10. Cabaret (Dartmouth Players) was my favourite show by an amateur theatre company, but I also loved Be My Baby (DP), Private Lives (Bedford Players) and Captain Hook's Revenge (TAG).
9. The Passion of Adèle Hugo (Eastern Front Theatre): An original musical with a local connection that wowed.
8. Saltwater Moon (King's Theatrical Society): Creative staging took this romantic standard from sweet to sensational. Also in the university category, The March (Dalhousie Theatre Society): a powerfully disturbing play about the Holocaust that still haunts me.
7. Epic in a Box (Lohifi): What can I say? Found-object theatre gives me a lovely warm fuzzy feeling.
6. Short Skirt Butch: Just one of the outstanding plays at this year's outstanding Fringe, but a sexy, funny, memorable one.
5. Rent (DGM Music Inc.): A big, bold production filled with youthful enthusiasm and mad talent.
4. On the Verge (Once Upon A Theatre Collective): Funny, feminist, finely performed theatre by one of Halifax's young companies to watch.
3. Dracula and Robin Hood (Shakespeare By the Sea): Two sensational but very different plays, proving the depth and breadth of this local treasure.
2. A tie! Vigil (Valley Summer Theatre): So funny. So dark. And Bingo! (Mulgrave Road Theatre): Daniel MacIvor's reunion comedy was filled with lots of laughs and terrific performances.
1. Russian Play/Mexico City (2b theatre): Complex and satisfying, 2b creates theatre that delivers on multiple levels.
