Opening night can usually be depended upon to be a good time at the theater, especially when the audience is packed with friends and the food and wine flow afterwards. But St. Pete Opera ups the ante. At a recent post-show bash in the convivial surroundings of the Tap Room at the Hollander, the cast didn’t just stand around, they sang — boy, did they sing! It’s one thing for fans to get a chance to chat with the stars after the show, but when pros like Paula Broadwater and Melissa Misener step up to the mic and belt out Broadway hits and G&S arias it’s like getting a second show for the price of one. Brava! —David Warner

The beer started off good, and got even better, but it was the addition of live-music events like the Rock ‘N’ Roll Swap Meet, an open mic hosted by Rebekah Pulley and regular original shows that really made this big industrial space part of the neighborhood. The sound isn’t always perfect, but the energy and the potential are both there — hopefully as the weather cools more people will be drawn to this largely outdoor watering hole, and encourage its owners to keep hosting interesting and entertaining events. 2001 1st Ave. S., St. Pete. 727-201-2278. —Scott Harrell

All she does is win, win, win! In all seriousness, Mason has garnered much attention and awards for her multi-faceted conceptual practice. Since winning the 2016 Florida Prize in Contemporary Art at the Orlando Museum of Art, she has gone on to win the 2017 Southern Prize and State Fellowship, first prize at the Fantastic Fibers exhibition, and second place at the 8th All-Media Juried Biennial at the Art and Culture Center/Hollywood. —CA

What made Shea’s performance in Martin McDonagh’s black comedy so stunning was its microscopic precision, as if he’d prepared not just the heart and soul of his character but also every single syllable, gesture, and breath. Shea played Mick, an Irish gravedigger whose specialty is excavating seven-year-old burial sites and disposing of the contents so there’ll be room for new arrivals. Thanks to Shea, this character was a riveting amalgamation of text and subtext, dominant and recessive, contradictions, paradoxes, and ironies. Amazing! —Mark Leib

For the 90 uninterrupted minutes of George Brant’s one-woman show, the brilliant Emilia Sargent was a feminist heroine, a war-loving fighter pilot, a lusty wife, a doting mother and a once-reluctant drone operator whose job increasingly wears down her self-possession and her sanity. Sargent handled all these complexities and more: her performance was mind-bogglingly moving, worrying, triumphant. She was especially persuasive in convincing us that her obsession with killing “bad guys” was warping her entire personality, threatening all her personal relationships. Her character may have been grounded, but this actress soared. —Mark Leib

Over the years, Katrina Stevenson has specialized in extreme females, comically or tragically exaggerated and dangerous to know. She did it again this season in two Stageworks shows: Psycho Beach Party and The Great Gatsby. In Beach Party she was a stereotypical beach bunny with boys on her radar and not much in her control booth; and in Gatsby, she was Myrtle Wilson, vulgar and vain and uncontrollable by her husband and lover. Stevenson’s also one of the area’s best costumers, and a longtime regular in Jobsite productions. Even if she hadn’t been so terrific in Gatsby and Beach Party, she’d deserve recognition as one of the mainstays of our theater scene. Thus: this. —Mark Leib

• Runner Up: Art Pool Gallery
• Runner Up: Morean Arts Center

• Runner Up: Nude Nite
• Runner Up: SHINE Mural Festival

Donnelly’s been around a long time, and he was one of the artists behind St. Pete’s mural-driven rise to art-topia prominence. He’s long preached the integrity of the work, so it was only somewhat surprising that he took to Facebook Live back in June to stream an obscenity-laden confrontation with local entrepreneur/talentless opportunist Brenton Bruns II over said opportunist’s unlicensed use of mural images. In the video, Bruns keeps his cool, claiming he just wants to help local artists; Donnelly goes old-school, and becomes a Digital Age folk hero in the fight for artists’ rights, perhaps not coincidentally gaining a commission for the first mural along the ‘Burg’s tony Beach Drive. facebook.com/SAINTPAINT —SH

There are a lot of asinine news stories out there, but Christopher Spata’s piece on a triple (sometimes quadruple and one time septuple) ass tag showing up around downtown St. Pete ‘rumps all. It was especially fun to watch social media reactions to Spata’s conjecture that the butt-stamp may belong to St. Pete artist Jeremy Trevino, who neither confirmed nor denied the accusation. #NeverFart Jeremy, and never tell, either. —Ray Roa