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.

Desmond Grasker, Curtis Wyatt, Joe Obleton, and Betty Cosey in A Lesson Before DyingI've been moved by several productions this year, but by none so deeply as the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's A Lesson Before Dying. In fact, I was in tears several times during Friday night's performance, including throughout most of the second act.

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."

Jessica Stratton, Melissa McBain, and Jeremy Mahr in DoubtThere's a special thrill you get from a stage work that seems not just beautifully, but perfectly cast, and following the curtain call for the Green Room's Friday-evening presentation of Doubt: A Parable - currently playing at the Harrison Hilltop Theatre - that thrill stuck with me for the rest of the night, and into the next day.