I was 18 when I made my Kennedy Center debut. I did not perform, but as a Cappies nominee—essentially, the Tonys for local high-school theater—I walked across the stage wearing my prom dress and a gold medal, proud that I was treading the same boards Bernadette Peters once did. The year before, I’d watched the ceremony from the audience with a bunch of theater friends. One of their moms rented us a limo for the occasion—the Cappies gala was a bigger deal than prom. After the event, we still had extra time with the car, so we had the driver take us to the National Mall. On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, we ate cupcakes and played spin the bottle. An audience formed around us, cheering on our kisses until a cop shooed us away. We couldn’t stop performing. Back then, I was a theater kid at a Virginia high school with several state football championships to its name. Drama club was not the most respected extracurricular. But then our school joined the Cappies, a new program for high-school theater in the DC area, and suddenly something I did seemed important. Created in 1999 in Fairfax County, the Cappies is a yearlong program in which student theater critics attend other schools’ plays and musicals, publish reviews in local outlets, and vote on awards that are then presented in a ceremony in the spring. The Cappies promotes the idea that thinking and writing about the arts is meaningful in the same way that singing and dancing are. As a teenage writer and actor, I didn’t know how my creative pursuits could fit into an adult life. Becoming a Cappies critic was the first time I realized that writing could be a real job. As part of the program, I attended a training session at the Washington Post’s offices. I got my earliest newspaper byline. It was my first step toward a career in journalism. The Cappies was also one of the few instances in which I saw artists and misfits earn public recognition, some of them for the first and last time. My friends and I never received a Cappie award ourselves, but on those nights at the Kennedy Center, we felt like winners. Twenty-five years later, I went back to the Cappies gala for the first time since high school, and some things felt the same. Kids drumrolled on their laps along with the pit orchestra, and winners jumped up and down in the aisles. There was a valedictory note in the audience’s whoops—as if we were at a graduation ceremony, just with fully produced musical numbers. The night concluded the same way it had the last time I’d attended, with an original number to the tune of “One” from A Chorus Line: “One moment in the limelight, orchestra and cast and crew . . . .” But there were also changes. For the first time since 2000, the gala wasn’t held at the Kennedy Center but at Constitution Hall—the Cappies wanted to avoid politics during a time when President Trump had installed himself as Kennedy Center chairman. Award categories have shifted with the times. For instance, “supporting actress” is now “supporting actor in a female role.” In their speeches, both kids and adults recognized Pride Month, a welcome departure from my own high-school experience, when I don’t remember a single adult who was openly queer. Though the gala and awards are the most visible part of the Cappies, the theater-review program was always a central component, and that continues today, even as theater criticism as a profession is in serious trouble. Cappies critics discuss the shows at length in a sequestered “critics room,” guided by theater and English teachers or parents who volunteer as mentors. A selection of their reviews are published in local outlets such as the Loudoun Times . Teen critics also nominate and vote on the awards, which in addition to performers honor technical categories like set design, stage management, and choreography. “One of my favorite things from this past gala was how many students spoke not about the importance of winning the award but how the Cappies program fostered their love of theater and a greater theater community where they got to know and support other theater kids from the area,” says Tara Taylor, chair of Cappies National Capital Area. “That is the true beauty of the program. We are nurturing capable and passionate artists and arts leaders of tomorrow.” In 1991, the author and playwright William Strauss cowrote a sociology book that coined the term “millennial” to describe the young people coming of age at the turn of the century. These were kids who, in the late ’90s, Strauss saw creating impressive high-school plays that local newspapers never reviewed. Strauss, who lived in the Washington area (he died in 2007), was also a founder of the satirical theater troupe the Capitol Steps and was committed to the area’s theater scene. When he spoke at a high-school award ceremony one year, he noticed that athletes’ accomplishments got a lot more attention than those of drama students. So in 1999, Strauss and Judy Bowns—a longtime English and theater teacher in the Fairfax County school system—founded the Cappies as a way to recognize the work of teens who loved the stage. The Cappies was among the first programs of its kind, and it remains the only youth theater award program in the country that honors tech staff, critics, and plays in addition to musicals. Early on, the program partnered with the Washington Post, which published the best of the student reviews. The idea caught on, and there are now 11 Cappies chapters in the US and Canada. The DC-area branch currently has 54 participating high schools. But despite that success, the Cappies is a bit of a puzzling enterprise in 2026, when arts criticism as a career seems increasingly dubious. Since the early 2000s, thousands of local papers have folded and hundreds of thousands of journalism jobs have disappeared. Local theater criticism has been hit hard, and the Post itself recently gutted its arts coverage and laid off its staff theater reviewer. For me, the Cappies once seemed like a way to encourage teens who might pursue criticism professionally. Now the program is more about developing, as Taylor puts it, “a lifelong passion and love of theater, critique, and expression. I am confident our students will use the skills and knowledge we have taught them and evolve the art form to live on in the future. It may look different, but our students will innovate to ensure that the arts are present and have a meaningful voice in society.” The Cappies was never primarily an incubator for theater pros—it’s a way to encourage creative kids. But there have been professional performers and career journalists who took part. Kevin Clay, currently starring in The Book of Mormon on Broadway, won two Cappies for acting, which at the time, he says, was “the biggest achievement in my theater life thus far.” Many other participants have become theater teachers, and several, like Christine Maxted, have returned to the Cappies as directors and mentors. “I love performing myself, but to see my students receive applause, or in some cases see my students receive a Cappie award, is ten times more impactful than me being on that stage,” Maxted says. “I’m happy it’s a gift that I can give my students just like my teacher did for me.” In addition to this year’s gala, I attended several Cappies performances—the high-school shows that have a section reserved for visiting critics. This season’s productions included Cabaret, Disney’s The Little Mermaid, and two different schools performing The Play That Goes Wrong . Watching these shows, I found myself surprised by the parental feeling that often overtook me. My heart swelled with pride for these kids, while I ignored the occasional missed cue. I loved the stage managers, stressed in their headsets. I loved the actors, given the space to be public goofballs. I loved the critics, debating late into the night while parents idled in the parking lot. Some shows were breathtaking, rivaling professional productions. But that isn’t really what matters. I remember what it was like to put so much of yourself into a show, into a review, regardless of the result. I was thrilled for these students to experience the excitement of making art, that the process can be more satisfying than the outcome. Seeing these shows, I realized that my questions about the Cappies’ ongoing relevance were misguided. With theater criticism and arts education both in decline, the Cappies is actually even more necessary. Here is a place where performing and engaging critically with that work are both still important. These kids will be young only so much longer, and most of them will soon move into other career pursuits. But the Cappies makes the case that the arts matter as much as ever, or even more. This year’s gala included an original song I hadn’t heard before, written by student participants. “The world forgets us, disregards,” went one line, “but here we celebrate the arts.”The post Why the Cappies Still Matter first appeared on Washingtonian. ...read more read less