.Best Actor

One of the most remarkable things about the characters that Stacy Ross plays is the way you can see them thinking. Whatever’s actually going on in Ross’s head as she performs, the effect created is an illusion of seeing the wheels turning in her character’s head as she tries to untangle whatever fix she’s in, whether it’s a formidable mystery woman outmaneuvering Napoleon in The Man of Destiny, a tightly wound serial killer specialist in Frozen, a sleazy trailer-park stepmom in Killer Joe, or a cross-dressing princess who’ll break any heart that gets between her and her man in The Triumph of Love. No wonder the versatile actor pops up in such a wide variety of roles at Cal Shakes, Aurora, Marin Theatre Company, San Jose Rep, and other houses all around the bay. Having finished a run as a grief-addled barfly in the SF Playhouse production of Dennis Lehane’s Coronado this spring, you can see her in July as the sinister Mrs. Cheveley in Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband at Cal Shakes.