<i> As the New Year dawns, regular contributors to Stage Beat and Kid Beat reflect on the best theater they saw in the last 12 months. : </i> : Superlative Plays and Artful Performers

No year-end wrap-up can ignore the impact of Del Shores’ “Daddy’s Dyin’ (Who’s Got the Will?).” It’s the Equity-Waiver success story of the year.

“Daddy’s Dyin’ . . .” is almost a commercial affront to Waiver--the show makes money. The actors have been sharing in the profits every week since the current comedy premiered at Theatre/Theater 10 months ago.

Critically, it’s also among the 11 superlative productions--of 95--that I reviewed in 1987. (Present director Sherry Landrum stages the first Equity production of the show next month in Seattle.)

Now on to other bursts of luster:

Mesmerizing were two portraits of Tennessee Williams: one by actor Milt Tarver in Joe Besecker’s “Tennessee in Summer” (International City Theater of Long Beach) and the revival of Ray Stricklyn’s “Confessions of a Nightingale” (Pasadena Playhouse).

Three programs of artful one-acts polished and deepened the short form: Steel City playwright David Higgins’ “Iron City” (Night Flight), John Ford Noonan’s “Recent Developments in Southern Connecticut” (Stage Lee Strasberg) and Clifton Campbell’s recently opened “The Figure and Other Short Works” (the Cast).

With flash and verve, the Long Beach Civic Light Opera produced crafty, sassy revivals of “Cabaret” and “42nd Street.”

The Occidental College Summer Drama Festival scored with a modern-dress “Taming of the Shrew” with a crisp playboy Petruchio in Tim Shelton. Jean Anouilh’s “Ring Round the Moon,” featuring a superb Parker Stevenson, ballooned into a lush, stylish triumph (Colony Studio Theater). “Saint Joan” (at Theater Exchange) was notable for Elizabeth Cava’s clarity and force.

Waiver is loaded with acting achievement, and these performers also earned special merit: John Crowther (“Chamber of Ease” at the Powerhouse); Rick Freisen and Shannon Sullivan (“Chinamen” at Room for Theater); Susannah Blinkoff (“Blind Date” at the Flight Theater); Edith Fields and Philip Baker Hall (“Recent Developments in Southern Connecticut”).

Also Scott Allan Campbell (“Iron City”), Veronica Redd and Devin McDermott (“The Minotaur” at the Skylight Theater), Melinda Peterson and Catherine MacNeal (“Candy and Shelley Go to the Desert” at Theater West), Vincent Guastaferro (“Heartstopper” at the Eagle Theater), and Molly McClure (“Daddy’s Dyin’ . . .”).

Some actors chose to work alone on stage and reached impressive solo heights: performance artist Beatrice Manley (“Predicaments” at Beyond Baroque); Steven Banks (“Steven Banks Home Entertainment Center” at Richmond Shepard); Julie Harris (“Bronte: A Solo Portrait of Charlotte Bronte” at Beckman Auditorium); Beah Richards (“A Black Woman Speaks” at Inner City Cultural Center); mime Hayward Coleman (the Fringe Festival’s “Across the Way” at 2nd Stage); Bill Shick (“Silo” at Theatre/Theater), and the aforementioned Ray Stricklyn (“Confessions of a Nightingale”).

A handful of set designers produced outstanding mood-inducing designs: Jim Yarmer (“Ring Round the Moon”); Liz Young (“Chamber of Little Ease”); Rolf Darbo and Gary Wissmann (“Chinamen”), and Jose Lemonnier (“A Brush With Fate”).

Finally, two new writers for the stage popped up with savage promise: Justin Tanner (the comically dark “Changing Channels” at the 2nd Stage) and Shawn Schepps (the ‘70s sendup, “The Steven Weed Show” at Theatre/Theater).