cordes in Duck Hunter Shoots Angel
  Mitch Albom's Duck Hunter Shoots Angel isn't dumb the way Airplane! is dumb. It's dumb the way the dumbest white guy you know is dumb, especially when said dumb guy is liquored up, listening to Larry the Cable Guy, and bitching about how black folks are allowed to say nigger but he isn't. Still,... More >>
• Best Scene Stealers
  Tim Scott in Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story DeDe Deville Come Back to the 9 to 5, Dolly Parton Dolly Parton
  We double dip, granting perhaps the first Pitch Best Of tie not because we're indecisive but because these two actors so flagrantly stole their respective shows that security alarms clanged at the exits. In minor roles, Tim Scott and DeDe Deville hijacked Buddy and Dolly from reasonable... More >>
• Best Funny Performance
  Stasha Case in Bonanza: The Purposely Lost Episode
  Most of the year's great comic turns came from the actors on the edges, those performers not burdened with shouldering an entire show. The exception: Stasha Case, who dominated Late Night Theatre's February production of Bonanza both in stage time and in impact, lavishing her deep comic gifts on... More >>
• Best Performance in a Play
  Kaleo Griffith Man and Superman
  Like high school bullies, George Bernard Shaw is all talk. But what glistening, dangerous talk, stuffed with politics and metaphors, disgust and poetry, curlicued wit and endless windbaggery. The best of the Shaw plays staged in recent years by the Kansas City Repertory Theatre, last October's... More >>
• Best Musical
  Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story
  Whether a songbook musical flies or falls has much to do with the songbook, of course (which explains why we don't feel bad never giving that Billy Joel show a chance). Cut down before he had a chance to suck, Holly is the perfect subject for the genre, and John Mueller was perfect as Holly last... More >>
• Best Play
  Fifth of July
  Bleary with drink, stubbed out by life, the Talleys of Fifth of July (the final chapter of Lanford Wilson's trilogy about one Missouri family's collisions with recent American history) got us in the gut: laughs from it and kicks to it. Under director Mark Robbins' clear eye, the cast members of... More >>
• Best Morning Show
  Afentra's Big Fat Morning Buzz KRBZ 96.5
  Enough with those eggheads over at NPR, discussing Iranian nuclear disarmament and documentaries starring Al Gore. Nobody needs to be confronted with all the ills of the world before a third cup of coffee. On Afentra's Big Fat Morning Buzz, it's all about Afentra's voice, which sounds like she... More >>
• Best Radio DJ
  Jason Nivens KQRC 98.9
  As the nightly DJ on KQRC 98.9 The Rock, Jason Nivens makes listening to head-banging metal feel authentic. The antithesis of the modern shock jock, he tells great stories but not obnoxiously. He doesn't use bathroom humor or rant. He's witty and irreverent, but he's no misogynist. He's... More >>
• Best Hip-Hop Radio Show (1 Comment)
  The Show-Me Mix Show KKFI 90.1
  Up-and-coming hip-hop artists in this city are always complaining about how Kansas City's corporate radio stations don't play their homegrown releases. Instead of complaining, they should be sending their (edited for radio) tracks to Mz. DeShai Hampton, DJ Kiz-One and Lonnie "Luv" Porter at KKFI... More >>
• Best MySpace Music
  Joe Good and Mac Lethal "Welcome to My MySpace Page"
  Musicians all over the country must have slapped themselves on their foreheads when they first heard the chorus to Joe Good and Mac Lethal's MySpace song. Everyone knows that MySpace is the No. 1 networking tool for garage-made American idols. A song devoted to MySpace itself? The idea was so... More >>
• Best Band
  The Architects
  The Architects don't stop. Because nobody can stop them -- not indifferent music-industry lackeys and not a teenage American market enamored of black bangs and screamo. The Architects will still play a limited Warped Tour run, open for Rancid, headline at tiny KC venues and hold four-hour... More >>
• Best MC
  Joe Good
  Jamal Gamby had already gained recognition as one-half of the MC-producer duo SoundsGood, whose Biscuits & Gravy came out last year, to much acclaim. As a solo artist on his and Mac Lethal's Black Clover imprint, Gamby -- aka Joe Good -- truly came into his own as a rhymer and stage rocker and,... More >>
• Best Breakout Band
  The Pomonas
  More than a year ago, Lawrence's Pomonas recorded an EP that wasn't so hot. This year, they turned out When You're Electric, an album on which everything fell into place. It's the kind of catchy, energetic rock that bands like Spoon hear when they're dreaming about being back in high school,... More >>
• Best Small-Scale Lawrence Venue
  The Jackpot Music Hall
  The Jackpot is where to go to hear your favorite local band before everyone else gets the T-shirt. It's the perfect place for uppity vinyl nerds to say, "Oh, I saw [insert newly minted king of hipster music band's name here] at the Jackpot before they were big." The Jackpot, formerly the Jackpot... More >>
• Best Local Label
  Anodyne Records
  A local label is often nothing more than a clever name that some unsigned band slapped on the back of its self-released CD. Not so Anodyne. For years, it was hard to tell just what Anodyne was doing outside of the immediate area, but now this little imprint has made its mark, thanks not only to... More >>
• Best DJ/Producer (1 Comment)
  Miles Bonny
  Even though his SoundsGood partner, Joe Good, branched off, Miles Bonny didn't recede into the background. In a series of moves that would make Beck jealous, Bonny rediscovered jazz and vocal R&B and still maintained a presence on the scene through DJ sets at the Peanut and the Hangout (where... More >>
• Best Album (2 Comments)
  Roman Numerals Roman Numerals
  Our ultimate party: We're headed out to visit a friend in Brooklyn. We take a few shots of Grand Marnier, and in our jacket pocket is this CD from a Kansas City band that was repeating on our iPod the whole flight over. It's catchy and dance-y, but in this inexplicably classic way -- the songs... More >>
• Best Local Song (1 Comment)
  "Savannah" In the Pines
  At first, In the Pines was noteworthy for its novel lineup -- acoustic guitars, four-part vocals, loping drumbeats, a 1940s pump organ and violins. The band's mournful-to-brutal dynamic was enough to turn heads. But we're past that now, and the good news is that the songs are holding up under... More >>
• Best Rap Track (1 Comment)
  Joe Good "In Ya Mouf"
  There's civic pride, and then there's the earnest search for a local identity. "In Ya Mouf" from Joe Good's mix Hi May I Help You? goes way beyond the Chiefs, the Royals and barbecue. It calls for all local hip-hop artists to rise up, resist the temptation to ape any of the game's commercially... More >>
• Best Soundman
  Dave Gaumé
  "It wasn't our best show, but Dave was there, so at least we sounded good." We've heard this statement numerous times at bars while listening in as area musicians reported on their latest gigs. A true gentleman and amplification wizard who cares about supporting the Kansas City music scene... More >>
• Best Sexy Musician
  Jamie Searle It's Over
  Jamie Searle, of relative newcomer band It's Over, resembles two people. One is hometown hero Matt Dunehoo of Doris Henson. The other is the John Lennon of the early '60s, who led his fledgling Beatles through rundowns of original ditties and American rock covers in dank Hamburg clubs. All... More >>
• Best One-Man Freakout
  This Is My Condition
  Craig Comstock looks normal enough -- a bald guy wearing shorts and sneaker who's cheerful and approachable. But when he sits down behind his trap set -- a gnarled, ancient guitar laid across it and a microphone swung around the high-hat -- a wild bear claws its way into Comstock, and he becomes... More >>
• Best Live Band
  The Last of the V8s
  Time was, just about every car that rolled out of Detroit packed a V8 engine, the monster that drove families to church and propelled teenagers recklessly down back roads after dark. Now, big engines are the albatross around America's gas-guzzling neck, and workaday speed demons are lucky to... More >>