• Runner Up: R. James Faurote
• Runner Up: David Jenkins

Lindsey Jordan and her band Snail Mail are well on their way (how many of us can say we’re BFFs with Liz Phair, after all?). Still, for one night in April, fans got to see indie-rock’s 19-year-old next big thing (and quite honestly, one who’ll be around for a while) literally punch the lights out at Crowbar as she opened for Japanese Breakfast. To be fair, it was some kind of collision with a transformer outside, but the symbolism was lost on no one. snailmailbaltimore.bandcamp.com. —RR

• Runner Up: Matthew McGee
• Runner Up: Zachary Vasquez

Averill-Snell has long been one of the Bay area’s best actors, but in Tampa Rep’s A View From the Bridge, he topped every other performance he’s ever given. This splendid performer’s Eddie Carbone was a man at war with himself, with his wife, with his cousins, even with the niece he secretly loved and strove to shackle. Such a character might have come off as a self-serving brute, but Averill-Snell demonstrated the terrific burden of all his misunderstandings, so we had no choice but to sympathize, even to notice his good intentions. Paradoxes, contradictions, projection, denial – Averill-Snell showed it all and the result was nothing short of breathtaking. tamparep.org. —Mark Leib

• Runner Up: Alissa Schneider
• Runner Up: Becca McCoy

Talk about letting it all hang out: At American Stage, Jenny Lester played the part of Daphna in Joshua Harmon’s stunning drama, Bad Jews, as if instructed to shed all decency and let her shadow side run free. So this was an obnoxious, offensive, self-righteous bad girl, convinced not only that she alone had possession of the truth, but that her verbal fluency could get her through any disaster, especially the ones she herself created. Lester’s Daphna was a woman seriously in need of Xanax, as well as six months of training in basic etiquette. Which all meant, of course, that, like most stage villains, she was delightful to watch. —Mark Leib

Becca McCoy is damn talented, and also pretty damn versatile. When she played Sue in Sheila Cowley’s southeastern premiere of Flying, she more than did this fine script justice — she gave audiences a window into a soul she built from those words, and she did it in a way that made me not only remember why I love theater, but made me think that if I ever wrote a play, she’s the actress I would demand play the lead. Probably even if the lead was a guy. She’s that good. beccamccoy.com. —Cathy Salustri

Sure, it was nice of Career to bring its own PA and set up an art show inside of the event space affixed to CL’s Ybor City offices, but this release show for Structures would’ve taken the cake no matter where it was held. The effort clocks in at just 28 minutes long, and the live iteration shook the walls while inviting listeners into the mind of frontman Ryan Fouche, who aggressively explored themes of isolation, race/class structures, and hope as his band unleashed waves of nuanced — and at times chest-rattlingly loud — sound. Best release show, surely, but Structures might’ve been the best release of the last year, too. careerfl.com. —RR

It started with an acclaimed indie darling’s Tampa debut at a 10,000-seat arena and ended with members of the band rallying for Florida voters’ rights in the 300-capacity confines of an Ybor City live music stronghold. If the nearly two-hour spectacle Arcade Fire put on at the USF Sun Dome (renamed Yuengling Center nine months later) wasn’t enough to put a smile on your face, then you certainly had one on thereafter, literally bumping elbows with DJ Windows 98 (Win Butler), Will Butler, violinist Sarah Neufeld and drummer Jeremy Gara at Crowbar. —RR

• Runner Up: ARTpool Gallery
• Runner Up: Morean Arts Center