Best lead performances

1. •Jaki Bradley (Pace), Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, Ground Up Productions
   

2. •Lucius Robinson (Howie), Stephen LeTrent (Rookie), Howie the Rookie, The Delta Boys
   

3. •Ryan Brock (Max), Sean Brosnahan (Horst), Bent, Raleigh Ensemble Players
   

4. •Eric Carl (Prior Walter), Kenny Gannon (Roy Cohn), Angels in America, Theatre in the Park
   

5. •Matt Bogart (Lee), Dan Bogart (Austin), True West, Hot Summer Nights at the Kennedy
   

6. •Nicole Farmer (Martha), Mark Miller (George), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Party Girl! Productions
   

7. •Thaddeus Edwards (Winston), LaMark Wright (John), The Island, Manbites Dog
   

8. •Linda O'Day Young (Thelma), Martie Todd Sirois (Jessie), 'night, Mother, Raleigh Little Theatre
   

9. •Jenn Suchanec (Gina Olsson) and Tamara Farias Kraus (Kelima), The Prisoner's Dilemma, Burning Coal
   

10. •Sam Wellington (Lewis), Lelund Durond Thompson (multiple roles), Blue Door, Playmakers Rep
    

11. •Elizabeth Corley (Mother Courage), Mother Courage and Her Children, Justice Theater Project
    

12. •Mike Wiley (all roles), Blood Done Sign My Name, Mike Wiley Productions
    

Superior duet roles—except for you, Mike Wiley, who chose to perform more than 20 characters, alone, in your one-man gauntlet in November. LeTrent and Robinson danced a punky verbal tightrope in Howie the Rookie, before Carl's and Gannon's new personal bests in Angels. Farmer brayed repellently while Miller defined a wraithlike, ingrown, arachnid love in Virginia Woolf. Ariail and I both knew how good Edwards and Wright were as South African prisoners split by the possibility of parole in The Island, while Zack Smith complimented Young and Sirois' depiction of the many layers behind "an unhealthy, complicated and strangely loving mother and daughter." Suchanec and newcomer Kraus were perfect foils for one another as the idealistic Finnish negotiator and a middle-Eastern freedom fighter in The Prisoner's Dilemma. Ditto that for Wellington and Thompson, as the black mathematician and a phalanx of his pursuing ancestors, respectively, in Blue Door. Not to mention the brothers Bogart, who played the warring brothers, if anything, too realistically as the audience dodged flying golf clubs the afternoon we saw True West.

Best direction

1. •Kate Middleton, Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, Ground Up Productions
   

2. •Jay O'Berski, Europe Central, Little Green Pig
   

3. •Kathryn Milliken, Howie the Rookie, The Delta Boys
   

4. •Julie Fishell, Dead Man Walking, DDA Mainstage
   

5. •Glen Matthews, Bent, Raleigh Ensemble Players
   

6. •Adam Twiss, Angels in America, Theatre in the Park
   

7. •Lauren Kennedy, True West, Hot Summer Nights at the Kennedy
   

8. •Tom Marriott, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Party Girl Productions
   

9. •Michael O'Foghludha, The Island, Little Green Pig
   

10. •Jerome Davis, The Prisoner's Dilemma, Burning Coal
    

11. •Trezana Beverley, Blue Door, Playmakers Rep
    

12. •Rebecca Holderness, Twelfth Night, Burning Coal