Kermit Thomas, Jim Strauss, Don Faust, and Shellie Moore Guy in A Woman Called Truth

"Tell your story!" "But who will listen?"

Those opening lines from A Woman Called Truth, now playing at the Playcrafters Barn Theatre, get the audience ready to hear a character's tale. What the audience does not yet get in those opening lines, however, is how very important that story is, and how beautifully it will be told by a diverse and talented cast.

Rae Mary and Fred Harris Jr. in Driving Miss DaisyPrior to Friday night, my only experience with Driving Miss Daisy was with the remarkable film version starring the incomparable Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman. Although its tenderness sticks with me, for some reason I don't recall Alfred Uhry's script being terribly funny. And with the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's production of this material, I'm now wondering why I don't remember the humor, considering how loud and often I laughed during director Donna Weeks' presentation.

2015 Playwrights Festival: One-ActsNew Ground Theatre's 2015 Playwrights Festival: One-Acts was, for me, a mixture of "Ha ha ha!" and "What the hell?!" I either laughed heartily during the five debuting works or sat confused as to the points their playwrights tried to make.

Matt Madison, Rita Jett, and Vincent Briley in Blues for an Alabama SkyPlaycrafters Barn Theatre's Blues for an Alabama Sky manages to be an adjective I've come to love regarding theatrical productions: surprising. Playwright Pearl Cleage takes her story in directions I did not expect from the outset of Saturday's performance, as her play moves from the plight of a recently out-of-work singer in Harlem to a study of societal views on homosexuality and abortion in 1930. I had no idea that was the direction the plot would take, but I was grateful for it, as the proceedings kept me on my mental toes, and continually interested in what was going to happen next.

Fences might more aptly be titled Porches, as author August Wilson's characters spend much of the play sitting on a porch, swapping stories. Yet the script is so well written - with its raw, realistic dialogue and slice-of-life style - that it's not surprising that Wilson's drama won both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1987 and the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play just last month. And while Monday night's preview performance of the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's Fences wasn't quite at the award-worthy level, the production shouldn't be overlooked when planning a night at the theatre.

Narrowing down 2009's sensational stage portrayals into a list of 12 "favorites" is a hopeless task, really, so don't take this as any kind of last word on the subject; you'll find mention of amazing stage work all throughout my year-end coverage. Still, here's hoping you were able to catch at least a few of the following performances, which helped underline just how crazy with theatrical talent our area actually is.

Alysha McElroy-Hodges, Shellie Moore Guy, Curtis Lewis, Paul-Richard Pierre, and Shanna Nicole Cramer in A Raisin in the SunArea performer and radio-show host Shellie Moore Guy is slender in frame, and not particularly tall. Yet in the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's presentation of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, the actress -- in her role as matriarch Lena Younger -- projects such expansive love, pride, and strength of character that she appears larger than life. Lena's adult children, Walter Lee (Curtis Lewis) and Beneatha (Alysha McElroy-Hodges), may tower over her, but there's never any doubt that Guy's selfless, resolutely devout mother is the one in charge; she guides both her family and Hansberry's drama with an impassioned righteousness that would be mythic if it weren't so complexly structured, and so wonderfully human.

Xavier Marshall and Curtis Lewis in A Raisin in the Sun"Literally thousands of people have come through this building to perform on our stage," says Craig Michaels, past president of the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's board of directors. "But without demeaning or belittling any of the work that's been done here over the years, I was finding that I didn't feel the entire community was properly represented within our building, both on our stage and behind the scenes."

"Aida"There seems to be a pretty safe rule of thumb regarding the productions at Quad City Music Guild and the Richmond Hill and Playcrafters Barn theatres: When the actors appear to believe in their material (whether that material is strong or weak), the shows are terrific, and when they don't, they're not.