The Best

Art & Entertainment

In December 1994, in an odd blend of marketing panache and demographic shuffling, ultimate smoothie crooner Tony Bennett and his jazz trio did a benefit show for Toys for Tots not at the Providence Performing Arts Center, as one might have expected, but at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel, the Downcity rock club.

The night started, for me, at what was then my favorite restaurant, one of the stunning array of local chow-houses that served truly world-class food informed by the local Providence flavor. Portuguese vino verde sauces and sweetbread potpies were both on the menu, for example. After an app of "Muscles Normandie," I had perhaps the best tuna steak I have ever had, as thick as a Gutenberg Bible and just about as rare. Crème brûlée and hot mulled cider with brandy followed.

Fully satiated, I was off into the cold night and toward the steamed-up doors of Lupo's. Inside the club, Mayor Cianci was on the stage, grabbing his usual piece of the publicity pie, thanking all those for coming and introducing Tony, who launched into a version of "Steppin' Out," the single both WBRU, the hosting alternative rock radio station, and MTV were playing at the time.

As I watched from the mezzanine above, I noticed that the crowd on the floor below was unlike any I had seen at a Lupo's gig before. Dancing, bringing it smooth like the brush on the snare, was the oddest mix of Providians: alterna-chicks dressed in the tiny, naval-ring-exposing T-shirts that were the style then; punkers in black leather coats with Misfits tags; college boys in three-bar hats; and those who would become swingers, dressed in slick suits and spats. And also, dancing with the best of them, a whole contingent of people who looked like my parents.

Maybe a third or more of the patrons were Ma and Da dressed up for an evening out, drunk and moving it and even sometimes kissing lasciviously and totally grooving to Tony as if they were, well, said alterna-chicks grooving to some band I've never heard of. After the show I went backstage and found Tony a bit overwhelmed by the energy and the diversity of the PVD crowd (and I swear, he was just absolutely stoned, eyes glazed and a half-smile on a face that seemed more neoprene-esque than made of actual flesh). When I asked him about the range of people going nuts in front of him, he said, simply, "It was amazing."

And it was amazing, a night which pulled together all the different elements of the Provcat scene. Everyone was there, from government officials to television news anchors to hipper-than-thou RISD students to the aforementioned local scenesters, all downtown on an ass-cold night in December.

See, the point is not that PVD is this big happy place where everybody gets along and where, at the end of the day, we all go out and hold hands and sing campfire songs together. Nor is the point to demonstrate how everybody goes out all the time, how we have some sort of unstoppable scene downtown of which every other city should be envious. No, the point is simply that I ate some great food and then went and saw Tony Bennett in a rock club with a whole slew of strange people. And it was pretty fucking cool.

Nowhere else could this have occurred, because if Tony had been playing in New York or Boston, it would've been at a big place or maybe even at a medium-sized place. But either way, there would have been seats there, probably covered in some sort of red velour, and everyone would have been sitting, not up and dancing and mixing it up and having a good time.

So not only would I not have been able to afford the pre-show scran, but the show itself wouldn't have been nearly so cool. Providence just has these places with character, and the people to go to them -- people who are interested in doing cool shit and having a good time in interesting ways.

And Providence is continually upgrading now -- ever more art galleries and WaterFire. More important, within this space are ever more places for the quirky personalities of our small city to show up and show off -- the Century Lounge, Pulse, an ice-skating rink, and the gobs of dive bars always springing up and reeking of personality and stale beer. The places are here, and so are the things to do and the people to do them -- maybe because of our size, maybe because we're all freaks, I don't know.

Regardless, we do it with a flair you won't find most places. Like adding green wine to the menu. Or bringing Tony to a smoky, dark club with a big concrete dance floor. And we do it with a smaller line to get in in the bitter cold.
-- David Andrew Stoler

Art & Entertainment

The best place to take your inner diva out

Got that itchin' feeling like you just gotta dance? You wanna get out and take your inner diva with you? Then get your fine self on over to Pulse, one of Providence's most popular gay night clubs, and get your groove on. Featuring nightly music and area house DJs (most notably Richie Rich from Boston and Providence's own DJ Dena) pumping out the beats, Pulse makes you want to wiggle your way onto the dance floor. In addition to the smashing tunes and high-energy dancing, Pulse has two full bars and places for the less energetic to relax and get to know each other. Reminiscent of Boston and New York's more fashionable clubs, Pulse draws an eclectic crowd, from bar-hoppers to drag queens, club kids to your average college students out for a night on the town. It's a great place to escape to at the end of a hard week. Crary Street, Providence, 272-2133.

Best place to wear lipstick that matches the sofas and get away with it

Fire-engine red. In some places, this sort of color would seem unapproachable, antagonistic in its cocky brightness. But at the Century Lounge, located downtown on Chestnut Street right below the Phoenix, it's nothing short of sublime. The two plush red sofas, relocated from a Chinese restaurant and nestled behind an unbeatable polished copper bar, are a comfort zone to anyone who can stand the visibility of a brilliant red background, and the lounge's thick wooden beams, candlelit tables, shiny black floor, and sand-blasted lights are an oasis for anyone who appreciates the vibrancy of a well-crafted atmosphere. And not only does the Century Lounge have a bold décor, but it boasts some of the most eclectic booking in Providence. Reggae, punk, blues, hard rock, acid jazz, ambient rock, funk, lounge -- if there's a musical style you like, they just might book it here. And if you're willing to take a chance on a band that sounds obscure, there's a good bet that you're in for a treat. The covers are generally low, the bartenders and bouncers are awfully nice, and the red chairs are always waiting, in all their splendor. Reapply that lipstick with wild abandon. 150 Chestnut Street, Providence, 751-2255.

Best jukebox

For years, there was a certain consensus among local club denizens that the jukebox at the Hot Club was the best around. It's still a pretty damn good jukebox, but the one at Nick-a-Nee's, that unobtrusive little gray concrete box on the corner of Chestnut and South streets in Providence's Jewelry District, is better. Nick-a-Nee's is where Hot Club regulars go when they desire a funkier experience. It's also ground zero for those aging Providence bohos who were rudely dislocated from their tenured bar stools by the closing of those two bastions of '70s and '80s nightlife, the original Met and Leo's. Heavy on the R&B, classic, soul, and country (not to mention a number of cuts from local heroes, such as the Amazing Royal Crowns, Mark Cutler, and Kevin Fallon), Nick-a-Nees's jukebox also reflects some of the personal tastes of the bar's frisky, pool-shark owner, Stephanie, who, strangely enough, is a big folk-period Bob Dylan fan. Needless to say, Nick-a-Nee's was way out front in anticipating the recent period of prolonged mourning for Chairman Frankie, with lots of classic Capitol-era Sinatra magically materializing within nanoseconds of his passing. Wanna hear some vintage George Jones, or Otis Redding's great "You Left the Water Running"? Nick-a-Nee's is the place. 75 South Street, Providence, 861-7290.

Best blend of art and anarchy

Being an artist is a tough affliction. Isn't there a magnetic tug between the words suffering and artist? If you hope to get discovered by a commercial gallery, marketplace considerations tend to insinuate themselves into your creative consciousness like snakes in a garden. Yet art that isn't seen might as well be painted black on black. So thank goodness (and justice and mercy) for AS220. (The "AS" stands for Art Space or Alternative Space -- take your pick.) The place is for artists of any medium to have a nonjuried, uncensored space to display. It's a forum and performance space where artistic differences get argued on the walls and the stage. The collective/collaborative opened in 1985 at 220 Weybosset Street and by 1993 it had pulled together bank and city loans to refurbish three small buildings on Empire Street in a nearly $1 million project. Because this is a town where a lot of Rhode Island School of Design grads stick around after their hitch, the quality of the visual art at AS220 stays decent. Anything less than one's best gets shamed off the walls. There are affordable studios upstairs and programs down in the café every night of the week -- poetry slams, plays, jazz, storytelling, panel discussions. Anarchy organized is powerful stuff. 115 Empire Street, Providence, 831-9327.

The best place to feel the Venom and not the bite

Every Tuesday at the Living Room, Volume Productions works hard to deliver the best in electronic music at Energy, one of Providence's most popular club nights since its start in 1995. Each week, DJ Venom and friends spin everything from happy hard-core to acid trance, house to jungle. A tradition for many young, Providence-area rave-goers, Energy showcases some of the best club dancing, trancing, and break dancing around these here parts. And with two dance rooms, pool tables, and a full bar, the Living Room can keep almost anyone happy -- in spite of its roughed-up appearance. Whether you want to bust out your moves on the dance floor or lurk in the shadows, Energy is always loud, fun, and in your face. There is a $3 cover before 10 p.m. and a $5 cover after. 23 Rathbone Street, Providence, 521-5200.

Best club to slip into like a pair of old Velcro sneakers

Did you have that pair of sneakers? It's hard to remember when you actually started wearing them. They were worn and comfortable, and man, that Velcro. It was easy, it was hip, and it made the act of walking a mindless joy. Familiar, cheap, and hassle-free, the Met Cafe is the club equivalent of these. It's not flashy, it's never hyped up, but for Rhode Island music lovers, it's a default setting for an evening of rockin' entertainment. You don't need to dress up to go the Met. Its medium size makes it versatile, and national and international acts grace the stage often. You can be loud and rowdy at the bar, or you can stand dazed in front of the stage as your favorite local band tears the place up. Either way, most people have a beer in their hands, and the odds that you'll see at least two friends are fairly high. Just like those old sneakers, the Met will always make you feel comfortable. 130 Union Street, Providence, 861-2142.

Best place to win free stuff while drinking

There is perhaps no better feeling than the one you get when, while tipping back a pint of Newcastle, blowing both liver health and financial well-being in one fair swallow, you find yourself the winner of a "Life's Too Short to Drink Shitty Beer" T-shirt. It's like it makes the whole thing worth it, suddenly. You may be a drunk, but you're a lucky drunk, and it's a good feeling. Thanks to the guys at the Wickenden Pub, you can feel good about yourself like that twice every Thursday night. Since 1989 Ken Hickey (imagine Otto the school-bus driver from The Simpsons with a walrus mustache calling out raffle numbers and prizes in the cadence of . . . well, in a cadence as difficult to describe as it is to understand, though both carnival-like and entertaining, certainly) has been giving away loads of beer-type memorabilia, from Wick Pub panties to Honey Brown mirrors, at 10:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. on Thursdays. The pub also has a mega-selection of beers, both bottled and on tap. High-end imports like Guinness run $3.50 a standard pint, $4.25 a king's, $6 a half-yard, and $6.75 for a 34-oz. stein. 320 Wickenden Street, Providence.

Best bar for cheap couch potatoes

Low on cash but still want to go downtown for the night? Head over to Jerky's Bar on Richmond Street (upstairs from Club Hell) to pound a few with the boys before you get your groove on at the overpriced nightclubs around the corner. If that weekend binge has left your body dehydrated and your funds depleted, what better way to shake off the postdrunken shakes than with a tall cold one? Domestic bottles are only a buck and a half (and if that isn't enough reason, Jerky's has Jaegermeister on tap), leaving you plenty of change to shoot some stick on one of three pool tables. Drop a bill in the CD jukebox, kick back on one of the comfy, old-school couches, and relax to the soothing sounds of anything from the Jesus Lizard to the Wu Tang Clan. Just like lounging in your living room -- with a waitress! 73 Richmond Street, Providence, 621-2244.

Best way to imagine being a go-go dancer

Go-go dancing. A peculiar term, indeed. Go-go is a sloppy combination of French and English vaguely equivalent to a-plenty, and it was plastered all over the first discotheques in Europe. It was a style. You could have something à go-go the same way you could have pie à la carte. And to catch on without being told about it meant you had taste and rhythm. We're talking glam, elaborate showmanship, energy. Well, bundle that all up, send it on a mission to find the most compatible band in Providence, and you'll find yourself go-go dancing -- twisting, in fact -- to the Fabulous Itchies and their song "The Itchie Stomp." It's simple, really. The Fabulous Itchies play music that will make you shake your hips so low to the ground that you'll almost fall over. If you're lucky, the Itchies will croon out dance lessons over the infectious rockabilly-surf-style rock 'n' roll. If you're really lucky, they'll do their famous on-stage stunt involving aerobics, beer, and silly ingenuity. Performance at its best, and with one less member and a new drummer, they're raucous as ever. Go.

Best bar to be in when the bomb drops

As you approach the 305 Club in East Providence, it seems like you're approaching nothing at all. There is a baseball field, some empty lots, and then what seems to be yet another empty lot. Except for the door sticking out of it. Indeed, the 305's façade is simply that: a door sticking out of the ground in the middle of the parking lot. And while it's not clear exactly why the East Providence police, after World War II, built a bar completely underground, they did. Perhaps they thought that if the nuclear winter did indeed come, they might as well have a good place to get futzo. The 305 has undergone a few changes since then, and it is now one of the coolest dive bars on the planet -- hell, you could actually dive into it. Descending into the dark depths of the 305, there is a surreal sense of stepping back into the glory of Americana -- bizarre cover bands and flashing disco lights, American beer in plastic cups that can run you as little as a buck on specials nights. And the bar gets a fair amount of East Providence locals on weekend nights. Plus, there's always Keno. 305 Lyon Avenue, East Providence, 438-8584.

Best bartender trick

As is the case in many cities, the bartenders and wait staff serving you at your favorite watering holes are frequently actors, musicians or artists awaiting their big break. The Custom House Tavern, a popular and intimate downstairs bar in the banking district, is a perfect example of this. On Saturday nights, Buzz, one of the regular bartenders, hops out from behind the bar and magically materializes into Buzz the popular jazz trumpeter, leading his small group in a number of original and classic hard bop numbers from the heyday of Blue Note records. Another bartender, Keith, is an accomplished sculptor, but he is better known around the Custom House (probably because watching a sculptor work does not readily come under the heading of entertainment) as the guy with the best bar trick. You see, the Custom House carries Guinness on tap, and Keith, after pouring your stout, will then manipulate the tap to draw a little four-leafed clover on the head of your beer. We're sure that other bartenders can do this, but Keith is the master. 36 Weybosset Street, Providence, 751-3630.

Best band whose name conjures the image of a new funky beverage

Let's face it -- band names aren't always indicative of a band's sound. There's too much randomness involved in the act of naming something, too many associations already connected to certain words. But use your own words, make some original music, and start brewing your own connections, and you'll have something resembling the energy of the seven guys who presently call themselves Grüvis Malt. And really, their music is a concoction with no parallels, partly because it's a fusion of many musical styles and partly because the members of the band make a point of bringing their unique musical talents together in novel ways. Using combinations of jazz, funk, and hip-hop, the instrumentation is solid, while shared vocal duties alternate between singing and rapping; sampling and random percussion round out the sound. Though it is rumored that certain branches of Ben & Jerry's in New England have a milkshake called the Grüvis Malt, it's more fun to think up your own mixture -- something smooth, refreshing, tangy, maybe with a bite.

Best non-prophylactic use of latex

What better emissaries than the Big Nazo puppets could there be for a town where the mayor is so show-biz-ready that he wears makeup in case there are any TV camera lights around? Leslie Putzbucket, Edna Silverfish, Dr. Sal Monella, and the like are delightful, if grotesque, life-size creatures of latex foam and outrageous imagination led by the inimitable hunchback Quasimodo. In June, the group represented the USA at the World Expo in Lisbon, where some wholesome kids from Up With People put on masks and wacky personas. Led by founder Erminio Pinque, Big Nazo is filming their pilot this fall for a possible Nickelodeon kids' show, which will enhance their already growing national rep. Jackie, the hit Broadway satire on the Kennedy family, recently opened in London's West End, complete with outlandish creations from the Big Nazo Puppet Studio. Locally, we are most likely to see them in their most raucous incarnation, the Big Nazo Band (formerly the Big Nazo Bowling Alley Band). Blasting their kick-out-the-jams rhythm 'n' blues, they have opened for Spinal Tap at Great Woods, and this summer they played at various music festivals around the country. Keep your eyes on the music listings.

Best place to party like a lounge star

To all of you who sing in the shower, come out. To all of you who sing show tunes with the lights turned low so the neighbors won't know, come out. To all of you who watch Star Search and declare yourselves superior to the winning wanna-be LeAnn Rimes, come out to Muldowney's on Saturday nights. There you'll find a karaoke book with more than 500 song options -- everything from "New York, New York" to "Like a Virgin." Muldowney's is the sort of place you go to grab a few beers with a bunch of friends and begin your downtown experience. Their low-price but good-size pitchers, pool table, computerized strip poker, and friendly regulars who sing so well they seem to have gotten lost on the way to Vegas make Muldowney's a certain favorite for anyone looking to come out of the lounge-star closet. 103 Empire Street, Providence, 831-6202.

Best band to listen to in a spaceship to help you feel grounded

So you're hanging out in space. The food's a little bland, you've been floating for the past week, and you have a big bubble over your head. I mean, outer space is cool. You are flying past stars, but you admit to feeling slightly disconnected. You need something to cheer you up, to remind you that back on Earth, they sure do know how to shake things up. Time to pull out that old Alley Sway tape, throw it into the machine, and turn up those headphones. It's the perfect antidote to mid-space blues. Why? Alley Sway's music banishes any sulky behavior. You just have to stomp with a smile to the sounds of their vivacious power pop. With simple chord progressions; snappy, girlish vocals, and an almost punky backbeat provided by the only male member of the band, Alley Sway is always animated. Plus, the abrupt tempo changes and occasional guitar distortion add a spaciness that bridges the Earth-space gap, reminding you that life on Earth isn't really all that different from space after all. Live acts have been sparse as of late, but expect some new recordings as a result of the absence.

Best underrated musician

That we here in the Biggest Little have a rich musical heritage is an established fact. Among the multitude of musical styles, Rhode Island is a veritable hotbed of blues guitar players. And a primary reason for this has been the three-decade existence of Roomful of Blues, who, starting with founder and guitar legend Duke Robillard, have been a reference point and inspiration to generations of young players. But of all the hot players, none is as admired and respected by local musicians as the journeyman master Thom Enright. He's played with everybody, from Ken Lyon to Duke to Beaver Brown to harmonica virtuoso Chris Turner, and he can play anything from traditional Celtic music to jazz. But it's as a blues player that Enright cut his teeth, playing Brown frat parties back in the 1960s. He's recorded for Columbia and Paramount, played in a couple of movies, and continues to work constantly with a variety of sidemen and as a sideman himself. He's also a great bass player. So if you're going out to hear some music, the presence of Enright on the bandstand is a guarantee that what you'll be hearing will be first-rate.

Best music that could be dangerous in the wrong hands

People who caught The Music Man at Trinity last season had the rare privilege of experiencing a showstopper that began a show. Wailing a blues harp (harmonica to some) that threatened to ooze through his fingers under the assault, Chris Turner belted forth a traditional overture that usually takes an entire orchestra to perform. "Seventy-Six Trombones" couldn't have rocked more if there had been 152 of them. With fellow multi-instrumentalist Rachel Maloney, his wife, Turner occasionally directs the music at Trinity for shows such as the annual Christmas Carol. But funkier venues have been his bread and butter for more than two decades. He had the Nee Ningy Band in the mid-'70s, and the street-wandering Banished Fools more recently. Growing up in London in the '60s, he heard a record by blind Durham blues-harp master Sonny Terry, and an irreversible passion was born. These days, you can catch him at such local haunts as the Blues Café in Newport and the Call in Providence, blasting out lush, dense chords with the Last Minute Blues Band. Check the music listings for upcoming shows.

Best band to make you want to ingest food or drink

Music as an appetite-arousing activity? It seems a bizarre concept, but the Smoking Jackets continually pull it off with style. The six-piece outfit -- piano, upright bass, snare drums, trumpet, trombone, and saxophone -- has delicious songwriting down to a science. When Keith Munslow raspily sings about a tall glass of lemonade, the fact that it's January and blustery means nothing. When he emphatically pronounces that his baby loves him, and that's why she's cooking up that sweet pepper sauce, the horns chime in to respond, and, well, you need some, too. And if you can't find food or drink to satisfy those cravings, you can just dance instead, because the Smoking Jackets are pretty darn good at working up a hunger for that, too. People mistake the oomph of their bluesy, jazzy melodies as coming from New Orleans, but if you look closely enough at their playfulness, it's not so hard to believe that they started in Providence -- as a house band at AS220, no less.

Best place to wax poetic

Every Monday evening, CAV (Coffee, Antiques, Victuals) puts on an open-mike night for toting your guitar or poetry notebook onto stage and expressing yourself. It's the perfect 15 (okay, maybe five) minutes of fame for those who want to strut their stuff like Ginsberg and Baez. Tucked into an alley, CAV gives off a cozy feel, with a plethora of beautiful antiques, low-hanging lamps, and ceilings ornaments inside. (Come early and browse their shop for beautiful home furnishings and jewelry, designs from all regions of the globe.) The stage is draped with enormous tapestries, giving the place a slight resemblance to an intimate opium den. You can spend a snowy afternoon at CAV, sipping coffee and writing in a journal, or an autumn evening listening to live jazz.Most of the beats may be gone, but their poetic sensibility runs through the meals at CAV as well. Although the menus (which are kept on bookshelves) are leather-bound and suggest a business binder, they boast such creative fare as the "Mideast Peace Pocket" (hummus and veggies in a pita) and the "Poor Poet Pocket" (veggies with muenster in a pita). Those lovers of free verse who have graduated to cell phones and leather shoes can dine on the filet mignon with wild mushroom whiskey sauce, or the gorgonzola ravioli. 14 Imperial Place, Providence, 751-9164.

Best usual suspect

Although it's been a while since the Trinity Repertory Company garnered a special Tony award for Best Regional Theater, it is still a contender on the national scene. There remains most of the spirit that a brash young director named Adrian Hall brought to town in 1964 and maintained to 1989. Despite the failure of his first successor, the aggressively avant-garde Anne Bogart, to convert his shock-conditioned audiences into German nihilists, not all subscribers tore up their resubscription reminders. Trinity-trained Richard Jenkins reignited the passion and creativity of Hall's intense rehearsal process, and four praiseworthy seasons followed. And now we have Oskar Eustis. He's regarded as one of the most brilliant dramaturges in American theater, a fact that was made widely evident by his collaboration with Tony Kushner on Angels in America. As subscribers continued to return and the books got back into the black last year, the safety/risk equation has begun to shift back toward edgy. One indication of bravery: come February, a disturbing but rewarding play about "gangsta" violence, A Preface to the Alien Garden, by Robert Alexander, will get its world premiere here. 201 Washington Street, Providence, 351-4242.

Best Acorn off the Trinity oak

If Providence had the population to support a second ambitious Equity theater, Alias Stage by now would be serious box-office competition for the aesthetic top dog of Empire Street. An acorn off the Trinity oak, Alias started sprouting in 1984 when some Trinity Conservatory graduates decided to stick around town. Naturally, the acting chops on display were usually pretty good. Selections of works tended to give you something to chew on without being intellectually indigestible, as some challenging modern plays can be when a small theater takes on more than it can handle. Personal favorites? In addition to the recent Fred Sullivan Jr.-directed plays mentioned elsewhere, most seasons brought one or two. The Swan blew the audience away with its feral power. The Speed of Darkness did that and added stunning ensemble work on the Vietnam War aftermath. Tit Men and Reservoir Bitches, two shorts, were pure ribald, slapstick hilarity. A recent development: now under co-artistic directors Nigel Gore and Kate Lohman, the simply named Alias Stage has been awkwardly renamed the Sandra-Feinstein-Gamm Theater. Let's just hope that the burden of that moniker doesn't slow them down. 31 Elbow Street, Providence, 831-2919.

Best director-as-ringmaster

If she didn't like small-town life and teaching so much, Judith Swift would have a solid theater rep in Manhattan. Politics recently pushed her out of the theater department chair at the University of Rhode Island, which she had held for 15 years. But while there, she amazed annually with an end-of-season extravaganza, the kind of a cast-of-thousands production that only colleges, with their free labor, and big-ticket theaters, with their subscribers and donors, can afford to mount. Swift choreographed the multitudinous mayhem of Camelot, Cabaret, and Oliver! while knowing when to slow down and let a quiet scene glow like the temporary calm at the eye of a hurricane. With that finesse, she also brought a sure hand to more intimate theater, such as her Driving Miss Daisy at Theatre-by-the-Sea and The Norman Conquests at Wickenden Gate. Swift is no longer with URI Theatre, but fortunately she will do more directing elsewhere. Look forward to Pinter's The Homecoming at the Feinstein-Gamm Theatre this season, Henry V there next summer, and Pirates of Penzance, which she'll be ring-mastering for Ocean State Lyric Opera next summer as well.

Best "My God, what's he up to now?" director

You may know Fred Sullivan, Jr. best -- or exclusively -- as an actor. Last season he was stuck like a limpet to the Trinity Repertory Company stage, with title roles in Peer Gynt and The Music Man, plus a hyperkinetic portrayal of Shakespeare's fairy king, Oberon. Great, larger-than-life stuff. But last year Sullivan also started wowing audiences as a director at Alias Stage (now the Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre). Comfortable with everything from Shakespeare to Pinter, he's a Trinity vet with bells on, having both gone to its conservatory and subsequently studied for years under Trinity's innovative founder, Adrian Hall, who made the company known for stagecraft that was highly visceral and honest rather than aht-sy. That pretty much describes what underlay Sullivan's Alias productions last year. Hamlet had a riveting Anthony Estrella, but it also had a spare (read: trimmed) directness and powerful resonance between the Dane and most characters. Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party was sinister, inventive fun, both absurd and poignant. This year, the helming of Sam Babbitt et al. in King Lear steered impressively through shoals of dicey motivations and some implausible actions. As the season progresses, if you see that Sullivan is going to direct something -- the telephone book, anything -- get excited. Alias Stage, 31 Elbow Street, Providence, 831-2919.

Best props as performers

Choreographing objects as well as bodies is a forte of the Everett Dance Theatre. They first showed us this talent in The Science Project, in which fulcrums, ladders, and pendulums shared split-second timing with the dancers. In that same piece, soccer-sized white balls and flexible, gutter-like tracks demonstrated principles of gravity, inertia, and force until the dancers eventually became tracks for the balls, which rolled down arms and sloped backs from one dancer to another. Most recently, their Bessie Award-winning Body of Work used slide projections on poster-sized cards to allow laborers to tell their own stories. Later in the dance, a rectangular cart became a four-wheeled dervish as the seven dancers formed precarious and constantly shifting friezes atop it. Everett is currently working on a new piece, starting with the broad topic of schools and education and narrowing in on certain aspects, such as racial segregation. They will premiere the as-yet-untitled piece in New York in January. Watch for it in Rhode Island in the spring or fall. For information, call 831-9479.

Best performance artist

Although the nuances of comedy and performance art may depend more heavily on the cultural/geographic background of an audience than other genres, the best performances, no matter what they attempt, are those that push everyone's buttons. You don't have to be a New Yorker or a New Englander or even a Midwesterner like herself to get what Paula Hunter is saying in her pieces. Unlike solo performers who sit behind a desk or take the stance of a standup act, Hunter sees movement as an integral part of performance art. Trained as a dancer, Hunter, in her recent work, has come to understand ways of using her voice as she does her body, playing with its projection, timing, and textures. But these are accompaniments for the stories she is telling you -- of her insecurities as an artist trying to "get known"; of her insecurities as a child in a household where it was a pressure to be creative. She delves into issues of truth and falsehood; she opens her heart to us about the pain of her mother's death; she finds humor in the midst of sad and difficult situations. She teaches us about life. Watch for Paula Hunter in a storefront window at First Night or in the "Around the Block" series at the Carriage House in the spring of '99.

Best storyteller

Bill Harley has demonstrated in his broadcasts on NPR's All Things Considered that storytelling isn't just for kids. If you've got a young'un or have been one, he has something to say to you (whimsically, of course) that will stay with you. Over the years, he has given us permission to take naps; instructions on crossing a highway to get to a mall; and a dispatch from a men's room taken over by suddenly militant women who had to pee. Best of all, Harley offers us bigger kids insight into dealing with the sticky-fingered set simply by listening to his entertaining songs. Pad and pencil in hand, sit down to any of his 17 albums for children (each of which has gotten at least one national award) attesting to his ability to communicate with them to the point of thralldom. (When they hit voting age, he's running for president.) Although he lives just over the line in Seekonk, Massachusetts, with his wife, Debbie, and two boys, he is one of the founding members of Rhode Island's Spellbinders storytelling collective and plays (how appropriate) in the state often. His tales for grownups can be heard at the Stone Soup Coffeehouse now and then; his new offering is a performance piece, Get Lost -- Rules for Travelers, at the Feinstein-Gamm Theatre through the November 14. 31 Elbow Street, Providence, 831-2919.

Best non-church Sunday-morning soul-cleansing

There's nothing like a good story to hold an audience -- be it a soap opera, a play, or a sermon. Former North Carolina minister Donald Davis turned professional storyteller partly because his sermons became so popular that people were lined up outside the church to hear him. Organizers of the annual Jonnycake Storytelling Festival in Peace Dale have recognized that potential for Sunday-morning revelations ever since the festival began 10 years ago, and have included a segment called "Sacred Tales" accordingly. Here, local and nationally known tellers perform stories that are particularly close to their hearts, whether they're remembering their grandfather's avocado tree back in the Bahamas, transforming their experience of growing up biracial into a poetic and spiritual tale, or drawing on their heritage of being Native American. One teller performed a story he had found in a children's picture book, and in his telling he became the little girl who was telling about the day her baby brother died. These unforgettable stories are incredibly polished, carefully embellished with changes in voice, accents, and pauses. They are theater in its purest form, and they evoke very deep responses. If you think of going to church only on special occasions, count this one among them. September 17, 18, and 19, 1999, South Kingstown Parks & Recreation Department, 789-9301.

Best illustration that curiosity pays

Illustrations, actually. Much of what graphic artist David Macaulay has turned his attention to has paid off bigtime for him and, more important, for his readers. His first book, Cathedral, showed how to create awe out of limestone blocks and flying buttresses. Then he wondered about how those wily Egyptians pulled off their mausoleums, and we got Pyramid. Straying from architecture (his favorite subject), he put out another bestseller, How Things Work (revised this year), which is even better as a CD-ROM. From a blast furnace to a clarinet to a CD player to a space telescope, the world begins to make sense as a tiny mammoth mascot and tiny work gangs construct or dismantle the baffling objects around us. Macaulay, who lives in Warren, writes his own text, and that can be fun, too. His most delightful book, in both words and images, is the mondo bizarro Motel of the Mysteries. Archaeologists two millennia hence unearth artifacts of the ancient civilization Usa. What would a bathtub stopper on its looped chain look like to them? How about a sacred pendant?

Best chance to have an elephant bow to you

It's always exciting when the circus comes to town, and if that town is Charlestown and the circus is the Big Apple Circus, chances are it will be more exciting than usual. It's not only that the elephants (and local townspeople and anyone who wants to join in) help raise the tent two days before opening night. It's not only that this one-ring, European-style circus has no one sitting more than 50 feet away from the action. It's the thrill of watching performers do astounding tricks and turns -- with their bodies, with balls or boxes or tennis rackets, with swings and trapezes . . . and with animals. Every year that the Big Apple has come to Charlestown, the audience has oohed over the horses and aahed over the elephants. As permanent members of the troop, the Schumann family guides the horses in fantasy-like routines around the ring. Each year, the Williams family also trains the two or three elephants, which perform according to whichever theme the Big Apple has chosen for the year, be it Coney Island or Carnevale in Venice. Often the trainer or members of the family, as young as five years old, ride the elephants, and the audience at ringside gets the final bow to uproarious applause. So, if you like close encounters with large mammals, head for the Big Apple Circus July 7 through 11, 1999. Ninigret Park, Charlestown, 364-3878.

Best festival for rub boards and triangles

Despite hurricanes and downpours, financial fiascoes and dissension in the ranks, da beat goes on in Escoheag each Labor Day weekend. Next year will be the 20th for the bluegrass/Cajun-flavored music festival to shake its booty and strut its stuff at a horse ranch in West Greenwich. Renamed and broadened in '98 to become the Rhythm & Roots Festival, the spirit of the fest remains the same: keep 'em toe-tappin' and dancin', keep 'em fed and keep 'em happy! The five stages at Escoheag (barn, dance tent, main stage, family tent, and grove) were enhanced this year: dance lessons included contra and swing along with Cajun and zydeco; live bands were added to the storytellers and crafts teachers in the family tent; the late-night barn concert was geared for listening and dancers had to head for the fais-do-do dance in the tent; main stage performers got a chance to do more encores; and the intimacy of the grove stage -- truly just a clearing in the woods -- was never better. Rattling rub-board players pushed the driving, not-to-be-denied zydeco beat, and tinging triangles kept it going on the Cajun two-steps. The feeling at Escoheag has always been a mixture of summer camp, family reunions, and '60s folk concerts. Here's hoping it hangs on to that! September 3, 4, and 5, 1999. Tickets and info, (888) 855-6940. Web site: www.rhythmandroots.com.

Best place to gamble in drag

Despite the popularity of the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos just up the road in Connecticut, chances are that you'd feel very uncomfortable if you showed up at either one in your best cross-dressing outfit. Not so at the fabulous Gay Bingo, held on the first Thursday of every month at the cavernous Riviera Bingo Hall in Cranston. The folks from the AIDS Project Rhode Island have come up with their own subversive spin on this favorite activity of the senior-citizen crowd. And, needless to say, you'll have a campy and altogether "gay old time." Larry Zeiber, the AIDS Project's director of development, says that the idea came out of a national fundraising conference held a few years ago in Seattle, where another AIDS agency had reported great success with the concept. Quite a few straights enjoy the monthly event as well. Indeed, the grassroots fundraiser regularly draws 300 to 400 participants with themes such as "A Very Martha Stewart Christmas," "South of the Border," and "Over the Rainbow." Riviera Bingo Hall, 1612 Elmwood Avenue, Cranston, 781-8703.

Best hot dog- and beer-friendly permanent public art display

It was more than 20 years ago when Ben Mondor, owner of the Pawtucket Red Sox, thought that it might be a really neat idea to salute all those players who came through Boston's Triple-A franchise and distinguished themselves in the big leagues. So Ben put up an ad at the Rhode Island School of Design, seeking an artist to paint a collection of large-format action portraits of the likes of Roger Clemens, Wade Boggs, Cecil Cooper, and Mo Vaughn. The artist selected was Tayo Heuser, a painter and sculptor who now resides with her family in Narragansett and who is responsible for the entire collection of the more than 60 oil paintings of players at McCoy Stadium. Colorful and vivid, Heuser's renderings of ballplayers at work are all done on big, eight-by-four-foot plywood boards and mounted around the cement causeway leading to the seating area. Parents and their kids frequently stop to admire these unique paintings as they head into the ballpark. Each year, Heuser is commissioned to produce at least two or three new panels. The only question now is where they're going to put them all as the project continues into the next millennium. McCoy Stadium, Pawtucket. 724-7300.

Best art for the toe-tapping masses

It's not on the Art Trolley free shuttle loop each third Thursday of the month, but it's sure worth stopping by. At Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel, Dan Gosch's portraits of dearly departed rock stars have set such a right-on mood for the place that stepping inside to check out the music can be an afterthought. Gosch is the guy who did all those groovy little caricatures of celebs and regulars at the late, great Leo's bar and restaurant (although it doesn't get more '70s psychedelic than when Gosch got a no-joke commission from the folks at Ginsu knives to do a realistic portrait of the Pope for their advertising). Outside Lupo's there is a pantheon of late greats, each framed by the faux granite of a tombstone. Sid Vicious spits blood above a spattered white shirt and guitar. A skeleton dances, wearing a Jerry Garcia mask as endless streams of teddy bears -- Buddy Cianci among them -- prance forth. The best ones are the most recent, around the corner on Union Street. There, Gosch's technique has turned more realistic than textural, and the raggedy-chic slices and knee-holes on Kurt Cobain's jeans make you want to put a finger into them as though they're stigmata. 239 Westminster Street, Providence, 272-5876.

Best overlooked masterpieces

Not unlike Dorothy, who realized that she didn't need to look any farther than her own backyard to find true happiness, people in the state who belatedly discover the Museum of Art at RISD really have something to click their heels about. Such treasures. The place is well regarded nationally among small museums, and it's no wonder why. As befits an institution founded in 1877 to train artisans for the local jewelry industry, the decorative arts are well represented here. There's a fine and rare Goddard and Townsend secretary (this was the first museum in the nation to have an American wing of such craftsmanship) as well as gold Egyptian jewelry up to 5000 years old. There is the revolving display of the museum's large collection of 19th-century Japanese woodcut prints, and a huge wooden Buddha, found in a barn in Japan. Even when you visit for the first time, you will feel at home with such French masters of painting and sculpture as Picasso, Renoir, Cezanne, and Rodin. It is a "teaching museum," so tours and educational programs are available for the general public as well as RISD and Brown students. 224 Benefit Street, Providence, 331-3511.

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