My zone is so different maybe your options are greater. "Great Show" and shade are not exactly compatible terms in my estimation. BUT there are tons of possibilities for color/texture if you like lots of green. Astilbe are blooming here now. I have white, pink, red, lavender. Solomons seal began the year with white flowers and now are setting seeds of gold or red. I love all sorts of ferns. Japanese painted and Autumn are the most colorful. The jacobs ladder was glorious this year. The columbine give you early color along with bleeding heart. Try the fern leaf variety for all summer blooms. My jack-in-the pulpits get alot of comments. They are soo tall this year because we had a wet spring. My ground covers, sedum, creeping jenny, ajuga are all blooming. Red, yellow, blue respectively. Hosta are my main stay. I have all the white, yellow,light green ones I can afford. Depending on how deep your shade I am having luck getting granesbill geraniums to bloom for me. There are the cora bells, some are shade loving. My newest plant is toad Lilly that has unusual flowers. Anyway the list is really quite long. Good Luck and have FUN!

Thanks arcy for answering - I appreciate your suggestions. I forgot we had some Astilbe too. Tell me how what do you do to get your ferns to grow!!! I will have to check out Japanese painted and Autumn. I love them and my Mom has tons - so I tried transplanting them twice but they wouldn't take. :( Sedum wouldn't either. Cranesbill does very well - I can add that too. To me your shade garden sounds like a "show" - that is what we are looking for variety and some different plants. I have Columbine growing in a large pot with a mixed of annuals on the porch, I didn't think about putting it there in the shade garden - thanks for your help!

Say do you have any pics?
Thanks

Pulmonaria, epimedium, may apple, goats beard, violets,and ginger.There are a lot of ferns that would do well in your zone. The Burgundy Lace is beautiful. I also have harts tongue, tassel, deer, lady in red, holly, and tatted to name a few of the different varieties. In this zone I have planted these up against the house with lemon lime hosta(small) and heuchera to survive the cold winter.

I can't think of a single perennial shade plant that hasn't already been mentioned in these excellent posts; but if you want a little vertical interest there are shrubs that grow well in shade. Hydrangeas (regular mopheads, or my favourite, Hydrangea aspera), yews for an evergreen touch, viburnums such as the leatherleaf (Viburnum rhitidophyllum), and the variegated elderberry (Sambucus nigra 'variegata') will use the vertical space. There are clematis that will do well in part shade too.

epimediums, pulmonarias, monkshood (blue flowers) strawberry begonia saxifrage, corydalis, sweet woodruff, kerengishoma palmatum, hydrangeas, forget me nots (mysotis sylvatica) and false forget me knots ( the brunneras) jack in the pulpits, trillums, merry bells, virgina bluebells, carex sedges of all kinds .... mahonia bealii
(shorter ornamental grasses for shade) including hakone grass. akebia vine makes a great shade vine but needs a sturdy support and will go nuts after a few years.

try looking some of the names we have mentioned up on google and i am sure you will find some things that are just what you had in mind. not many of the shade plants have flashy color so try to go for textures and variegations etc.

Sue
"The one thing all gardeners share in common is a belief in tomorrow"

How about try some Lungwort. They are pretty green plants with white spots on the leaves. They also have pink blue flowers. They are very easy to grow.