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Heather Barfield lists her favorite stage performances of 2004

Having sat through a Tom Stoppard play, there comes the feeling that a return visit is required to better appreciate all his linguistic, historical, scientific, sexual, comedic, and theatrical flourishes. The Austin Playhouse production of Arcadia, featuring one of the best ensembles to be seen on an Austin stage, may, indeed, warrant repeat visits to fully enjoy its efforts.

Hans Frank's 'Ham' offers a political drama in which a seemingly good man experiences a dangerous pressure from all sides

The U.S. of Cyndi Williams' American Arcana is a country unraveling, and Refraction Arts' production portrays this with a sense of urgency and tension

Stuffed to bursting with outrageous characters, broad reactions, and slapstick, The Merry Wives of Windsor as mounted by the Austin Shakespeare Festival and Austin Playhouse is big on big comedy, and the crisp comic work of the cast makes it a sizable pleasure.

In the Public Domain Theatre Company's production of King Lear, director Robi Polgar and company bring Shakespeare's play into the present with high tech and high fashion, and the smooth execution of the concept create a novel version of this familiar tragedy with a striking proximity to our lives.

A complete list of all Payne Award nominees.

Numbers ONLY include Travis County voters

Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off, Liz Lochhead's award-winning dramatization of the bonnie queen's reign, is an ambitious first production for Renaissance Austin Theatre Company, but producer Lorella Loftus prevails by enticing some of Austin's finest actors from the Shakespearean courts to the realm of the experimental.

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In his Austin Shakespeare Festival staging of A Midsummer Night's Dream, director Robert Tolaro creates a fantasy world of superheroes with a strong hint of modern Chicago 'burb, that pulls up a bit short conceptually, but is still a fun, rambunctious evening.