As the second annual Cappies Gala took place on Wednesday, May 22, Valley’s theater department, with their December play “Our Town” came home with a total of seven nominations, one taking home an honorable win. Four of the seven were for actors, two for tech and one for best play.
Held at the Hylton Performing Arts Center in Manassas, The Cappies Gala is a formal event celebrating the accomplishments and productions of all high school theater departments across Loudoun County. Cappies awards are modeled off of Tonys, Grammys and other accolades awarded to those in the entertainment industry. A Cappie, however, is awarded to outstanding students involved behind and on stage of high school theater productions.
During the gala, handpicked scenes from each school’s musical or play were performed again as a way to review the talent each school had to offer in their respective productions during the year round Cappies season.
Senior Victoria Collins was nominated for Lead Actor in a Male Role in a Play for her performance as Stage Manager in “Our Town.”
Collins said the scene she performed was significantly shortened from the original, making it different to experiment with motives as well.
“I found myself having a lot more freedom to have fun and play around when performing at the gala since we had already done our judged show back in December,” Collins said.
Junior Eleanor Waldschuetz was nominated for Comic Actor in a Female Role in a Play for her role as ‘woman in the audience’ in “Our Town.”
“My favorite moment from the gala was watching our scene being performed and how the audience reacted really well,” she said.
Waldschuetz said that almost all students were laughing and gasping at all the right moments.
Freshman Mia Templeton, nominated for Lead Actor in a Female Role in a Play for her performance as Emily Webb in “Our Town,” broke down the differences from performing “The Soda Shop Scene” during the show in December and at the gala.
“Me and the two people I shared the scene with have all grown tremendously as actors since then,” Templeton said. “So naturally, our acting techniques and approaches have evolved since then.”
Templeton said the most notable part of performing “The Soda Shop Scene” at the gala had to do with getting emotionally prepared for it, given that it was a single scene out of the whole play and it had been many months since the actual show.
“We had to change the way we got emotionally prepared and got into character,” Templeton said. “However, there are also a lot of liberties you can get with performing a single scene.”
This was Templeton’s first Cappies Gala as a freshman. She remained quite aware of the competition of other actors in her category.
“I’d categorize this as one of my best performances to date,” Templeton said. “But I also knew so many talented actresses in my category and it’d be really tough to get recognized over them, especially with it being my first year in high school.”
Although this wasn’t Collins’ first time attending a Cappies Gala, it was her first time being nominated, and she couldn’t help but feel proud of not only herself, but her fellow nominees as well.
“My initial thoughts when I got nominated was just total joy for both myself and everyone that was nominated,” Collins said. “It was surreal to see my name on the nomination list.”
It wasn’t just the performers in “Our Town” who received nominations. Two tech categories, Sound and Creativity, were also delighted to see their category nominated, one of the two taking home Valley’s singular win that night.
Senior Addison Miller, nominated for her work in the category of Creativity for writing and composing music for “Our Town,” took home a well-deserved win.
Miller’s underscore in “Our Town” was her second time overall writing music for a play. Miller wrote and composed, with the help of two other pit members, an hour’s worth of music with three themes, one for each act: the “Our Town” theme, the love theme and the death theme.
“This was a project that took a lot of time, hard work, frustration and coordination,” Miller said. “But the end result was very worth it and I am honored to have won the Creativity Cappie”
Wil Shank, nominated for their work in designing the sound for “Our Town” shares the process of creating a nomination-worthy sound-board.
“Most of the sound design was pulled from my own life and where I live,” Shank said. “The little description of Grover’s Corners in the play really allowed me to imagine what the area would sound like.”
Shank shared that the most strenuous component of being Sound Designer was syncing up the sounds with the actors’ lines and actions.
“With this being the second show I’ve done sound design for, it is so far the coolest thing I’ve made in my opinion,” Shank said.
Miller said her favorite moment was when she walked across the stage to receive her award since she was also playing at the gala as the pit cellist.
“There was so much adrenaline and then my name got called as the winner and I had the auditorium cheering for me as I got to walk up and receive the award.”
