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Best Theater For Drama

Coconut Grove Playhouse

What made Coconut Grove Playhouse stand out this season is the same phenomenon that made the birth of the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup a hit -- the pairing of two things that normally don't go together. In this case two kinds of theater: the big-name, high-profile stars and full-scale productions the mainstage puts on, and the more intimate and diverse productions found in the Encore Room. This season each produced an outstanding show: Art and A Bicycle Country. Yasmina Reza's award-winning Art took satire beyond the limits of comedy into the hilarious drama of the human heart and its feckless sidekick, ego. The excellent acting and superb script transformed the Playhouse's mainstage into a blank canvas redolent with the gradations of comedy and drama essential to interesting theater. Cuban-American playwright Nilo Cruz made his Miami debut of A Bicycle Country, and the Encore turned out to be the perfect space for three balseros adrift at sea. The Encore's theater-in-the-round staging for the set heightened the sense of confinement, especially in the second half of the play, when the stage becomes a makeshift raft. (Set designer Steve Lambert used a hydraulic system to rock the stage as if it were on water in a subtle yet effective visual device.) While the playhouse has been teaming up its mainstage and Encore Room for at least a decade now, this season hit an especially winning combination.

Best Tour

The Mystery, Murder, and Mayhem Bus Tour

If you're gonna build a city in a swamp, expect slimy creatures. In Miami we actually import them. Mobsters, murderers, mayors -- it's just part of the attraction for tourists. Two or three times each year historian Paul George takes a lucky group on a bus tour to visit some of Miami's most infamous ghosts. He packs a lot in three hours around the city and Miami Beach, but still doesn't come close to fitting it all in. There was the time in 1895 when Sam Lewis went on a murder spree in Lemon City. A hundred years later developer Stanley Cohen was murdered in Coconut Grove by his wife's hit man. Famous mobster Meyer Lansky used to walk his dog along Collins Avenue. In 1968 developer Robert Mackle dropped a $500,000 ransom from the bridge leading to Grove Isle in Coconut Grove, this in hopes of freeing his kidnapped daughter, who had been buried alive. Andrew Cunanan committed suicide in a Miami Beach houseboat after murdering Gianni Versace. The assassination attempt on FDR in Bayfront Park. The notorious River Cops stealing drugs and leaving bodies in their wake. The list goes on. Call the museum for more information. Reservations are required, and seats go fast.

Best Tourist Trap

Coral Castle

When Edward Leedskalnin died in Miami in 1951, he left behind a genuine Florida wonder. Leedskalnin said he built the Coral Castle for his sixteen-year-old fiancée who ended up rejecting him. To furnish the couple's fantasy manse, the five-foot-tall, 100-pound former lumberjack labored obsessively for twenty years. Under cover of darkness he quarried, carved, and positioned more than 1100 tons of oolitic limestone using handmade pulleys and levers. Among his creations: a twenty-foot-long table shaped like the State of Florida with Lake Okeechobee as a finger bowl; 1000-pound rocking chairs that really rock; a sundial, a throne room, and a nine-ton revolving gate that opens with a gentle push and closes with only a quarter-inch clearance on either side. To this day Leedskalnin and the Coral Castle remain mysteries. (Two teenagers once claimed they saw him levitating coral blocks like helium balloons.) Billy Idol penned "Sweet Sixteen" after an inspired visit, and the edifice appears in the 1958 bomb The Wild Women of Wongo, available for $19.99 in the gift shop. The Coral Castle opens daily at 9:00 a.m. Call for closing times. Admission is $7.75 and free for children under age six.

Best Trade

Eddie Jones, Anthony Mason, Ricky Davis, and Dale Ellis for P.J. Brown, Jamal Mashburn, Tim James, Rodney Buford, and Otis Thorpe

Best TV News Anchor

Kelly Craig

As Grandma used to say, that Kelly Craig is a hoot. A member of the NBC 6 team since 1990, Craig cohosts the 10:00 a.m. edition of Today in South Florida with Gerri Helfman and Bob Mayer. Although it's an odd hour for a newscast, it does have its own cult following. One of the principal reasons people tune in is Craig's personality, especially her self-deprecating sense of humor. Don't misunderstand us. She still delivers the main news stories in a serious manner, but as the show progresses and the segments become a little lighter in tone, Craig begins to cut loose with Helfman, who often plays Abbott to her Costello, or Ethel to her Lucy. Craig never takes herself too seriously. And most important, she's not afraid to be herself, which is why she has such an easy time connecting with viewers.

Best TV News Reporter

Jilda Unruh and "The Investigators"

For more than a year now, Unruh and crew have been relentless in hammering away at incompetence and corruption in the biggest and arguably most important bureaucracy in Miami-Dade County: the public school district. They've chronicled misspent construction dollars, highly paid do-nothing employees, sex scandals, and nonexistent classes. Prying the lid off a secretive self-protective government entity ain't easy, but the red-faced, sputtering reactions of school officials confronted by Unruh indicate she's making progress. We all should take comfort in their discomfort. Thanks, Jilda.

Best TV Station

WPLG-TV (Channel 10)

Every station pays lip service to producing local programming designed to enlighten and educate the public, but WPLG makes good on that promise. Channel 10, for instance, was the only English-language station to broadcast a county mayoral debate last fall. And no other station in Miami devotes as much time to the problems plaguing the community. WPLG held a series of town-hall forums last year during the Elian Gonzalez crisis, and recently the station added to its lineup a new Saturday-evening public-affairs program called The Putney Perspective, hosted by reporter Michael Putney, who continues with his highly regarded Sunday-morning program This Week in South Florida. WPLG's news division produces the strongest investigative packages in the area, and the station's commentaries by general manager John Garwood pull no punches. All in all WPLG represents the very best of what a local television station should be.

Best TV Station To Die In The Past Twelve Months

WAMI

Barry Diller's ballyhooed experiment in local programming died with the sale late last year of his thirteen-station USA Broadcasting company to Univision for $1.1 billion. WAMI was designed to be the flagship station in Diller's empire, a groundbreaking experiment that would revolutionize the industry. Instead it turned out to be a pathetic joke. In its two-and-a-half years on the air, WAMI promised far more than it ever delivered. The station was supposed to produce hour upon hour of local programming but quickly abandoned that and became best known for its M*A*S*H* reruns. Shows like The Times and Sportstown were interesting but never received the financial support they needed. The station's only hit was a T&A jigglefest called 10s. Not exactly original television. Univision is expected to transform WAMI into a Spanish-language station.

Best Use Of A Small Space

Performance Space 742

Size does matter, you say? Well, when it comes to performance, there's one place in town where skill infinitely overrules dimensions: PS 742. Perhaps the only venue in Miami exclusively devoted to the promotion and production of South Florida artists, Little Havana's cozy PS 742 seats about 38 people comfortably, but even if there were 138, the word uncomfortable could never be associated with this amazingly unpretentious cultural hangout and performance space. Culture? Unpretentious? Miami? Yes, miracles other than Elian sightings do occur on SW Eighth Street. This season alone the intimate venue was transformed from a runway for Magaly Agüero's enigmatic, Spanish-language performance Ceremonia Inconclusa (Unfinished Ceremony) to a cabaret for Lourdes Simone's performance poetry and boleros. It's also worthy of mention that the space doesn't limit itself to one particular culture or genre. PS 742 has hosted acts as varied as the Isadora Duncan Dance Ensemble, Middle Eastern Dance by Hanan, and Ayabombe's Haitian Dance and Music Troupe. It's no surprise that the place already has the lived-in feel of other long-standing cultural institutions such as Casa Panza across the street.

Best Vertically Challenged Basketball Player

A.J. Castro

Southwest Miami High School's boys basketball team, led by five-foot eight-inch point guard A.J. Castro, gave its win-starved fans much to cheer about this year. After decades of lackluster seasons, the Eagles squad tallied a 22-7 record, upsetting perennial powerhouses and reaching the county finals for Class 6A play. At one point the gutsy Cinderella team was ranked second in the state. At the heart of the dream season was the team's fast and slippery playmaker Castro, who frustrated many a taller opponent. On the court he is fearless, taking control with lightning-quick passes, nervy rebounds, and wicked three-point shots. And he has a knack for scoring when the team needs it most. During the Eagles' final regular-season game against their district rivals, the South Miami Cobras, Castro whooshed an arching three-pointer that won it for the Eagles as the clock ticked off its final second. The short guy was named to the first-string all-state team by the Florida Sportswriters Association, the McDonald's All-American Team, and the county all-star roster. Not bad for a scrappy Cuban kid from the burbs. He's a senior now, and when he accepts that scholarship to Cornell, as expected, the hoops around Westchester will never be the same.

Best Of Miami®

Best Of Miami®

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