On June 12, 2023, the Kennedy Center hosted the 23rd Cappies gala, honoring outstanding high school theatre in the National Capital Area. Among the high school honorees, Quince Orchard High School in Gaithersburg, Md., received 12 nominations for its production of “Anastasia.” Winners were McKenzie Phelan for Maryland Theater Guide Returning Critic, Hayden Polsky for Supporting Actor in a Male Role in a Musical, and Maren Lewis for Supporting Actress in a Female Role in a Musical.
The Cappies, as explained on its website, is a writing and awards program coast-to-coast in the United States and Canada “that trains high school theatre and journalism students to be expert writers, critical thinkers, and leaders.”
Polsky, who served as the QO Theatre President this year, put many hours of work into both his job on the board and developing his character. He estimates he put in more than 200 hours into character work alone. This included reviewing his songs and working out how he would act them, working with several vocal teachers at Broadway Pro Voice studio, including Jacquelyn Piro Donovan, Burke Moses, and Sarah Litzinger and spending 3-4 months in rehearsal.
As president, he had many responsibilities as well, but focused on the logistics of running the QO Theatre program. Polsky worked hard to balance his major role in both the production and the theatre program. While he focused on logistics and keeping the program running during breaks and at home, he said, “I had to do my best to let that down during rehearsal at least and focus on doing my job as a performer.”
Polsky explained how the other board members helped him. They organized events, spread out responsibilities so no one person was burdened with too much, and kept relationships within the program positive.
“I couldn’t have done it without everyone,” he said. “Every single person who worked on this show. It was such a huge group of people [involved], and if one person was missing from that group, it would have been a completely different result.”
Another person who played an integral part in putting on “Anastasia” was Hayley Asai, the Vice President of Publicity, Lead Cappies Critic, and Dramaturg. She was nominated for two awards: Marketing and Publicity and Bill Strauss Graduating Critic.
Asai explained her shift in focus during the year from aiming to be nominated for the Graduating Critic award to spending more time on publicity.
”I was still writing good-quality reviews, but I wanted the publicity nomination more,” Asai said.
Since she shifted her focus to publicity, she was not expecting a nomination for Bill Strauss Graduating Critic, “but it was really nice because A) it was one of my dreams and goals when I first started Cappies, and B) Ms. Mieser is having us write one final review of the Cappies gala, so it’s nice closure.”
As the VP of Publicity, Asai headed many projects, including helping build QO Theatre’s social media presence. Several videos on the QO Theatre TikTok account @qohstheatre went viral, with one garnering more than 220,000 views and 15,000 likes.
“It really helped our school get a lot of positive attention,” Asai said.
On the day the nominations came out, Asai shared her excitement and anxiety.
“I did nothing but refresh my phone constantly. My heart was beating fast, and I was shaking and sweating. I was a mess,” she said. “We all got so many nominations, though, and I think that shows we put on a really high-quality production.”
Asai also headed the QO Cappies Critic Team, which was nominated as well. As Asai recently graduated, Phelan will take over her position as Lead Critic next year. Throughout Phelan’s time in Cappies, she has earned her place as the lead critic, being nominated and winning a critic’s award two years in a row. Last year, she won the Cappies award for Andy Mays Rising Critic.
With her experience in Cappies, Phelan has developed strategies for writing reviews that have been successful in getting her published. She does extensive research before shows, tries to add her own character and personality to her reviews, and has a word bank she strives to use for each review. She uses stronger words for shows she loves and more generic words for shows she doesn’t like as much, so she can be as honest as possible.
Since the Cappies program wants to encourage students to join high school theatre, a major part of the Cappies program is friendliness and positivity. If a critic doesn’t enjoy a part of the production, instead of speaking negatively about it, they are supposed to omit it completely.
“I strategize what characters I talk about and spend more time on the characters I care about,” Phelan said.
This way, her passion shines through in her reviews as she only talks about aspects of the production she genuinely enjoys.
One of Phelan’s favorite parts about Cappies is the people she meets.
“I’ll scroll through the Cappies schedule for the week and see what reviews I want to read from shows I didn’t get to see,” she said. “I’ve started a lot of friendships by reading other people’s reviews.”
Before the gala, Phelan expressed gratitude for the other members of her team.
“I’m so incredibly proud of every single person nominated for this gala, and I hope to see a lot of new and old faces,” she said. “I cannot express how happy I am to be nominated again.”
Another member of the Cappies team and the rising Vice President of Publicity is Ava Turley, who played Lily. All schools who are nominated for best musical get to perform a number from the show that the critics choose as the best one from their show. Because QO Theatre was nominated for Best Musical, they performed, “Land Of Yesterday,” which is Turley’s feature number.
Turley eagerly anticipated her performance at the gala.
“I’m so ready, so excited. ‘Land Of Yesterday’ has been a hard song for me. I hated it at the beginning of the process. I dreaded that song when we started rehearsals, and it has slowly morphed into one of my favorite parts of the show. I feel like performing ‘Land Of Yesterday’ on the Kennedy Center stage will be the epitome of that number for me.”
“Anastasia” was Turley’s second production with QO Theatre: “I was surprised, but I felt honored to be trusted with such a big role. QO Theatre is on an elevated level compared to any other theatre experience I’ve had … I felt like I was challenged so much more with Lily than any other role I’ve had in my life because she is so different from me as a person.”
Turley credits the close friends she made in the program as helping make her feel more comfortable in her role.
“We’re all really close backstage, and it translates to being on stage,” she said. “People in the audience can tell that everyone on stage is very close. I’m so grateful that the program is such a tight-knit community and that we have opportunities to grow close together, be friends, and form these amazing friendships that we can draw from onstage. It adds another layer of emotion and dedication to every character that we portray.”
–July 10, 2023–
