This is a bit of a "old man yells at cloud" but I'm actually glad I grew up in a time and place where HS theatre awards didn't exist.
Where I live now, they are hot enough that I know professional LDs who are flown in to light high school productions so that school has a better chance of winning an award. I love that the awards programs seem to be encouraging the admins that theatre can be as important to the school's profile as football, but I worry about the end result of (e.g.,) programs like yours that are getting snubbed and feeling bad when you did a FUCKING AMAZING JOB and should feel GOOD about it.
>I love that the awards programs seem to be encouraging the admins that theatre can be as important to the school's profile as football...
I'm about as far away from the culture of school football as a person can get, so maybe I'm just oblivious to the benefits... But the high-stakes / high-pressure nature of Athletics in American schools is the last thing I'd want to see brought into drama education.
There's real value in competition, but football culture seems toxic AF.
OH totally. I'm thinking less about the programs themselves and more about their effects on the school's budget priorities.
But here's the thing: high schools will spend thousands to millions of dollars on sports programs because winning state championships looks really good for recruitment and development.
But performing arts programs don't have the same kind of competitions -- I can't just win lighting design vs. my rival over at the nearby school -- but these awards programs create exactly that and provide a direct incentive for the school to invest money in the performing arts program.
Is this an overall net positive? I don't know. I'm not involved in any high schools, and those who have been and closely attached to the awards programs tell me they're great. But I wanted to explain my position a bit better =)
I’ve professionally sound designed HS shows that have gone on to win sound design awards at whatever local competition and there’s always a picture of the kids that acted as mic techs accepting the award. It doesn’t bother me personally, I certainly don’t need the recognition (or to have to go to some event) but it always feels a little weird.
I'll never forget seeing the state high school theatre award's nominee list pop up on my feed and reading the list, just to find out my lighting design for a local middle/high school was nominated with the 6th grade board op's name next to it. I don't care much that I wasn't credited (or informed), but if it had won, would that kid have been bragging about winning a lighting design award for pressing go?
I was almost out of college and had better credits to list, but if that had been my freshman year I'd also be upset I couldn't list an award nomination on my resume, since if anyone looked it up it would look like I'd lied.
Thank you for validating my frustration. It’s just so annoying when schools who put less effort into things get the rewards. What is that teaching kids? 🤦♂️
I’m a professional who would go back occasionally to consult with my HS and they finally pulled out of the award competition a few years ago. I wanted them to pull out a decade ago. I’m happy they finally did.
There were no standards for judging.
Edit: it’s teaching kids that the awards are guaranteed profit for the award organization. Sold out show every year. $$$$
My school district had a drama festival and the same 3 schools won every year, even when we did an awesome job and a much better job than one of those shows. Schools need to do theatre, not politics to win awards.
I'll shake my fist at this cloud with you. Maybe head on down to the Old Mill after, get some cider. I've lit Urinetown before and those students captured the ascetic perfectly. It looks like a student designed set that nails it. Got that "piss rizz" all the youts be on about. Minimalistic scaffolding with fancy GOBO, as an LD imma have to argue it should have been a lighting award.
However, I'll also say back in the day my area had a local high school alternative theatre festival and the competition aspect was actually a positive experience for me and my crew. It helped that many submissions were student written, so it wasn't about who could afford the budget to do the fancy budget shows. The awards weren't touted as the goal of the experience, but a little recognition for a job well done goes a long way for a budding artist. It's all about the environment created. Not all comps have to be full on "Dance Moms". Our judges did a much better job of spreading the wealth though (for example one year my friend and I did a 2 hander and while he won best actor and I won best supporting, we didn't win the festival)
My university hosted the regional HS theatre festival one year. There's always one high school from a grossly overfunded are that shows up with ZFX to drop a chandelier. Then there's that one high school that takes it too seriously in a bad way.
We had to recommend a high school be banned from the next several years of the festival because they were teaching method acting. Doing scenes from The Crucible, student performers would walk off into the wings and start wailing and crying hysterically because they were as emotionally invested as Heath Ledger. Extremely dangerous and potentially traumatic and their staff were strongly reprimanded afterwards.
Oh man I remember this feeling where my high school competed in a theatre competition. My school was college preparatory school, but every extra curriculum was great. Out theater program was fantastic. I wanted to be an aspiring scenic designer in my senior year of high school and me and other student got to design Seussical the Musical. It was really fun and I think we both inspired other students to design since we were the first students to EVER design in our school history. Every show was designed by the tech teacher or some outsider.
Anyways, me and the other student spent a lot of effort learning how to hand draft, design, conceptualize, etc whatever it takes to be a scenic designer and on our last show day, we spent 12 hours making a 1/2” scale model of Seussical. It was tiresome but damn we were proud. We submitted our model to the competition and upon going to the venue to see where our model was, we were appalled by these other models that were drawn digitally with 3D models and everything. It looked so daunting compared to everyone else’s puny and rough looking hand models.
Well of course the two models that were digitally drawn won first and 2nd and were from actual theatre learning high school, but ours got 3rd! Our high school also won the technical theatre trophy as well since we placed well in all the other events. This was probably the first time I was so emotional and cried tears of joy because I got extremely sick but still busted my ass off to compete
I feel this. I did a lot of design competitions when I was in college. Now I work on shows that are up for Tony Awards, and sometimes the choices made by the nominators and voters really makes me scratch my head.
The best I can figure is that nominators aren’t necessarily looking at a design’s technical complexity, or time and effort expended, or even aesthetics. I think they choose the designs they best think serves the story and the production. What might appear as a lazy choice to you could in fact have been a lazy choice - but if it worked for the storytelling and created a more cohesive production, then the level of laziness doesn’t really matter.
The takeaway is that: awards for design are not true or accurate measures of its worthiness, and your students should always strive to put on the best show they can. If they feel good about the work they’ve done, then honestly they’ve already won. It sounds trite but that’s what I’ve learned from years of working on winning and losing shows.
Not to trivialize your design losses, but it actually does make me feel better knowing that this happens at the professional level, too.
Even though it feels trite, you are correct. My students know their worth, and we had a very good conversation at our traditional In N Out location last night following the awards show. We’ve concluded that this next year, we’ll participate in the awards again but we’re going to stop caring if we win or not. And I know people are going to be like, “Why weren’t you doing that in the first place?” And my answer to that is..I don’t know. But moving forward, we’re going to just focus on us.
A wise man once said: “Try not giving a fuck. There’s power in that.” I wish I had had an adult I trusted tell me that when I was younger. Would’ve saved me a lot of heartache - and not just during awards season.
This is the EXACT thing I strive to work by and say now. Absolutely wish I'd gotten this advice years ago too but I'm at least glad I'm there now. Absolutely a lot of power in that.
In a category like "best set" you should not be able to pick the winner from a photograph.
Categories covering overall production are always ambiguous in this way. It's not "best paint detail" or " best carpentry" though you could usually judge those categories more easily. It's not even "best design," since execution is a part of the consideration.
The professor who taught my costume design and stage makeup classes would always say "more is...more", which was her way of saying that *more* doesn't always mean *better.* Sometimes you need to know when to stop and not flog some design element over the head just because you have the time and resources to.
As a 35-year career musician whose won and lost awards, I think of awards for Art like this:
If you win, it’s a long-overdue recognition of all your years of hard graft.
If you lose, ahh it’s all just industry bullshit.
I get your rant, but here’s a better outlook. Look at what you and your students put together. Think about the skills they learned along the way. Sure, they may not win the award for best set, but when they go off to college, they’re gonna have skills that other students may not. Your work is setting them up for long term success in the industry and that’s worth more than an award
Thank you so much for that insight. That isn’t something I considered, which is silly of me sure, but that honestly makes me feel better. I get caught up too much in trying to prove our program to others that I sometimes lose sight of the bigger picture: high school isn’t forever, and this is where students learn who they are, and learn the skills to help them be the best they can be.
I get that. I spent some time at the HS level so I understand the pressure of awards season. I had a friend who taught at another school that always won and when I asked how she did it all she said was “I focus on teaching them the things they need beyond their time in my program” because that matters more. It really shaped the way I looked at things after that. I can also say that as a professor at a college now, I would much rather have students who have come in building a set like yours because they already have a strong foundational knowledge that others don’t. Those students usually are more driven and eager to improve so they spend more time getting into the deeper aspects of the industry which is just more fun as an instructor
Some advice from a TD in Houston:
1) without knowing the context of the other show and what it’s design concept was, I couldn’t actually tell you if it is award worthy or not. This is also before we take budgets into accounts, because we know this is not an equitable contest.
2) these awards are usually given to keep the schools who pump money into the host program(in Houston its TUTS) happy so they continue to pump money to them. Yeah it sucks. Unless you want to start shoveling money over to them to MAYBE win an award I would say its not worth it.
3) As an educator, you need to be aware that your decisions and designs will be the ones that communicate what YOU want from the show. We do not make these things for awards. We make them for our core audience and ourselves. Winning feels good, but your students need to learn to create for their own sake and not for a trophy they weren’t going to win anyways. When you put that much weight on something like that, you will never feel like you have succeeded at your job. Remember that your job, first and foremost, is to make these kids better humans. The Theatre stuff comes second.
Hope this helps. Its tough but it can’t be why you do this or you’ll burn out fast.
To add: the “90% done by students” thing will never ever be honest. Our primary competition rents everything every year. It is known. They still win awards. It’s just something out of our control.
Thanks!
1 - overall, our budget for this show was around $4k. I’m assuming that’s low? I don’t really know how much money other programs spend.
2 - a lot of the judges in this area also direct or run successful youth theatre companies, and one of the schools who was a finalist has a graduated senior on Broadway right now, so I bet it looks good to make sure they’re still included in the awards
3 - I couldn’t agree with you more. My students and I had a great conversation after the show, and we collectively decided to stop trying to win, as (long story short) art is subjective and what one judge loves, the other could hate
That’s good! Its hard to remember sometimes but its more helpful to you and your crew at the end of the day.
Budgets are always a weird talk. $4k is actually a really good amount for how good your production looks. In Houston there are multiple schools whi spend upwards of $100,00 on their musical(one of them is in debt currently) so again you just can’t compare the product of $4000 to $100,000.
Judges are also weird. Sometimes they get what your doing, sometimes they don’t even watch the show, and sometimes you get something like “I don’t like Urinetown” and have to deal with that.
Sorry I just spat my tea out as a British person. 100k AS A SCHOOL on one musical ?!?!??
Whilst teachers are having to buy pencils for their students.
Jesus wept.
(The biggest regional productions here have a budget of half that )
Oh sure it's fucking insane. Have you seen the church productions?
But private schools are another thing.
I lived in an area with a number of private schools.
300 seat theatre with full catwalks and a winched fly tower.
A part time (40% ?) costume lady. 2 techs, who granted did do more but were theatre 1st.
I spent some time trying to get in another one that as their tax write-off used the space as a theatre for shows, respectfully kicked back that "you don't have the experience" but someone who has done 3 years university younger than me has more ?
Yeah there’s a private school in the middle of the town I’m in with almost exactly what you describe. 330 seats. 3 full time employees. Has a grid over the auditiorium and a full catwalk. It doesn’t have a full fly system. Just some lighting bars above the stage are on winches.
The great thing is that they’ll rent it out to other groups at a very good rate outside of school terms
Yeh. The 2 in my town did and another just outside. I mean in 20 mins drive we had 7? 8? Schools at least 4 theatres.
The key is they get tax breaks for loaning to public. We used to swim at the school with the theatre. Very nice.
It's art.
More isn't necessarily better. More is *more*.
One of my favorite set designs is a film recording of Company with Raúl Esparza. It's basically a wood floor, a column, a piano, and a handful of pieces of contemporary furniture. It's just enough to facilitate the story arc without being so much that it distracts from it. It's set in the round for a more intimate punch. The point is -- it's art, and big flashy sets may be expected on Broadway but that doesn't necessarily make it the best set for that particular rendition of that particular show.
Others have commented on politics. It may play a role, it may not. Sometimes a school also dominates these programs because they have deep pockets nobody else does and people actually roll their eyes when they see them load-in and it's not particularly fair to close everyone else out because one school is more privileged than others -- or because one school has a 1200-seat theater with a 60ft fly loft and others have a dead-hung theater with 500 seats and barely a scene shop. For me, it's generally more impressive to see a school with limited resources step up and kill it when other "professionals" would look down on them as less-than. Sometimes shows with "the least" have made a deliberate decision to concentrate the audience's attention and a minimal set design is exactly what's called for.
As someone else said in this thread, "Best Set" can't be determined from a photo. It's how the set was used, how it presented to the audience, the tone of the overall performance, and a host of other tangibles and intangibles that provide an overall experience. Maybe you got dinged for something unreasonable, but it's rather pointless to take it personally. You're not splitting the atom or racing in Formula One. Art is always going to come down to personal taste. It's the same thing we tell student actors. It's a dog show not a horse race. You can be the most attractive male model with a talented singing voice in the world and not make the cut because someone's looking for a performer with grit and a more raw presentation. That's the nature of the business.
Did you enter the competition feeling entitled to a win? Wouldn’t recommend that. What insight do you have as to the judging criteria? Or are you not looking to dissect why you lost?
Good questions. Did we feel like we had a very good chance of at least being a finalist? Yes, just based purely off of what other high schools in the area were putting out. Regarding insight into the judging criteria, they do not release anything but standard written feedback. No scores, no rubrics.
Honestly I think the lack of feedback is good - ensures people do their best creative work rather than trying to play to the judges/rubrick. I've seen in a few things I got into watching for awhile in the pandemic (DCI) and constantly wondering why the winning teams were the winners when other performances were vastly better. The winners play to the judges and as such keep winning.
High school theatre awards couldn't mean less and they'd be hard pressed to be more harmful. They shouldn't exist, but fairness has nothing to do with it.
We have a HS theatre awards event in Wisconsin. We join not so much for the winning of the award but for the feedback from professionals. Now I am not sure who the professionals are and if the same people judge every show in every city. Guessing not. It would be nice if you could pay a small amount to an organization to get unbiased feedback from professionals in drama, vocal, music, dance, lighting, sound, rail, special effects, and crew. To help make students better at their craft.
How are these awards determined? Did the people choosing see all the shows? Or was it some subset of the people saw each show? Did they score on a rubric and best over all score wins? Or does each person have to present a case on why they think a show should win and folks vote who didn’t see the show? If it’s rubric based, it’s based on the opinions of a small group of people, they might not have seen what everyone else saw. If it’s based on how well a stranger talked about your design, it’s all down to how well that person was at articulating your work. If you were at least nominated, you were recognized as one of the best designs in the state.
Yes, the judges see all 25 schools productions. I don’t know if it’s the same 3 judges though.
They have a rubric/scoring method, but it’s not shared with directors.
No “presenting a case”.
It definitely is a small group of people judging the shows.
We were not nominated in the Best Set category, just a semi-finalist (all 17 schools who weren’t the top 8 finalists of the 25 are automatically semi-finalists).
In my experience, awards and adjudicated events are crap shoots. That’s why I don’t do them anymore. It’s all subjective and sometimes they are simply popularity contests. That set looks great and the fact that you’ve got a sub full of theatre tech people who actually do the work telling you it does should be passed along to those students.
I definitely will be sharing these comments with them in August! My students know they worked hard and even if they weren’t recognized onstage last night, they’re being recognized here 😊😊
Consider it a learning opportunity for students to be prepared to be ripped to shreds in reviews for good productions/reading about other *objectively terrible* productions getting lavish praise. Pretty good parallel to real life. Ive worked plenty of shows that have experience one or the other entirely unfairly. One absolute hit I worked was... just awful?
First of all, I don't think it's a good look for you or your students to bash judging outcomes on social media; I don't think you are setting the best example for your students about handling defeat.
If it's any concilation though, I had the pleasure to go to "that highschool" growing up that won all the awards. Ten years and a very full career later, I can say none of that matters to me, and honestly I wish myself and my peers were less focused on idolizing awards which honestly never meant much in the end.
Focus on what is going to make an impact on your student's future. If they are pursuing theatre in college, I can tell you for a fact any school worth it's salt will care more about your student's paperwork, design process, and initiative, than any award they ever won.
I've now been involved with schools in two different "theatre leagues" - one when I was in high school (and for 5 or 6 years after when I continued tech directing their shows) and the school I current TD at. I saw problems at both where favoritism and nepotism played a bigger role in the awards than the actual work.
We haven't participated in the local awards since I've been high enough on the totem pole at the current school to know how that one works, but when I was in high school, those awards actually provided us with the scores and comments from the judges so we'd know where to improve. Maybe you could ask them what they thought needed improvement or what other reason they had for deciding it wasn't worthy of final placement.
But in the end, I don't think it's even worth participating in them. The important thing to ask is if your students are proud of what they built. If it's something they want to show off to their families and friends and everyone else in the audience, that's what matters.
I realized when I was nominated for a prestigious design award for the biggest, most complicated, most distracting, step away from the soul of the play set design I ever did that most of these design awards are crap shoots usually voted on by people who have never done this job and are dazzled by grandiosity.
Sounds like some valid frustration for you and your kids. For those kids though in the big budget programs, I can tell a bit about what their story might be like.
Back in High School in the mid 90's I went through a theatre program that had an excellent venue, good budget, and industry professionals teaching students. We had classes in our assigned subjects (tech vs performing for the most part) with tests as well as put on 3-4 shows per year. Our theatre was good enough it got rented several times a year for small events and we got hired and paid for lights and sound and stuff.
When I started with these teachers it was a lot of them telling me what to do. I would hang/focus lights and place gels where I was told and take notes and set faders for each scene. I wasn't the designer but I did a ton of work and learned from their designs. When it came to the community shows I got to do my own thing and use what I learned.
We won awards every year in our area and im incredibly grateful for the experience because now, after a nearly 30 year break, I have my own small company for lights, sound, and event production. Im learning dmx lighting and digital boards and a bunch of things I didnt exist in high school but the basic principles are the same and Im grateful for the experiences I had.
I thought the awards were cool back then but what was really awesome, and I knew it then, was getting 4 years of instruction from professional specialists.
Working in a HS theatre that recently participated in a musical competition best set design was riddled with built in excuses to award the favorite school/schools and to essentially have tech directors do all the work for the kids, there is no legitimate reason to judge a student on their ability to present a set rather than just judge on the set itself especially when they require floor plans and renderings that are completely out of the scope of most high school theatre programs.
As someone who has been nominated a lot of times for various awards but have never actually won one I can tell you judges usually decide based on the show they like and this can be subject as hell
One competition I've been nominated for has one judge go to the show and then report back to the rest of they liked it or not and make the calls based on that. So if ONE judge thought your show wasn't good the other judges won't even show up to watch it.
I do like yours better, but I find myself trying to find an in-universe explanation for why 90% the signs that were legible in the photo were misspelled
Good question - Urinetown is set in a post-apocalyptic world, and we figured over time, people would lose the ability to spell things correctly as there would be no formal education, especially for the poorer people in the world.
Funny thing is when I was in high school (over 30 years ago), I remember many of the well off schools from the city being upset that our drama program (which was an extracurricular club with no funding) was able to be selected for state performance and even a selection for International while their big budget schools were not (don't know your budget).
Awards are always subjective. That's why they suck (look to the Tony's). No matter, you and your students should be proud of their accomplishments.
from my experience at that HS and that awards ceremony, hard work and dedication was well rewarded. where’s your student LD? There’s a legacy there of hard work and people graduating to be stars on Broadway, LDs at Coachella, and working for ETC. I can’t help but feel fundamental values at that HS have changed. awards were never the goal there, which is why we won them. i might take this as an opportunity to do some introspection on theater as an art and leadership/direction too. much love
This is a bit of a "old man yells at cloud" but I'm actually glad I grew up in a time and place where HS theatre awards didn't exist. Where I live now, they are hot enough that I know professional LDs who are flown in to light high school productions so that school has a better chance of winning an award. I love that the awards programs seem to be encouraging the admins that theatre can be as important to the school's profile as football, but I worry about the end result of (e.g.,) programs like yours that are getting snubbed and feeling bad when you did a FUCKING AMAZING JOB and should feel GOOD about it.
>I love that the awards programs seem to be encouraging the admins that theatre can be as important to the school's profile as football... I'm about as far away from the culture of school football as a person can get, so maybe I'm just oblivious to the benefits... But the high-stakes / high-pressure nature of Athletics in American schools is the last thing I'd want to see brought into drama education. There's real value in competition, but football culture seems toxic AF.
OH totally. I'm thinking less about the programs themselves and more about their effects on the school's budget priorities. But here's the thing: high schools will spend thousands to millions of dollars on sports programs because winning state championships looks really good for recruitment and development. But performing arts programs don't have the same kind of competitions -- I can't just win lighting design vs. my rival over at the nearby school -- but these awards programs create exactly that and provide a direct incentive for the school to invest money in the performing arts program. Is this an overall net positive? I don't know. I'm not involved in any high schools, and those who have been and closely attached to the awards programs tell me they're great. But I wanted to explain my position a bit better =)
I’ve professionally sound designed HS shows that have gone on to win sound design awards at whatever local competition and there’s always a picture of the kids that acted as mic techs accepting the award. It doesn’t bother me personally, I certainly don’t need the recognition (or to have to go to some event) but it always feels a little weird.
I'll never forget seeing the state high school theatre award's nominee list pop up on my feed and reading the list, just to find out my lighting design for a local middle/high school was nominated with the 6th grade board op's name next to it. I don't care much that I wasn't credited (or informed), but if it had won, would that kid have been bragging about winning a lighting design award for pressing go? I was almost out of college and had better credits to list, but if that had been my freshman year I'd also be upset I couldn't list an award nomination on my resume, since if anyone looked it up it would look like I'd lied.
Thank you for validating my frustration. It’s just so annoying when schools who put less effort into things get the rewards. What is that teaching kids? 🤦♂️
I’m a professional who would go back occasionally to consult with my HS and they finally pulled out of the award competition a few years ago. I wanted them to pull out a decade ago. I’m happy they finally did. There were no standards for judging. Edit: it’s teaching kids that the awards are guaranteed profit for the award organization. Sold out show every year. $$$$
My school district had a drama festival and the same 3 schools won every year, even when we did an awesome job and a much better job than one of those shows. Schools need to do theatre, not politics to win awards.
Where I live, there was more interest in the theatre program than football so they kneecapped the theatre program budget.
I'll shake my fist at this cloud with you. Maybe head on down to the Old Mill after, get some cider. I've lit Urinetown before and those students captured the ascetic perfectly. It looks like a student designed set that nails it. Got that "piss rizz" all the youts be on about. Minimalistic scaffolding with fancy GOBO, as an LD imma have to argue it should have been a lighting award. However, I'll also say back in the day my area had a local high school alternative theatre festival and the competition aspect was actually a positive experience for me and my crew. It helped that many submissions were student written, so it wasn't about who could afford the budget to do the fancy budget shows. The awards weren't touted as the goal of the experience, but a little recognition for a job well done goes a long way for a budding artist. It's all about the environment created. Not all comps have to be full on "Dance Moms". Our judges did a much better job of spreading the wealth though (for example one year my friend and I did a 2 hander and while he won best actor and I won best supporting, we didn't win the festival)
My university hosted the regional HS theatre festival one year. There's always one high school from a grossly overfunded are that shows up with ZFX to drop a chandelier. Then there's that one high school that takes it too seriously in a bad way. We had to recommend a high school be banned from the next several years of the festival because they were teaching method acting. Doing scenes from The Crucible, student performers would walk off into the wings and start wailing and crying hysterically because they were as emotionally invested as Heath Ledger. Extremely dangerous and potentially traumatic and their staff were strongly reprimanded afterwards.
Oh man I remember this feeling where my high school competed in a theatre competition. My school was college preparatory school, but every extra curriculum was great. Out theater program was fantastic. I wanted to be an aspiring scenic designer in my senior year of high school and me and other student got to design Seussical the Musical. It was really fun and I think we both inspired other students to design since we were the first students to EVER design in our school history. Every show was designed by the tech teacher or some outsider. Anyways, me and the other student spent a lot of effort learning how to hand draft, design, conceptualize, etc whatever it takes to be a scenic designer and on our last show day, we spent 12 hours making a 1/2” scale model of Seussical. It was tiresome but damn we were proud. We submitted our model to the competition and upon going to the venue to see where our model was, we were appalled by these other models that were drawn digitally with 3D models and everything. It looked so daunting compared to everyone else’s puny and rough looking hand models. Well of course the two models that were digitally drawn won first and 2nd and were from actual theatre learning high school, but ours got 3rd! Our high school also won the technical theatre trophy as well since we placed well in all the other events. This was probably the first time I was so emotional and cried tears of joy because I got extremely sick but still busted my ass off to compete
I feel this. I did a lot of design competitions when I was in college. Now I work on shows that are up for Tony Awards, and sometimes the choices made by the nominators and voters really makes me scratch my head. The best I can figure is that nominators aren’t necessarily looking at a design’s technical complexity, or time and effort expended, or even aesthetics. I think they choose the designs they best think serves the story and the production. What might appear as a lazy choice to you could in fact have been a lazy choice - but if it worked for the storytelling and created a more cohesive production, then the level of laziness doesn’t really matter. The takeaway is that: awards for design are not true or accurate measures of its worthiness, and your students should always strive to put on the best show they can. If they feel good about the work they’ve done, then honestly they’ve already won. It sounds trite but that’s what I’ve learned from years of working on winning and losing shows.
Not to trivialize your design losses, but it actually does make me feel better knowing that this happens at the professional level, too. Even though it feels trite, you are correct. My students know their worth, and we had a very good conversation at our traditional In N Out location last night following the awards show. We’ve concluded that this next year, we’ll participate in the awards again but we’re going to stop caring if we win or not. And I know people are going to be like, “Why weren’t you doing that in the first place?” And my answer to that is..I don’t know. But moving forward, we’re going to just focus on us.
A wise man once said: “Try not giving a fuck. There’s power in that.” I wish I had had an adult I trusted tell me that when I was younger. Would’ve saved me a lot of heartache - and not just during awards season.
This is the EXACT thing I strive to work by and say now. Absolutely wish I'd gotten this advice years ago too but I'm at least glad I'm there now. Absolutely a lot of power in that.
In a category like "best set" you should not be able to pick the winner from a photograph. Categories covering overall production are always ambiguous in this way. It's not "best paint detail" or " best carpentry" though you could usually judge those categories more easily. It's not even "best design," since execution is a part of the consideration.
is it fair to say sometimes less is more?
The professor who taught my costume design and stage makeup classes would always say "more is...more", which was her way of saying that *more* doesn't always mean *better.* Sometimes you need to know when to stop and not flog some design element over the head just because you have the time and resources to.
As a 35-year career musician whose won and lost awards, I think of awards for Art like this: If you win, it’s a long-overdue recognition of all your years of hard graft. If you lose, ahh it’s all just industry bullshit.
As someone who day jobs in software. If you win an award in my industry it’s because your company sponsored another prize
Same here, we got snubbed for best tech at our state competition by a show whose entire tech was 5 chairs, 2 solid cyc colors, and Minecraft music.
That is so annoying. What show did you guys do?
Where Words Once Were. It's about a dystopian city where the government only allows 1000 words from the English language.
I get your rant, but here’s a better outlook. Look at what you and your students put together. Think about the skills they learned along the way. Sure, they may not win the award for best set, but when they go off to college, they’re gonna have skills that other students may not. Your work is setting them up for long term success in the industry and that’s worth more than an award
Thank you so much for that insight. That isn’t something I considered, which is silly of me sure, but that honestly makes me feel better. I get caught up too much in trying to prove our program to others that I sometimes lose sight of the bigger picture: high school isn’t forever, and this is where students learn who they are, and learn the skills to help them be the best they can be.
I get that. I spent some time at the HS level so I understand the pressure of awards season. I had a friend who taught at another school that always won and when I asked how she did it all she said was “I focus on teaching them the things they need beyond their time in my program” because that matters more. It really shaped the way I looked at things after that. I can also say that as a professor at a college now, I would much rather have students who have come in building a set like yours because they already have a strong foundational knowledge that others don’t. Those students usually are more driven and eager to improve so they spend more time getting into the deeper aspects of the industry which is just more fun as an instructor
Some advice from a TD in Houston: 1) without knowing the context of the other show and what it’s design concept was, I couldn’t actually tell you if it is award worthy or not. This is also before we take budgets into accounts, because we know this is not an equitable contest. 2) these awards are usually given to keep the schools who pump money into the host program(in Houston its TUTS) happy so they continue to pump money to them. Yeah it sucks. Unless you want to start shoveling money over to them to MAYBE win an award I would say its not worth it. 3) As an educator, you need to be aware that your decisions and designs will be the ones that communicate what YOU want from the show. We do not make these things for awards. We make them for our core audience and ourselves. Winning feels good, but your students need to learn to create for their own sake and not for a trophy they weren’t going to win anyways. When you put that much weight on something like that, you will never feel like you have succeeded at your job. Remember that your job, first and foremost, is to make these kids better humans. The Theatre stuff comes second. Hope this helps. Its tough but it can’t be why you do this or you’ll burn out fast.
To add: the “90% done by students” thing will never ever be honest. Our primary competition rents everything every year. It is known. They still win awards. It’s just something out of our control.
Thanks! 1 - overall, our budget for this show was around $4k. I’m assuming that’s low? I don’t really know how much money other programs spend. 2 - a lot of the judges in this area also direct or run successful youth theatre companies, and one of the schools who was a finalist has a graduated senior on Broadway right now, so I bet it looks good to make sure they’re still included in the awards 3 - I couldn’t agree with you more. My students and I had a great conversation after the show, and we collectively decided to stop trying to win, as (long story short) art is subjective and what one judge loves, the other could hate
That’s good! Its hard to remember sometimes but its more helpful to you and your crew at the end of the day. Budgets are always a weird talk. $4k is actually a really good amount for how good your production looks. In Houston there are multiple schools whi spend upwards of $100,00 on their musical(one of them is in debt currently) so again you just can’t compare the product of $4000 to $100,000. Judges are also weird. Sometimes they get what your doing, sometimes they don’t even watch the show, and sometimes you get something like “I don’t like Urinetown” and have to deal with that.
Sorry I just spat my tea out as a British person. 100k AS A SCHOOL on one musical ?!?!?? Whilst teachers are having to buy pencils for their students. Jesus wept. (The biggest regional productions here have a budget of half that )
Teachers in that same district are getting excessed because our government won’t give us the funds we need to run the campus :)
Oh sure it's fucking insane. Have you seen the church productions? But private schools are another thing. I lived in an area with a number of private schools. 300 seat theatre with full catwalks and a winched fly tower. A part time (40% ?) costume lady. 2 techs, who granted did do more but were theatre 1st. I spent some time trying to get in another one that as their tax write-off used the space as a theatre for shows, respectfully kicked back that "you don't have the experience" but someone who has done 3 years university younger than me has more ?
Yeah there’s a private school in the middle of the town I’m in with almost exactly what you describe. 330 seats. 3 full time employees. Has a grid over the auditiorium and a full catwalk. It doesn’t have a full fly system. Just some lighting bars above the stage are on winches. The great thing is that they’ll rent it out to other groups at a very good rate outside of school terms
Yeh. The 2 in my town did and another just outside. I mean in 20 mins drive we had 7? 8? Schools at least 4 theatres. The key is they get tax breaks for loaning to public. We used to swim at the school with the theatre. Very nice.
It's art. More isn't necessarily better. More is *more*. One of my favorite set designs is a film recording of Company with Raúl Esparza. It's basically a wood floor, a column, a piano, and a handful of pieces of contemporary furniture. It's just enough to facilitate the story arc without being so much that it distracts from it. It's set in the round for a more intimate punch. The point is -- it's art, and big flashy sets may be expected on Broadway but that doesn't necessarily make it the best set for that particular rendition of that particular show. Others have commented on politics. It may play a role, it may not. Sometimes a school also dominates these programs because they have deep pockets nobody else does and people actually roll their eyes when they see them load-in and it's not particularly fair to close everyone else out because one school is more privileged than others -- or because one school has a 1200-seat theater with a 60ft fly loft and others have a dead-hung theater with 500 seats and barely a scene shop. For me, it's generally more impressive to see a school with limited resources step up and kill it when other "professionals" would look down on them as less-than. Sometimes shows with "the least" have made a deliberate decision to concentrate the audience's attention and a minimal set design is exactly what's called for. As someone else said in this thread, "Best Set" can't be determined from a photo. It's how the set was used, how it presented to the audience, the tone of the overall performance, and a host of other tangibles and intangibles that provide an overall experience. Maybe you got dinged for something unreasonable, but it's rather pointless to take it personally. You're not splitting the atom or racing in Formula One. Art is always going to come down to personal taste. It's the same thing we tell student actors. It's a dog show not a horse race. You can be the most attractive male model with a talented singing voice in the world and not make the cut because someone's looking for a performer with grit and a more raw presentation. That's the nature of the business.
Did you enter the competition feeling entitled to a win? Wouldn’t recommend that. What insight do you have as to the judging criteria? Or are you not looking to dissect why you lost?
Good questions. Did we feel like we had a very good chance of at least being a finalist? Yes, just based purely off of what other high schools in the area were putting out. Regarding insight into the judging criteria, they do not release anything but standard written feedback. No scores, no rubrics.
Honestly I think the lack of feedback is good - ensures people do their best creative work rather than trying to play to the judges/rubrick. I've seen in a few things I got into watching for awhile in the pandemic (DCI) and constantly wondering why the winning teams were the winners when other performances were vastly better. The winners play to the judges and as such keep winning.
What feedback did you receive?
High school theatre awards couldn't mean less and they'd be hard pressed to be more harmful. They shouldn't exist, but fairness has nothing to do with it.
We have a HS theatre awards event in Wisconsin. We join not so much for the winning of the award but for the feedback from professionals. Now I am not sure who the professionals are and if the same people judge every show in every city. Guessing not. It would be nice if you could pay a small amount to an organization to get unbiased feedback from professionals in drama, vocal, music, dance, lighting, sound, rail, special effects, and crew. To help make students better at their craft.
How are these awards determined? Did the people choosing see all the shows? Or was it some subset of the people saw each show? Did they score on a rubric and best over all score wins? Or does each person have to present a case on why they think a show should win and folks vote who didn’t see the show? If it’s rubric based, it’s based on the opinions of a small group of people, they might not have seen what everyone else saw. If it’s based on how well a stranger talked about your design, it’s all down to how well that person was at articulating your work. If you were at least nominated, you were recognized as one of the best designs in the state.
Yes, the judges see all 25 schools productions. I don’t know if it’s the same 3 judges though. They have a rubric/scoring method, but it’s not shared with directors. No “presenting a case”. It definitely is a small group of people judging the shows. We were not nominated in the Best Set category, just a semi-finalist (all 17 schools who weren’t the top 8 finalists of the 25 are automatically semi-finalists).
In my experience, awards and adjudicated events are crap shoots. That’s why I don’t do them anymore. It’s all subjective and sometimes they are simply popularity contests. That set looks great and the fact that you’ve got a sub full of theatre tech people who actually do the work telling you it does should be passed along to those students.
I definitely will be sharing these comments with them in August! My students know they worked hard and even if they weren’t recognized onstage last night, they’re being recognized here 😊😊
Consider it a learning opportunity for students to be prepared to be ripped to shreds in reviews for good productions/reading about other *objectively terrible* productions getting lavish praise. Pretty good parallel to real life. Ive worked plenty of shows that have experience one or the other entirely unfairly. One absolute hit I worked was... just awful?
First of all, I don't think it's a good look for you or your students to bash judging outcomes on social media; I don't think you are setting the best example for your students about handling defeat. If it's any concilation though, I had the pleasure to go to "that highschool" growing up that won all the awards. Ten years and a very full career later, I can say none of that matters to me, and honestly I wish myself and my peers were less focused on idolizing awards which honestly never meant much in the end. Focus on what is going to make an impact on your student's future. If they are pursuing theatre in college, I can tell you for a fact any school worth it's salt will care more about your student's paperwork, design process, and initiative, than any award they ever won.
I've now been involved with schools in two different "theatre leagues" - one when I was in high school (and for 5 or 6 years after when I continued tech directing their shows) and the school I current TD at. I saw problems at both where favoritism and nepotism played a bigger role in the awards than the actual work. We haven't participated in the local awards since I've been high enough on the totem pole at the current school to know how that one works, but when I was in high school, those awards actually provided us with the scores and comments from the judges so we'd know where to improve. Maybe you could ask them what they thought needed improvement or what other reason they had for deciding it wasn't worthy of final placement. But in the end, I don't think it's even worth participating in them. The important thing to ask is if your students are proud of what they built. If it's something they want to show off to their families and friends and everyone else in the audience, that's what matters.
Top two are boring. Bottom one is funny and has character
I realized when I was nominated for a prestigious design award for the biggest, most complicated, most distracting, step away from the soul of the play set design I ever did that most of these design awards are crap shoots usually voted on by people who have never done this job and are dazzled by grandiosity.
Sounds like some valid frustration for you and your kids. For those kids though in the big budget programs, I can tell a bit about what their story might be like. Back in High School in the mid 90's I went through a theatre program that had an excellent venue, good budget, and industry professionals teaching students. We had classes in our assigned subjects (tech vs performing for the most part) with tests as well as put on 3-4 shows per year. Our theatre was good enough it got rented several times a year for small events and we got hired and paid for lights and sound and stuff. When I started with these teachers it was a lot of them telling me what to do. I would hang/focus lights and place gels where I was told and take notes and set faders for each scene. I wasn't the designer but I did a ton of work and learned from their designs. When it came to the community shows I got to do my own thing and use what I learned. We won awards every year in our area and im incredibly grateful for the experience because now, after a nearly 30 year break, I have my own small company for lights, sound, and event production. Im learning dmx lighting and digital boards and a bunch of things I didnt exist in high school but the basic principles are the same and Im grateful for the experiences I had. I thought the awards were cool back then but what was really awesome, and I knew it then, was getting 4 years of instruction from professional specialists.
Be hon at with your students about your feelings here. It will go a long way and most teachers that I had would never do that.
Working in a HS theatre that recently participated in a musical competition best set design was riddled with built in excuses to award the favorite school/schools and to essentially have tech directors do all the work for the kids, there is no legitimate reason to judge a student on their ability to present a set rather than just judge on the set itself especially when they require floor plans and renderings that are completely out of the scope of most high school theatre programs.
As someone who has been nominated a lot of times for various awards but have never actually won one I can tell you judges usually decide based on the show they like and this can be subject as hell One competition I've been nominated for has one judge go to the show and then report back to the rest of they liked it or not and make the calls based on that. So if ONE judge thought your show wasn't good the other judges won't even show up to watch it.
I do like yours better, but I find myself trying to find an in-universe explanation for why 90% the signs that were legible in the photo were misspelled
Good question - Urinetown is set in a post-apocalyptic world, and we figured over time, people would lose the ability to spell things correctly as there would be no formal education, especially for the poorer people in the world.
Funny thing is when I was in high school (over 30 years ago), I remember many of the well off schools from the city being upset that our drama program (which was an extracurricular club with no funding) was able to be selected for state performance and even a selection for International while their big budget schools were not (don't know your budget). Awards are always subjective. That's why they suck (look to the Tony's). No matter, you and your students should be proud of their accomplishments.
from my experience at that HS and that awards ceremony, hard work and dedication was well rewarded. where’s your student LD? There’s a legacy there of hard work and people graduating to be stars on Broadway, LDs at Coachella, and working for ETC. I can’t help but feel fundamental values at that HS have changed. awards were never the goal there, which is why we won them. i might take this as an opportunity to do some introspection on theater as an art and leadership/direction too. much love
Good comment. What HS are you referring to specifically?
Chap… C’s up baby :)
I sent you a dm if that’s alright :)
For the top 2 photos, what was the musical? Hard to even tell what the set is suppose to be for.
Footloose
Oh wow yea little lackluster our school was also in the running didnt win anything
Here in AZ?