Best Theater Director 2006 | Cheryl Denson | Best of Dallas® 2020 | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Dallas | Dallas Observer
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Best Theater Director

Cheryl Denson

Actors trust Cheryl Denson, a longtime Dallas theater actor and now a much in-demand director. She's not a crack-the-whip type, doesn't bury herself in trivial research, never screams at the slackers. She just gets it done, making the process a lot of fun. An expert with comedies but no slouch with musicals and dramas, Denson, a Baylor grad with an MFA from Trinity University, deflects praise that comes her way. "It's not about just me. I watched directors work when I acted all those years and watched them make it about their work only. I hated that as an actor," she says. Theater, she says, ought to feel embracing and it ought to feel safe. "We're all exposing the rawest part of ourselves to do that. You can't have fearful actors." Booked a year in advance with directing jobs, Denson next takes the reins of Last Night of Ballyhoo at Contemporary Theatre of Dallas, then Master Class at Lyric Stage. Next time you see a really good show, check for Denson's name in the program. Good directors such as her rarely get the applause they deserve.

Best Honky-Tonk

Adair's

There are joints that bill bigger acts (Billy Bob's), and there are joints where ladies ride mechanical bulls (Gilley's), but nothing says honky-tonk like Adair's Saloon in Deep Ellum. It's where you go if you want to hear no-frills, stripped-to-the-bone country. It's a rough and tumblin' kind of place, a shitty little dive with a small stage, small tables and plenty of beer. And it's one of the last places in town where for a couple bucks you can hear real country, as opposed to that Kenny Chesney sun-going-down Caribbean bullshit.

Best Local Actress

Heather Henry

In Danny and the Deep Blue Sea at the Bath House, she was Roberta, desperately needy and starved for a sexual connection with somebody, anybody. In A Moon for the Misbegotten at Circle Theatre, she was Josie, an Irish-American pig farmer's wife, desperately needy and starved forwell, you see the pattern. Playing beautiful but quirky women with a certain seething sexuality, Heather Henry, 33, has made an unforgettable impression on theatergoers in a series of tough roles over the past year. A SUNY-Purchase grad (like Edie Falco and Stanley Tucci), Henry arrived in Dallas after not acting for six years. Her comeback role was a doozy, playing a boozy slattern in Killer Joe at the MAC. "I think I was cast because I was willing to do it naked. I had to come onstage in a white T-shirt and my frickin' double-D boobs," Henry recalls. She's since worked at WaterTower and Classical Acting Company, where she recently co-starred as the woman who seduces Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman. She's also lost 100 pounds she'd gained during the lay-off from showbiz. "Now directors don't know what to do with me!" she says. Giving her more good roles would be a start.

Best Local Actor

Ian Leson

If you bought a ticket to any Dallas theater this past year, you probably saw Ian Leson onstage. The guy worked everywhere, getting roles he admits put him on an enviable hot streak. First, Bug, a sell-out at Kitchen Dog with Leson playing a meth-crazed guy holed up stark naked in a motel room. Then Living Out at WaterTower, as a Yuppie liberal who almost jumps in the sack with the nanny. Then Visiting Mr. Green at Contemporary Theatre of Dallas, a two-hander starring Leson as a gay New Yorker doing court-ordered visits to a grouchy old widower (the grand Jerry Russell). Throw in appearances at the Out of the Loop Fest, plus staged readings here and there, and Leson, who owns a Preston Center Pilates studio with wife Jennifer, barely had a night off. The SMU theater grad is a director's fave and recently was named a company member at Kitchen Dog, where he's playing the male lead in Neil LaBute's Fat Pig through October 21. Now, says Leson, "I have this urge to do a musical. Because it would terrify me."

Best Place to Pet a Donkey

Frisco Horse Park

Twenty years ago, old-timers will tell you, Frisco was dirt roads and corn fields. Now it's rapidly becoming like the rest of Dallas. There remains one patch of dirt amidst all this urban sprawl where one can pet a donkey, ride a horse or simply smell the aroma of fresh manure. It's the Frisco Horse Park. It's right off Highway 121, across the street from 7-Eleven, down a rutted dirt road, through a field of dying dandelions, beyond a chipped white fence. The clapboard office, rumor has it, was once a whorehouse. Now it's where you pay $35 to ride a horse for an hour. Better yet, pay $5 to put your kiddo on a pony for 10 minutes. But you better hurry, because before you know it, it will all be gone.

Best Camping

Cedar Hill State Park

If you like the outdoors, you should probably move to a place where they don't allow every river to get all sullied up with beer cans and Funyons bags. But if you can't move, there are a number of woodsy options that are surprisingly close. Perhaps the best place to go camping is Cedar Hill State Park. This "urban nature preserve" includes 355 campsites, most of them fairly wooded. Each site has water, electricity, a fire ring, a lantern pole and a picnic table, and all are within walking distance of restrooms with hot showers. If you're not a sissy, there are 30 more campsites with no amenities whatsoever. Besides camping, there are more than 15 miles of mountain biking trails, a preserved 19th-century farm and the Joe Pool Reservoir, where you can swim, ride jet skis or just chill out on a house boat.

Best Theater Newcomer

Clay Yocum

Onstage he burns with the sexy intensity of a young Marlon Brando (head shaved Colonel Kurtz-style), the subtle passion of Ed Harris and sometimes the borderline serial killer rage of Kevin Spacey at his scariest. Standing still, Clay Yocum, 29, is the most interesting actor on any stage and the best young thesp to come this way in years. In his local debut in WingSpan's Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, he gave a performance so raw and sexual it made the audience feel like voyeurs. Next he played the racist rube with a killer fastball in WaterTower's hit run of Take Me Out. Recently he won the plum role of Biff Loman in Classical Acting's Death of a Salesman. In real life, the University of Oklahoma grad is a gentle sort. He started acting as a child, moving with his mom to L.A. for a year when he was 11 to make casting rounds. Now he works with troubled students at a Flower Mound middle school by day and thrills audiences at night. "I'm humbled and overwhelmed with the opportunities I've had in the last year," says Yocum. Sounds like a great start to an acceptance speech.

Best Place to Get Your Farm On

Heritage Farmstead Museum

Who knew that vast herds of tongue-wagging, snot-nosed, dust-covered cattle once passed through the Big D on their way to Kansas, where they would be carved into rump roasts and rib eyes? Well, most everybody, but it's easy to forget, because other than the Dallas Cowboys and Western Warehouse, you'd never guess Dallas was once a cow town. Thank the Lord for the Heritage Farmstead Museum in Plano for preserving a bit of the Old West and reminding us that for all its romance, the era kinda sucked. Check out the sheep, the one-room school house, the rusting tractors, the herb garden and the chicken coop. And then get in your car, blast the A/C and thank God that you were born 150 years later.

Best Theater Heartthrob

Gary Floyd

It's impossible to listen to Gary Floyd sing without smiling. Just can't happen. Long one of Dallas' favorite singer-songwriters, Gary has set hearts aflutter at local nightclubs and piano bars for years with his laid-back charm and velvety voice. He has released five splendid CDs featuring original tracks, cover songs and Christmas music. A favorite is 2004's Unbound, which lays down track after track of terrific tunes, especially the haunting title song. Accompanying himself on piano and armed with baby blues and a killer smile, Floyd sings with a catch in his voice that will catch you right in the heart. No longer content simply to sit behind a piano, Floyd gracefully made the transition from singer to star by appearing in Contemporary Theatre of Dallas' production of Pump Boys and Dinettes. Subsequent turns in King David (Lyric Stage) and Aida (Uptown Players), followed by this summer's triumph singing his head off and taking it all off in the demanding leading role in The Full Monty (Theatre Three), have solidified Floyd's status as Dallas' hottest musical theater star.

Best Latin Club

Escapade 2009

The parking lot is big enough for a Six Flags. The cavernous dance hall feels like a gutted Wal-Mart. This is a club so big and so popular that it's easy to get lost here. If you love to dance but feel stupid doing it, this is the perfect place to go. No one will notice. It's tough to single out one place as the best Latin club in town because Latin encompasses so many nationalities and musical styles, from reggaeton to hip-hop to salsa and merengue. But Escapade 2009 has a little bit of something for everyone. Downstairs they play Latin pop and rock as well as hip-hop and reggaeton, from Shakira to Mana to Daddy Yankee. Upstairs is more traditional music, such as salsa or merengue. 2009 is hands down the most popular Latin club in Dallas: It draws anywhere from 5,000 to 6,000 people each weekend night.

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