It's one thing to have an interesting story. It's a whole other thing to know how to tell it. Kim Porter has perfected the art of putting others in her shoes. The Tempe-based writer and actor has won three L.A. Weekly Theater Awards, two Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards, and one of New Times' very own Big Brain Awards for her work at downtown's Space 55 Theatre. When she's not working behind the scenes on larger scale projects — a book, a play, perhaps the next New York Times bestselling memoir — Porter has been found sharing stories about her past at events like The Most of Lit Lounge and Scottsdale Public Art's Water Logged. Though her stories are always a surprise, there's one outcome that can always be expected: A show featuring Kim Porter is primed to sell out.

Ask Olivia Gardens how she got her name and she'll put it simply, "I love Olive Garden." Wigs, falsies, and heavy eye makeup aside, this drag queen keeps it real — and busy. The former Miss Phoenix USofA, Miss Phoenix Gay Pride, and Miss Gay Phoenix America has hosted a slew of weekly events — her current one being Garden Variety Revue, Wednesdays at Kobalt. She may not be as buxom as some of the other broads on stage — in fact, she has a toned body that many of us might kill for — but Miss Gardens knows how to keep her shows entertaining. A pleasantry here and a penis joke there, she's nuanced in playing it naughty and nice.

Remember when the tornado sent Dorothy flying over the rainbow, transporting her from a world of black and white to one of quirky technicolor? That's exactly how we felt when we first laid eyes on the highly saturated and subtly sinister work of Scott Wolf. The lowbrow artist, who has been raising eyebrows all over Phoenix, appearing in galleries such as MonOrchid, R. Pela Contemporary, and Willo North, has found a talent in flipping the wholesome family on its head while playfully flipping the bird to mainstream marketing. The Mesa-based painter and digital manipulator blends perversion with pop culture, creating a twisted take on Americana with the help of violence and sexuality. Between children with chainsaws and bunnies birthing Easter eggs in the Virgin Mary's Arms, Wolf's work is so wrong it's right.

For her masters of fine arts thesis show, ASU student Samantha Lyn Aasen presented one of the most exciting exhibitions of the year. Titled "Sparkle Baby," the mixed-media show featured photography and installations that assaulted the pretty pink princess cult of femininity that's marketed at young girls and women, who are expected to love glittery nonsense while also embodying perfection and oozing sex. Particularly amusing was her skewering of the vajazzling trend (you know, the one in which women glue rhinestones to their waxed vaginas). She crafted a display wall of options, including ones that spelled out "party girl," "brat," and "do me" in sad, shiny plastic.

When Natasha Duran-Lynch debuted her fashion line Hues of Ego at Phoenix Fashion Week 2014, it was met with all-out excitement. Perhaps more surprising: The enthusiasm was warranted. Though she looked like a frontrunner in the competition, she didn't end up winning the emerging designer of the year title. The Scottsdale-based designer made a memorable showing in white, black, and pink with dramatic, airy headpieces, sculpted gowns, and chic coats. She will return to Phoenix Fashion Week's emerging designer competition in 2015, and we have a feeling her second go-round will include a showstopper or two.

Carley Conder just might be the Valley's most recognizable dancer. It's an honor she's earned by working year-round on a slew of movement projects. Not only does the Tempe-based contemporary dancer and choreographer helm her own company, CONDER/dance, she also teaches dance at ASU and Scottsdale Community College, routinely performs original pieces at venues including ARTELPHX, and puts together the annual Breaking Ground festival, which features debut dance and film works from around the world. Our feet are tired just thinking about all the running around. But leave it to Conder to keep on moving.

We see very little from local playwrights, a rare breed whose work is usually relegated to workshop productions before being tucked away forever. Richard Warren is one among a very few exceptions. This year, a staged reading of Warren's Revocable Trust received a lot of attention. His adaptation of theater legend Dale Wasserman's memoirs, Burning in the Night: A Hobo's Song, was performed in two local playhouses. And at Theater Works in Peoria, Warren's Shifting Gears — a full rewrite of Pollywogs, a two-act Warren wrote back in 1999 — trod the boards in the black box McMillin Theater. The improved and retitled version received a pair of workshop productions at Phoenix Theatre, followed by a full production at Sedona's Canyon Moon Theater before Theater Works' executive director Daniel Schay, who directed the recent production, signed the play. The result was a small, talky story that ponL.dered a recent world in transition, circa 1961, and received generous reviews from every corner.

We attended a Desert Stages Theater production of Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues hoping to see pleasant performances and maybe grab a few laughs. Who knew a powerhouse performance by a principal player — a performance so thrilling that it completely overshadowed the production itself and its other leads — lay in wait? The stunning performance by Todd Michael Isaac, who turned the secondary role of Epstein into a sensation, was more than a little memorable. It began small, with a handful of casually delivered wisecracks that built into a bravura of confrontation and emotion. He hadn't been seen on stage since an equally superb portrayal in the same company's production of The Pillowman a few years ago, but this performance — tense, stylish, slightly unhinged — was worth the wait.

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike won the 2013 Tony Award for Best Play, and its Arizona Theater Company production was a high point of this past season. Most memorably, this longish two-act about a trio of siblings, two of whom are living in their family home after caring for their deceased parents, was Isabell Monk O'Connor's wild performance. She whipped up a gleeful storm as a voodoo-enthused housekeeper, but her quieter moments — when she walked quickly through a scene, waggling a hat pin, or when she watched Charles Janasz's marvelous, nearly eight-minute-long tirade about the death of humankind — are moments we're still chuckling over.

When iTheatre Collaborative postponed its production of By the Way, Meet Vera Stark last year, it was because casting of the title role wasn't going well. Vera Stark is, like so many actresses who start out hungry and wind up legendary, alone on her own stage. Unlike a lot of leading-lady parts, she's also tough to play. She works alongside other actors only because she needs someone to talk to, but none — in her estimation, and in ours — are her equals. Vera is a fictional character, drawn from life by playwright Lynn Nottage. Nicole Belit, the woman who played her in the iTheatre production, was very real. Eyes pooling with tears, nostrils flaring, and with posture that suggests she'd swallowed a yardstick, Belit was dazzling. Her second act performance provided wider range and the opportunity to play drunkenness, anger, and an aged actress's scenery-chewing. But it's the Vera of Act One who stayed with us: wildly romantic, full of energy and singleness of purpose as she aspired to a grander existence.