Best Acting Family 2012 | Barrett and Barry Nash | Best of Dallas® 2020 | Best Restaurants, Bars, Clubs, Music and Stores in Dallas | Dallas Observer
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Best Acting Family

Barrett and Barry Nash

Dad Barry and daughter Barrett Nash have each accomplished something special as actors: They've both starred in one-person shows on Dallas stages, giving gripping performances all by themselves. Barry Nash played the title role in Bob Birdnow's Remarkable Tale of Human Survival and the Transcendence of Self at Second Thought Theatre (after debuting the piece by Eric Steele at the 2011 Festival of Independent Theatres). He's repeated the role, about a pilot who survives a crash that kills his best friends, in Steele's film version, now in production. Barry's daughter Barrett wowed FIT audiences this summer in the one-woman play My Name Is Rachel Corrie, playing an idealistic peace activist who loses her life in a protest in Gaza. Holding an audience's gaze for an hour of live theater is no easy feat. Making them love you is a gift. And there's something about the acting Nashes that simply commands your attention and welcomes your embrace.

Best Theater

Ochre House

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Matthew Posey's tiny storefront by Fair Park showcases his brilliant, always shockingly original productions of plays and musicals. This year audiences laughed at The Butcher, a play starring the puppet-corpse of a dead pig, and they shuddered at the musical Mean, about the meeting of Charlie Manson and Tex Watson. You could laugh and cry at Morphing, Posey's multimedia reconstruction of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night. He also wrote bio-plays about Frida Kahlo and Henry Miller. You never know what Posey and his "Ochre House Boys" will come up with next, but it's a good bet it'll be something you've never seen before but won't soon forget.

Best Local Vinyl Art

Pour le Corps Records

The art of the album has largely been lost as attention spans dwindle and quantity trumps quality, at least in terms of how we absorb music these days. Dallas tape and vinyl label Pour le Corps is letting their aesthetic flag fly, however. Marjorie Owens and Sean French have an eye for detail and theme within each of their limited-run experimental and psych releases. Remember when you could tell it was an SST album by just looking at the cover? That applies here, too.

Best Video Production

Yes Go

The Flaming Lips and Erykah Badu used Yes Go's Oak Cliff space to film their controversial video earlier this year, but the production company has been heeding their eponymous mantra to create music videos, ads and short films way before that minor dustup. Its attendant space, El Sibil, has also been known to throw some killer late-night parties.

Best Band to Break Up

Record Hop

Bands come and go, but this Denton noise-rock quartet seemed to embody a period in Denton music that was muscular, primitive and raw. For close to a decade, the group put forth an almost perfect catalog, and the live shows reflected that muscle. Record Hop singer-guitarist Ashley Cromeens went on to co-front hip-hop collective Neeks, though, so all is not lost.

Best Electronic Music Event

Meltdown

We didn't get an Electric Daisy Carnival this year, but we had a slew of smaller-scale electronic music festivals come through Dallas. Meltdown, held out in Grand Prairie at QuikTrip Park, was sort of the unofficial start of summer, with a nice mix of local and national DJs. They even had noise complaints from the neighbors, because their bass was just too damn loud. That's the spirit.

Best Summer Concert Series

Barefoot at the Belmont

From early spring to late summer, KXT's Barefoot at the Belmont series drops local and national acts onto the beautiful grounds of Oak Cliff's Belmont Hotel and demands your attention. The shows are always sellouts, which points to KKXT-FM 91.7 knowing its crowd. Will Johnson, Gary Clark Jr., Tim DeLaughter? Check. Demand was so high this year, the station might need to find another place to get barefoot in 2013.

Best Interwebs Radio Station

Indie-Verse

More than any traditional local radio station, the shows on CBS-owned Internet station Indie-Verse (klli.radio.com) are a reflection of the divergent tastes of the community. The playlists are a bit looser, the dialogue a bit more casual. You might hear a 10-minute death metal song or the theme song to Roseanne. We need more of this in Dallas, radio-heads.

Best Scene Stealer

Sally Nystuen Vahle

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The Dallas Theater Center acting company member performed this year's best scene-stealing bit onstage. In God of Carnage, the Tony-winning play DTC produced at Kalita Humphreys Theater, Sally Nystuen Vahle played a high-strung, tightly wrapped urban mommy. The play is about civilized adults who, as alcohol flows and conversations grow heated, turn into furious savages. Vahle's character was one of the calmest until fwaaaaaaaak, she suddenly stood up and vomited. Not just a little upchuck. No, a torrent of barf that sprayed over the furniture, other actors, even the first rows at some performances. It was a perfectly wonderful/horrible moment of live theater, which Vahle carried off with great flourish (the trick was accomplished with a tube, a throw pillow and liquid chunked with tiny pieces of foam rubber). As special effects go, it was a doozy. And for Ms. Vahle, who typically plays straitlaced, well-behaved ladies, it allowed her to let loose with some truly gutsy acting.

Best Sports TV Personality

Daryl "Razor" Reaugh

In a town flush with quality sports TV types, nobody cooks a vocabulary stew quite like Daryl "Razor" Reaugh. Using words like "mastadonic" and "pulchritudinous" as effortlessly as "skate" or "puck," Reaugh brings an auditory flavor to the local hockey broadcast that can't be matched. Alongside excellent play-by-play man Ralph Strangis, Razor has been in the booth for the Stars for 16 seasons. The secret of HIS greatness isn't lost on the broader audience, as last season he made multiple guest appearances on Canada's popular Hockey Night in Canada. This fall, whip out your dictionary and be by the channel, as Razor will surely be slinging many more of his trademark "mind vitamins."

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