High school theater is the real American Idol.
Every weekend, from now into early June, you can see stars-in-the-making at your local school. We’re just getting into high season, time for big school musicals. And we’re not talking "Annie Get Your Gun" any more.
Got any shows you’ve always wanted to see but never got around to it? You’ve seen the "Chicago" movie, so now go watch a teen-age Roxie and Velma at Madison High. Find out what Duke Ellington plans to do with the, er, a, “apparel challenged” scene in "Hair."
McLean, one of last year’s Cappie-winning schools, is putting on our region’s first-ever teen version of "Les Miserables." "Ragtime" is a great show, and quite a challenge for young voices, but St. Albans is giving it a shot. West Potomac is doing "Titanic" and promises that, yes, they’ll sink a ship onstage.
Want to see a really big dance show? T.C. Williams and West Springfield are each doing "Footloose," with huge casts. Like a classic with a great score? Flint Hill and Robinson are serving up "My Fair Lady," Stonewall Jackson has "Fiddler on the Roof," Osbourn Park has "Camelot," and Hylton’s doing "Kiss Me Kate."
"Godspell" is a show that feels like it was written for teens to do, and you can see it at Mount Vernon. And if you want to see how we used to behave (but our kids better not), see "Grease" at Stone Bridge.
Want something a little different? Try Wakefield’s "The Robber Bridegroom."
I could go on and on. All these, and more, are at schools this spring.
A number of other schools are doing plays of all shapes and sizes, new and old, comedies and tragedies, famous and unfamiliar.
For six or eight bucks a ticket, free parking, and a few coins for cookies at intermission, you can see a level of talent that’s way better than what you might recall of youth theater 10, 20, 40 years ago. The direction is crisper, the sound and light tech is far superior, and the singing and dancing is enormously better.
Today’s teens are bringing back that old “That’s Entertainment” MGM-Busby Berkeley glam, with enormous sets, extravagant costumes, big dance numbers, and more. It’s that old Judy Garland – Mickey Rooney “let’s put on a show" attitude. To put it bluntly, they’re putting back what we (their parents) stripped away, back in those anti-Oklahoma ‘60s and ‘70s.
Sure, you’ve read all those hyped reports about whether U.S. teenagers are as good as those in Finland or Singapore at math or reading. What about the report no expert has ever written about how our kids’ theater, music, orchestra, band, and dance compare with theirs. In most other countries, they don’t put on shows in schools, while our teenagers excel at them.
Is this an important part of the educational mission? Hel-lo. Entertainment has emerged as one of our nation’s leading exports, and today’s high school kids will be tomorrow’s producers, directors, writers, and stars.
A big part of the reason America’s cultural exports are so popular, all over the world, is because of the quality of our programs at the K-12 level, from elementary school strings to middle school plays to high school musicals.
Flat out, today’s teens are the best ever in the arts. College admissions officers are taking note. They now get piles of applications from high school seniors with bulging theatrical resumes. It’s not like the old days, when I was in high school, when we had the occasional talent show and one so-so play every other year.
Theater students in the D.C. area, especially Northern Virginia, are particularly gifted. For my writing and theater projects, I visit high schools all across this nation, many of which do terrific theater. But I can’t think of a place — including Manhattan, Nashville, and L.A. — that have theater programs as strong as those here. From Duke Ellington in D.C. to public and private schools across Northern Virginia, and schools like Whitman and Suitland in Maryland, the shows — and teachers — are extraordinary.
Fairfax County School Superintendent Dan Domenech likes to say that in Northern Virginia, we don’t have theater arts magnet school, because we’re a theater arts magnet region. Over the past three years, six different schools — Centreville, Chantilly, Herndon, Lake Braddock, McLean, Westfield — have won the Cappie in the play or musical category.
Then there’s Marshall, the smallest high school in Fairfax County, a high school you’ve probably passed by many times on your way in and out of Tysons Corner. Did you know that Marshall can lay claim to being Virginia’s leading theater school, having won the state one-act play competition three of the past four years? Go see a show there, and I guarantee, you’ll be back for the next one.
And, of course, we’re home to the Cappies. It’s now a nationwide program, in Cincinnati, Dallas, Kansas City, Phoenix, and several other cities — but it started here, in 1999, with 13 schools in Fairfax County and Bishop Ireton.
The Cappies are bringing attention to area high school theater like never before — not only for reviews published in the Connection, Washington Post, and other area papers (and broadcast on TV), but also because of our Cappies Gala. You want glam? Try 2,400 tuxedoed and gowned teenagers at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, on June 8. It’s a cross between the Tonys and a Final Four. You have to scratch and claw to get a ticket, but it’ll be on cable TV all summer.
Speaking of summer, the D.C. area will solidify its leadership in national teen theater by hosting the Cappies National Theater program. In July, over 40 Cappie award winners from all over the U.S. will assemble here in one national all-star cast to put on three shows at the Kennedy Center’s Theater Lab: a Star Show (July 21), a festival of short comic plays (July 28), and a musical (Aug. 4).
I’ll lay odds that this cast will have as much talent, maybe more, than the finalists on American Idol.
So go see a show at your high school. You might be catching a future star or two.
Best of all, go see a Cappies show, when the student critics come. That’s when big-time reviews and Cappie awards — and, this year, star billing at the Kennedy Center — will be on the line.
Today’s teenagers are the next great theater generation. When you see a high school show, you’ll know why.