I’m happy to report that theater in San Diego is not only alive and well but getting better every year, and I’m not just talking about the shows we send to Broadway or that come here from the Great White Way.

On the other hand, I am sorry to report that theater companies are still losing homes as performance space becomes unavailable or financially out of reach. Calvin Manson’s Ira Aldridge Repertory Players lost its space in the back of a North Park music store, and Ion Theatre has been “city regulationed” out of its downtown space on Ninth Avenue. The wonderful, sassy Moxie Theatre is still being guest hosted in town, so far unable to find a space in its desired location of Encinitas. And state idiocy has pushed Miracle Productions out of The Theatre in Old Town.

Come on, folks, we can do better than this. We need all the good theater we can get.

OK, enough ranting. Here are some of the shows I’m happy to have seen in 2006.

One-man shows ran the gamut this year, from the silly Dame Edna: Back with a Vengeance! at the Ahmanson to the poignant A Jew’s Healing Return to Vienna by much-loved and missed Kurt Reichert at 6th @ Penn. The enormously talented Hershey Felder was terrific in both George Gershwin Alone and Monsieur Chopin at the Old Globe; so were Dan Guerrero in Diversionary’s Gaytino!, Pat Hazell in Wonder Bread Years at The Theatre in Old Town and David McBean in Cygnet’s return engagement of Fully Committed.

My favorites in the Drama category were all about psychology: the psychology of suicide (4.48 Psychosis at Stone Soup and Crave at Lynx) to the immigrant experience in M’olelo’s Since Africa, the wrongly convicted in Lynx’s The Exonerated to the dying in Tuesdays with Morrie at North Coast Rep. Also terrific were the Old Globe’s Trying, the Carter’s A Body of Water, South Coast Rep’s Man from Nebraska, Cygnet’s Copenhagen and the road show of Doubt.

There’s a real feast in this category. My favorites: Diversionary’s When Pigs Fly, Ion’s All in the Timing, Miracle Productions’ Forbidden Broadway: Special Victims Unit, 6th @ Penn’s What the Butler Saw, Culture Clash’s Zorro in Hell at La Jolla Playhouse, the UCSD student production of Lope de Vega’s The Labyrinth of Desire and Moxie’s Limonade Tous les Jours, Pulp! and Wet, or Isabella the Pirate Queen Enters the Horse Latitudes.

The brand new (and with luck and backing Broadway-bound) Zhivago at La Jolla Playhouse tops my list, followed closely by Premiere’s quirky Side Show and San Diego Rep’s astonishing Ella. I also loved these revivals: Moonlight’s Most Happy Fella, Cygnet’s My Fair Lady and two Lamb’s Players productions, Into the Woods and American Rhythm.

Joshua Everett Johnson displayed amazing talent and versatility in Biedermann and the Firebugs and in Copenhagen, both at Cygnet. Robert Grossman was spectacular as the dying professor in Tuesdays with Morrie at North Coast Rep and Jonathan McMurtry was wonderfully irascible in Trying at the Carter. Brian Kerwin gets a nod as the doubting minister in South Coast Rep’s Man from Nebraska, as does Daren Scott for his performance opposite Johnson in Biedermann and the Firebugs.

Collected Stories at North Coast Rep gave us two outstanding performances by Kandis Chappell and Amanda Sitton. Dana Hooley was fabulous in both The Glass Menagerie and Grapes of Wrath at Ion. Also giving notable performances were: Cherry Jones and Adriane Lenox in Doubt, Rosina Reynolds in Cygnet’s Copenhagen, DeAnna Driscoll in Ion’s The Chairs, Jessica John in New Village Arts’ Playboy of the Western World, Hilary White in 6th @ Penn’s Tiresias the Harlot, and Christine Marie Brown in Trying and Henny Russell in The Constant Wife, both at the Old Globe.

A good ensemble cast is a joy to behold. Here are the ones I especially enjoyed this year, in alphabetical order:

Beautiful Thing at Diversionary Theatre

Biedermann and the Firebugs at Cygnet

The Constant Wife at the Old Globe

The Exonerated at Lynx

Passion and Honey at Ira Aldridge Repertory Players

The Playboy of the Western World at New Village Arts

Wet, or Isabella the Pirate Queen Enters the Horse Latitudes, a Moxie Theatre production at San Diego Rep

Always reliable genius Marty Burnett created a terrific set for North Coast Rep’s No Way to Treat a Lady. So did Alexander Dodge for the Old Globe’s The Sisters Rosensweig. The most creative awards go to Michael Vaughn Sims for the Cassius Carter Center Stage’s A Body of Water and Jerry Sonnenberg for that amazing ship for Wet, or Isabella the Pirate Queen Enters the Horse Latitudes.

It would be tough to beat Dame Edna in this category, but Jeanne Reith did a great job on Lamb’s Players’ American Rhythm. So did Lewis Brown for the Old Globe’s The Constant Wife and Fred Kinney for Moxie’s Wet, or Isabella the Pirate Queen Enters the Horse Latitudes. Howard Crabtree gets the most outrageous costumes award for Diversionary’s rollicking When Pigs Fly.

The Old Globe for Titus Andronicus and La Jolla Playhouse for The Wiz.

The best road shows were Twyla Tharp’s amazing Movin’ Out and Patrick Shanley’s Doubt, both from Broadway San Diego.

Tonic Productions and Reconnoiter Theatre deserve mention for fine productions of Little Eyolf and The Dumb Waiter, both presented at 6th @ Penn Theatre.

The awards go to Starlight for Urinetown and La Jolla Playhouse for The Wiz.

I don’t review much dance, but Matthew Bourne’s all-male Swan Lake at the Ahmanson and John Malashock’s Fathom: The Body as Universe were astonishing and may make me reconsider. Bourne has just opened a terrific Edward Scissorhands at the Ahmanson, and I mustn’t forget Broadway San Diego’s terrific road show of Movin’ Out.

One could argue that all theater is political, but this year it was even more overtly so with Sledgehammer’s thought-provoking Patriot Act: The Trial of George W. Bush, in which jurors selected from the audience were asked to judge the president on three charges.

Bravo to the UCSD Theatre Department for excellent productions of Gum and The Labyrinth of Desire.

The uncoveted what-for award is shared by the noisy and senseless The Times They Are a-Changin’ at the Old Globe and the techno-trash version of The Wiz at La Jolla Playhouse.

And finally, a special theater angel award to Dale Morris of 6th @ Penn Theatre, without whose support many homeless companies would not be on the boards at all, and without whose newsletter I would miss many fine productions. Thanks, Dale!