Robinson, Hayfield take top two awards: When the Cappies or Critics and Awards Program for High School Theater was founded 10 years ago in the summer of 1999, its participants included a mere 13 Fairfax County high schools, and its first gala was a modest event held in the auditorium of Hayfield Secondary School in Alexandria. Modest would definitely no longer describe the Cappies program and its annual awards gala at the Kennedy Center, where, this year, awards were presented in 37 categories on Sunday, June 7.

Extravagantly successful is a more apt description.

The Cappies National Capital Area now consists of 60 public and private schools from Fairfax, Loudoun, Fauquier, Prince William and Arlington counties and the cities of Falls Church, Alexandria and Manassas in Northern Virginia. It also includes schools from Montgomery County and the city of Baltimore in Maryland and Washington, D.C.

More than 5,000 students were involved in this year's National Capital Area program, as cast, critics or crews, and an estimated 20,000 volunteer hours went into the program.

Area print and broadcast media published and aired more than 300-student written reviews as well.

In addition, since its founding in Fairfax County, its reach has expanded across the country and into Canada, too. Cappies programs have been launched in New Jersey, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Dallas, El Paso, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, Kansas City, Fresno, Orange County (Calif.), Melbourne (Fla.), Salt Lake City, St. Louis, and Springfield (Mo.), as well as Edmonton, Niagara and Ottawa, Canada.

This phenomenal success and growth did not surprise its late founder Bill Strauss, who fully witnessed this happening before his premature death, at age 60, in December 2007 after an eight-year battle with pancreatic cancer.

A buoyant presence known for his “perpetual motion” and devotion to the Cappies program, Strauss, a McLean resident, founded the program because he believed high school theater should be celebrated with the same acclaim as high school sports.

Its success also does not surprise Cappies co-founder, Vienna resident Judy Bowns, a theater arts resource teacher with Fairfax County Public Schools.

“Thank you for a glorious decade,” Bowns told the jubilant gathering of Cappies students, who with their parents, teachers and other mentors, packed the Kennedy Center’s 2,400-seat Concert Hall.

She applauded the role Cappies has played in “reminding everyone that the arts [even in this difficult economy] are not a luxury … that arts classes are core classes.”

Keeping up the Strauss presence at the gala was his wife, Janie, the Dranesville representative on the Fairfax County School Board, who co-hosted along with Bowns, and Chantilly High School drama teacher, Ed Monk.

Monk played the clown, doing his “dumb act” and even donning, at one point, an exceedingly silly, adult-sized costume of Eeyore, the “Winnie-the-Pooh” donkey.

Perhaps, because it was both an awards program and an important anniversary celebration, this year’s three-plus-hour gala seemed to radiate an exceptional vibrancy and joy.

And though the talents of each generation of Cappies is consistently remarkable, the gala performances of this year’s young thespians were all ovation-worthy, blockbusters, loudly recognized by the elated audience.

Adding to the celebratory atmosphere also might have been all the Cappies alumni and past winners who returned to share the stage with other traditional presenters, including a host of educators, politicians, and a few news and show-business people.

Alumni advice to their younger counterparts was both cheering and cautionary.

Marshall Nannes, a two-time Cappies winner for best male vocalist and a recent Amherst College graduate, said wryly: “I’m now an unemployed Cappies winner, back home living with my parents. Work hard, and this can be you one day.”

Alumna Molly Dickerson, the 2007 Cappies winner for Lead Actress in a Musical and now a student at Virginia Tech, was more encouraging. “If theater is your passion, do it. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t,” she advised.

The evening’s top award winners were from two Fairfax County schools: Robinson Secondary School’s production of “Fiddler on the Roof” for best musical and Hayfield Secondary School’s production of “Twilight of the Golds,” for best play. “Fiddler” was the most lauded 2009 production, taking home seven awards in various categories.

A new award was added in recognition of the big part the Cappies online network, the Cappies Information Services (CIS), plays in the program’s operations, especially award voting.

Returning as presenters were the two Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology graduates, who set up the original system and wrote its code. Jeff Arnold, an MIT alum and now president of the software systems firm, Ksplice, and Samarth Keshava, a Yale graduate now at Google, presented special awards to representatives from the high-tech firms Excella and Microsoft, whose contributions made essential updating of CIS possible.

Bill Strauss got the last word at the gala as he always had in the past. In a short tribute of video clips, he sent the Cappies students home with his annual declaration: “You are the next great theater generation!”