Wednesday, May 13th marked the 8th annual CAPA Marquee awards. Every year the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts, otherwise known as CAPA, puts on an award show highlighting excellence in high school theater. With awards like Best Technical Execution, Best Direction, and Best Musical Production, high schools all around the Columbus area are able to compete for these awards.
“The CAPA Marquee Awards are the culmination of the best theater in Central Ohio.”
Choir teacher and Musical Director Nicholas Mayes says,
“There are [31] schools and there are no divisions for these awards, so they could be small schools, they could be large schools. You just have to display excellence in theater to be able to do the awards.”
This year, a record breaking 31 schools competed in the CAPA Marquee awards, Jonathan Alder being one of them. This is Alder’s second year participating in the program and had a lot to live up to. Last year, Alder brought home three awards for Best Technical Execution, Best Direction, and Best Ensemble for “Hadestown: Teen Edition”.
“Last year, we had this, hey, first try. We’re not really expecting anything [attitude]. And it ended up going really well.” Senior Jason Dietry, Semi-Finalist for Best Actor in a Leading Role, says. “This year, as a result of that, we had this expectation of, okay, we got to live up to the standard. We’ve got to do exactly what we did last year.”
This year, Alder was nominated for four awards for “The Drowsy Chaperone.” These included Leah Polsinelli for Outstanding Student Designer, Elwyn Saiter for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Outstanding Dance Execution and Best Ensemble.
While not taking home any awards this year, Mayes says that it’s not the focus.
“I think it’s just an honor to be nominated for something and getting an award is just kind of like, it’s just like an extra plus.”
The CAPA Marquee awards also give students the opportunity to learn and perform with the best. Providing master classes for singing, dancing and many others, as well as allowing students to perform in their ensemble that performs an opening and closing number. They also nominate 30 performers to compete to become a finalist for Best Actor/Actress in a Leading Role. The winners get a spot at the Jimmy awards in New York City.
“It’s a panel, so they get all of us, they separate us for most of it 15 guys, 15 girls. They basically ran through the line. Performer, sing your song, sit back down. And then you would go through that for all 30 of us. When it was not our turn, we would take our headshot photos.” Dietry says.
CAPA has given students across central Ohio the opportunity to grow.
The CAPA Marquee awards has given Alder the chance to thrive and give these young performers the chance to grow into remarkable performers.
“It’s given me a lot to think about in terms of being a performer. It’s given me the opportunity to perform on that stage, like last year during “Hadestown”. But just the sheer opportunity to be able to do that, to even just be in attendance at the awards, that’s something that not everybody gets to do. There’s some schools out there who don’t have theater awards that they go to, and it just adds this extra layer of specialness.” Dietry says.
