THEATER:Summer’s ‘Shear Madness’ was top performance of 2006 at Laguna Playhouse

Improvisational theater — building a plot with the help of the audience — is among the most difficult of genres to pull off successfully, yet, as this column put it last summer, “When it works, however, improv can be exceptionally entertaining.”

It worked, as we put it at the time last summer, “superbly well at the Laguna Playhouse,” where an “off-the-cuff and off-the-wall” production of ‘Shear Madness’ proved to be the playhouse’s No. 1 production of 2006 in this column’s year-end analysis.

The tricky part of this comic murder mystery, as far as its actors were concerned, was employing the input of the audience to arrive at one of four solutions to the crime while maintaining a lofty level of entertainment.

This was accomplished beautifully by a skilled cast under the direction of Chris Tarjan, who doubled as a detective in the local production.

Another outlandish comedy with grim overtones, “The Sleeper,” by Catherine Butterfield, occupies the runner-up slot among Laguna productions.

Directed by Andrew Barnicle, the play, as this column put it, “brings the onus of terrorism to the very doorstep of a suburban housewife — PTA leader and room mother — igniting a series of events both horrific and hilarious.”

“Sonia Flew,” No. 3 on the list, was “a powerful, thought-provoking drama inspired by actual events over the past half century, steeped in familial conflict and dotted with some terrific interpretations.” It was directed by Juliette Carrillo.

“A Marvelous Party,” an evening chock full of Noel Coward compositions, proved to be “a glowing tribute to one of the theater’s mightiest talents.” This appealing project ranked fourth on the 2006 enumeration, under the direction of David Ira Goldstein.

Individually, four performances stood out — two of them from “The Sleeper” — those of Amy Tribbey and Clarinda Ross. The other stellar interpretations came from Joe Sampson in “Shear Madness” and Judith Delgado in “Sonia Flew.”

Also impressing during the year were Tim Meinelschmidt in “The Sleeper,” Robin Long in “Shear Madness” and the trio of Mark Anders, Carl Danielsen and Anna Lauris from “A Marvelous Party.”

Laguna’s community theater operation, Gallimaufry Performing Arts, presented two shows in 2006 — a delightful revival of the museum piece “Meet Me in St. Louis,” and a more down-to-earth comedy resembling the antics of blue-collar TV, “Sordid Lives.”

Top performances were delivered by Kira Josephson, George Woods and Chloe Mansour, all for “St. Louis,” and Martha Davis in “Sordid Lives.” Both shows were directed by Steve Josephson.