LEESBURG VA: Cappies is a national organization of high schoolers who go around to their local high schools to watch each other’s theatre productions and write positive critiques meant to uplift each other. With these critiques, the critics vote on specific categories such as ‘Best Comedic Actor’ and ‘Best Makeup and Hair Design.’

Each Cappies participating school is responsible for going to these performances, taking notes, discussing the performances, writing critiques and voting for each category along with giving them scores. 

“I am excited to see other schools’ shows and discuss with other people who are passionate about theater!” new cappies critic, sophomore Sydney Niklas stated.

Steps to be taken for cappies shows, actors must put in a lot of work to study and develop their characters. Tech has to go the extra mile to really design an amazing set, costumes, hair and makeup designs and a bunch more. 

Tech also has an extra step, cappies boards. Each leader for a certain category must make a board to show off their work. This includes photos and other sheets such as attendance sheets or notes that were taken, to prove that the student put in that much work and to explain things that may not have been as obvious on stage. 

“A customer can show off their designs and talk about the time periods they incorporated or why this costume change was dramatically relevant to the show,” Michael Anthony, senior and head cappies critic, said. 

At Tuscarora High School, we have six cappies critics including Michael Anthony, senior, Jose Guerrero, senior, Emma Marfia, junior, Ava Peach, junior, Alyce Snead, sophomore, and Sydney Niklas, sophomore. 

When asked why he wanted to be a cappies critic, Jose Guerrero stated, “My friend DJ Strigel, a senior last year, told me about the team and told me how fun it is so I just wanted to do it since then.” DJ Strigel was the head cappies critic last year.

 The critic’s responsibilities include going to the shows, taking good, detailed notes, voting and writing reviews that are three hundred to six hundred words to submit. 

“Being a cappies critic comes with a lot of rules, which if broken can harm our team and even get us expelled from competing for cappies. So I don’t want to ruin our school’s chances by messing anything up,” Emma Marfia said. 

All lead critics have the extra responsibility of choosing what shows their teams go to watch, making sure their team submits each of their reviews on time and in their word limit. There are also times where the head critics will have to discuss rules with each other about voting and other things. It is truly up to them to keep their team in line along with themselves. 

“The thing I’m most excited for with being a Cappies critic is positively reinforcing actors of shows by writing critiques of their performances,” said Alyce Snead, “I’m mostly nervous about the voting at the end of the year, because I’ll have to choose between many different amazing shows.”

Tuscarora High School, along with all the other Loudoun County schools, were part of the NCA Region for National Capital area. But thanks to Tuscarora’s theatre teacher, Mr. Justin Daniel we have founded the new Blue Ridge Chapter for the Loudoun County performing arts. 

“Multiple schools across Loudoun Country decided to come together and create a new chapter of cappies called Blue Ridge Cappies in order to allow Loudoun students to have more opportunities to perform and to be recognized,” Mr. Daniel said.

“For example, as opposed to having politicians give awards, our lead critics from each are going to give the awards. We get to make that decision because it’s our chapter.” 

Tuscarora Performing Arts will be using their fall play, ‘Lord of the Flies’ as their cappies show this year. This is a very dark show, adapted from the novel by William Golding about a group of young boys in the time period around 1950 who survive a plane crash on a deserted island. They have lowered the blood and gore for the sake of it being a high school show, but with all the actors building their complex characters and all the tech work being put in, they have high hopes of winning a cappie. 

“I’m playing Perceval in Lord of the Flies. I’m really excited because this is an amazing cast with really good chemistry and real, honest acting. I can’t wait to see the final results of our cappies show!” Ava Peach states as both a cappies critic and cast member of the Tuscarora fall play. 

To explain just how important cappies is, Anthony says “Cappies are important because it’s a real driving force for uniting the theatre communities within a certain area. It’s how we make connections, we go support people and it’s really uplifting to be able to see another school.”