Best Acts

Best new multi-use performance venue

A few of Seattle's forward thinkers -headed by former Weekly founder/editor David Brewster- got together and said, "Hey, kids, let's put on a play! And a poetry reading! And a chamber music concert! And a choral sing-along! And a choreographer's workshop! And . . . !" Unveiled this spring, Town Hall (1119 Eighth at Seneca, 652-4255), a refurbished Christian Science church on the downtown slope of First Hill (a space long underused and barely noticed), is up and running. What this means: A midsize performance space located within spitting distance of downtown has arrived. Huge spaces, such as the Paramount, the 5th Avenue Theater, the Opera House, and Benaroya Hall (excluding its recital hall, a much-needed venue for smaller classical music groups), have never been options for many community-based performing arts groups, being too big and too expensive to rent. These groups were usually relegated to suburban church pews. For the audiences these midsize groups draw regularly, there was not an appropriate and-key factors-central location with good acoustics for a variety of arts. Another thumbs-up goes to the on-site parking and the No. 2 bus line outside the front door. Keep your ears pricked for upcoming events, ranging from a multitude of arts, educational events, and meetings. They also do private functions. Feel free to clap at any time. . . .

Best celebrity sighting indicating that Seattle is still Seattle

Local actor turned ER regular John Aylward, who was glimpsed on a weeknight a couple of months ago hanging out with several friends in the loud, smoky, but quintessentially Broadway bar, Ileen's. Aylward and his wife still own their Capitol Hill residence, though they spend most of the year in thrall to LA-land. Still, it's good to know that John's not too big a star to enjoy jostling elbows with the local Broadway rabble.

Best local playwright

Seattle's recognized far and wide as a writer's town. We're a major stop on most authors' book signings and have a significant amount of local talent that we can be proud of, from Sherman Alexie to Rebecca Brown to David Guterson. But while we've got some significant playwrights in residence as well, choosing a best from the ranks is a much more difficult proposition. Our most famous local playwright, for example, is August Wilson, but even now his vision is clearly on his hometown of Detroit and the landscape of his youth; it would be a stretch indeed to even call him a "Seattle playwright." Then there's the astonishingly prolific Steven Dietz, whose work has had a long-time home at A Contemporary Theater and is now being seen on regional stages across the country. But despite his enthusiasm for tackling any number of different subjects and provocative themes, there's a superficiality, a lightness to much of his writing that's repeatedly disappointing. We've got a few New York transplants like William Mastrosimone, who have unfortunately done little since escaping the Big Apple, and a whole host of fine writers like Bret Fetzer, Ki Gottberg, Dawson Nichols, Jeff Resta, and Y York, who've had work produced both locally and abroad but continue to pay their dues in the trenches of semi-obscurity. So at the risk of sounding Messianic, this year's award goes to the writer yet to come, an individual who can combine the thematic ambition of a Wilson with the versatility of a Dietz, the comedy of a Resta or a Vince Delaney with the social conscience of a York or a Drew Emery, and it would be nice if he or she had the musical facility of a Chris Jeffries as well. Any of these artists might be concluding the epic that will push them into this slot in the year to come, or perhaps some mute inglorious Milton labors even now pulling shots at an espresso stand. But we've got a sneaking suspicion that our arrival on the world stage is just around the corner.

Best new-music trend

Composers' organizations! Local composers have never been chummier-in the past season or so, they've exhibited a mania for gathering, organizing, and sharing ideas both aesthetic and practical. Most encouragingly, the Washington Composers Forum has awakened after a couple of years' slumber. Its new director, Christopher Shainin, took over last February, establishing monthly (second Tuesdays) presentation/business meetings at Jack Straw Studios in the U District. Plans are afoot for public concerts of some sort this fall (call 789-3628 for more info). The Seattle Composers Alliance focuses on music for media, drawing the area's commercial composers; one membership requirement is that you make at least 50 percent of your income from composing (contact Hummie Mann at 442-2109 for info on upcoming workshops and seminars). The Composers and Improvisers Workshop will resume meetings in the fall for all musicians interested in improvisation (contact Lynette Westendorf at 525-2706). Another outlet for live performance, a sort of .new-music open-mike night, is the Seattle Composers Salon series recently started by Christian Asplund, with the latest in chamber music the last Friday of each month (contact asplundlara@hotmail.com for details about the scheduled event on August 27). The Sonicabal is a free-form group of experimental, technology-friendly composers that meets monthly to discuss issues, organize shows, and share works for feedback (and occasionally works of feedback). The group is strictly nonhierarchical (as good a contact person as any is Chris DeLaurenti at 784-8077). Of a more traditionalist bent is the wryly named Cro-Magnon Club (287-1900), an association of "paper composers" that meets the second and fourth Sundays and Wednesdays at the Parlor Room in Pioneer Square for discussions and music readings. And keeping you abreast of all this is The Tentacle, the tartly contentious and unabashedly idealistic monthly journal covering outsider music from Portland to Vancouver (available at the Northwest's better record stores and coffeehouses; the online version can be found at www.tentacle.org).

Best social dance trend that's not going anywhere