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On May 27, the cast and crew of Rock Ridge Theatre Arts (RRTA) production of “Hadestown Teen Edition” attended the Glamies Gala Award Ceremony at the Hylton Performing Arts Center at George Mason University to find out what awards the production won. Ultimately, the program went home with eight wins.
RRTA first performed “Hadestown” in January before bringing it back again in May. The musical “Hadestown,” which opened on Broadway in 2019, is based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.
The Glamies stands for Gathering, Leading, Affirming, and Mentoring in the arts. The Blue Ridge Glamies is where high school students can have the opportunity to be critics and write up reviews on shows that high schools submit and be nominated for awards, and the writers can be published in the Loudoun Times Mirror. Students can be nominated for various categories for performance, technical, reviewer, adjudicator, and/or wildcard.
The show won for Outstanding Musical. Senior Marian Lindsey won for Outstanding Lead in a Musical, and senior GraceMonét Carper won Outstanding Featured Performer and the Adjudicator award. “She won once by her peers, other high school students voted for her, but not only that, adults in the industry, adult adjudicators voted for her, and she won,” theatre teacher and director Ann Devine said.“That’s pretty impressive.”
The rest of the winners were senior Reagan Sutton, who won Best Dancer; junior Isabel Scienski and the lighting team won the Adjudicator award; and senior Geoffrey Banks won for Special Effects. “I designed lots for this show, including the special effects- snow, pyrotechnics, fog, haze, and confetti, lights, playbill, and more,” Banks said. “Originally, the whole thing was an ensemble, but I cut myself from all but the first scene during tech week as I prioritized my technical roles.”
Finally, senior Angel Labosette, junior Raine Surla, and freshman Taylor Esguerra took home the Wildcard awards for their performance at The Fates. “The Fates were so good. I was not surprised at all that they were nominated and that they won,” Devine said.
The Wildcard is an award where the teacher/director does not nominate a student or students; it’s the glamies reviewers who saw the show and reviewed it. They voted on a student or student group that they thought did well on their performance and voted that they should be nominated for the Wildcard award. “It was a big honor being chosen for the Wildcard because anybody could have been chosen for that [and] it was a great experience to get to win that with my friends,” Surla said. “I think we really found our rhythm and we clicked and we kind of became like one unit moving together as The Fates.”
Some awards came as a shock to some cast and crew members. “I was just very surprised. I saw it, and it was a cute little, clear plastic trophy thing. I was like, oh, this is cute. Someone told me it was the adults, [they], judged you and they chose you as one of their favorites. Then I was like, wait, that’s really great because I didn’t think that I would get chosen out of all the people in my cast, but [it was] a great opportunity, and I did showcase myself a lot with that role that I had,” Carper said.
In total, the show had 26 nominations and 8 wins. “It was super exciting [and] it was really validating that the work that we did was good, and overall, I think we were just really grateful for all the nominations that we were given,” Devine said.
A few Rock Ridge students competed against each other because some students were nominated in the same category. For instance, Carper and Labosette were nominated against each other for the Featured Role. “I knew for a fact that we can’t both win. I was concerned because I did want to win, but going up against my friend, I was like oh my gosh’ because he’s just as amazing. I wish the absolute best for him. Even though he didn’t win in my category, he won in his own category. So that’s what made me feel so much better,” Carper said.
Not only is Banks the winner of the Special Effects, but he is also the Senior Critic of the Rock Ridge Glamies critic team and has been a part of Glamies since his sophomore year. “As a Guiding Reviewer, my specific job is to help the other reviewers as best I can by offering advice, tips, and reminders about events and shows. My specific goal this year was to just make it through the year. I knew it would be a hard year for us as we transitioned to not only a relatively new program with the Glamies but in our Rock Ridge Theater Arts program as well,” Banks said. “I’m taking away so much from Glamies, like how to navigate new systems and write a successful review. Hadestown has taught me so much, but I’ll really take the community away the most. I’m so glad I got to perform alongside all these incredible people.”
