The 17th Annual OC Cappies Awards

The Cappies Organization is a national student critics program.  Participating schools create a team of up to nine student critics.  These students go through training and sign up to see plays and musicals from other Cappies schools (in our case, other schools in Orange County who participate in this program).   Students see the show with Cappies critics from other schools and participate in a group discussion after the show.  After the show, each student writes a review of the show, which is read by the two teacher mentors assigned to that show.  The top reviews are published both online and in the Orange County Register.

At the end of the school year, Cappies Critics vote on the best technical and performances of the year, which culminates in a Tony-Awards style gala where top performances are shown, and awards are given.

Due to school closures this year because of COVID-19, the steering committee decided that only the school's first production of the year would be eligible for voting.  Since most schools have two productions judged, this would limit the number of awards given.

Los Alamitos Drama received eleven nominations this year.  Nominations state that you are in the top five in that category for the entire county.  Winning the actual Cappie is not easy.  Los Al produces very high-quality productions, and while we are often awarded name nominations, we have not won a Cappie since 2016, with our production of Animal Farm.

This year, the gala was pre-recorded and aired on YouTube. And...for the first time in four years, Los Al Drama brought home some GOLD for our production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time!!!!

Our winners were:
Louie Gallagher - Publicity and Marketing
Genique Clark - Stage Management
Hannah Thiel - Lead Actress
Louie Gallagher - Lead Actor

The production was also nominated for Best Show.  While we didn't win in that category this year, if we had been able to attend the Gala, we would have performed a scene from our show.  Instead, a clip (produced by Louie Gallagher) was played during the telecast:

We are SO incredibly proud of our students!  In fact, we're so proud, that Mrs. C's son has video proof of JUST how proud Mrs. Castiglione was:

CONGRATULATIONS, LOS AL DRAMA!!