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The 22nd annual Cappies Gala, the Tony's-like awards for high school theatre, recognized students around the DC region with awards.

|Updated Tue, Jun 7, 2022 at 9:00 pm ET

OAKTON, VA — An Oakton High School student won an award at the 22nd annual Cappies Gala, a program recognizing excellence in high school theatre around the DC region.

The Cappies Gala was held Monday night at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. Cappies, a program that trains high school journalism students to write reviews of high school theatre shows, provided awards in 40 performance and technical categories. The awards are considered the Tony Awards of high school theatre in the D.C. region.

The Cappies program trains student critics, who attend high school shows throughout the year. The best student reviews are published in local media. At the end of the season, student critics vote for the awards.

Oakton High School's Gwen Ihde took home an award in the category of 2022 Maryland Theater Guide Returning Critic.

Here is a full list of winners:

Find out what's happening in Oaktonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Along with the presentation of awards, the gala included performances from 11 schools nominated for best play and musical. The performances included "Mary Poppins" by Independence High School, "Tony N' Tina's Wedding" by Herndon High School, "Freaky Friday" by Langley High School, "Airness High School Edition" by McLean High School, "Anastasia" by Bishop Ireton High School, "The Heidi Chronicles" by Lake Braddock Secondary School, "Crazy for You" by South Lakes High School, "Puffs" by Fairfax High School, "Disney's Newsies" by Quince Orchard High School, "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [Revised]" by Meridian High School and "Head Over Heels" by Robinson Secondary School.

Cappies was founded by the late Bill Strauss, a McLean resident who also founded the Capital Steps. The current director of the Cappies is his wife, Jane Strauss, a former teacher and Fairfax County School Board representative for the Dranesville District. The 2022 Cappies program had 48 participating schools, 1,628 reviews written, 279 reviews published and 308 voting critics.

A recording of the Cappies Gala is expected to be available Friday. For more information, visit www.cappies.com/nca.

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MOVING To Oakton VA

Oakton lies to the west of Vienna, and they share a border. Oakton is also north of I-66. Oakton’s population is 36,000. You have easy access here to the Vienna Metro Station, which is the recently opened Silver Line. Maple Avenue in Vienna becomes Chain Bridge when it gets to Oakton.

Settlers first came to Vienna in the mid 1700’s but Oakton was settled later, in the 1800’s. In the mid 1800’s it was known as Flint Hill. The Flint Hill Schoolhouse was built in 1850. In 1883 a post office was built next to an Oak Tree and that is how Oakton got its name. But that’s not the last we will hear of the name “Flint Hill.” Read on.

In Oakton, you will find homes at a variety of price points, but the range isn’t what you see in neighboring Vienna. Oakton is further out, a little more suburban and the prices for single family homes are from $800,000 to $2M. Prices pretty steadily move from the $800’s to the $1.2M range, then the number of homes for sale drops off. There are a few jumps in price for larger homes or larger lots but there are not a huge amount of homes over $1.3M for sale here.

There are teardowns here but they are not as ubiquitous as you see in Vienna or McLean. There is a lot of housing here from the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s and the house types built then wasn’t the rambler. Often you will see that these homes are center hall colonials or split levels which are larger and can often be renovated or added on to instead of being demolished.

Condos in Oakton start in the mid $200’s and go to about the $400,000’s. Townhouses are in the mid $400’s to the $800’s.

Oakton just has Giant. If you want other options, you can head east to Vienna where there is another Giant, Whole Foods, Fresh Market – all off Maple Avenue. Harris Teeter is a bit south near 66.

There are a few mom and pop type restaurants here, but for the most part you will be venturing east to Vienna or Tyson’s, or west to Fairfax Corner Shopping Area which has a huge selection of restaurants.

There is a little shopping in Oakton. You can get the basics along Maple Avenue, which is now called Chain Bridge, in a few different shopping centers. If you can’t find what you need in Oakton, you will either venture over to Vienna to hit Maple Avenue, which is the Main Street of Vienna or to Tyson’s Corner for all the options there. From Oakton it’s also super easy to head west to Fair Oaks Mall or Fairfax Corner Shopping Center where there’s a movie theatre and some shops and restaurants.

In Oakton, the Recreation Center is actually not an Oakton facility but a county one. Oak Marr Recreation Center has an Olympic size pool, gym and a mini golf course. There are fitness classes as well as classes and camps for kids and a golf center.

The W & OD (Washington and Old Dominion) Trail goes right through Vienna just a couple miles to the east. The entire trail is 45 miles and runs from Shirlington in South Arlington to Purcellville, Virginia.

Wolftrap is a national park for performing arts. Lots of concerts happen here during the season, May – September, of all music types, dance performances, opera.

People move to Oakton for the same reasons anyone would move to a sought after suburb. The family activities are plentiful, the living isn’t hectic and the schools are good. In Oakton, almost 33% of the households have children under the age of 18.

Elementary schools in Oakton are either Oakton, Flint Hill or Waples Mill. Flint Hill elementary is different from Flint Hill School, which is a private K-12 in Oakton. The middle schools are Thoreau, Jackson or Franklin. For High Schools, homes in Oakton feed to either Madison or Oakton High School. Those looking for Advanced Academics you can go to Sunrise Valley in Reston for elementary, and Jackson again for middle.

Madison’s academic programs include AP classes, Global Classroom with partnerships with Colombia and France, and Residential Governor’s Programs for 10th and 11th graders interested in Visual and Performing Arts. They have a separate website, Warhawk Sports, with information about the sports at Madison. They have a really robust sports program – Football, Tennis, Cross Country, Field Hockey, Dance, Golf, Basketball, Baseball, Crew, Softball, Lacrosse, Track. They have a ton of sports fields, it is incredibly impressive.

Oakton High School also offers AP classes and tons of sports. They also have a separate website for sports, offering Football, Volleyball, Tennis, Cross Country, Field Hockey, Dance, Golf, Basketball, Baseball, Crew, Softball, Lacrosse, Track. They also have a robust program of clubs and honor societies.

Borge Street Park in Oakton has a playground and basketball court.

On the border of Vienna and Oakton is Nottoway Park which is a huge county park with a playground, sports fields, tennis courts and picnicking. In the summer there is a concert series.

Dogs are well represented in Oakton. One of the best specialty vets in the area is in Vienna – Hope Vet. You can see them for general veterinary visits, but they have ophthalmology, cardiology, and oncology. Oakton has the well rated Hunter Mill Animal Hospital.

Oakton has Blake Lane Dog Park.

VIENNA, VA — Graduation rates remain strong for Vienna area public high schools, according to Virginia Department of Education data.

The on-time graduation rate data released last week showed Fairfax County Public Schools had an overall rate of 94.2 percent, comparable to 94.6 percent in 2021. James Madison High School, Oakton High School and George C. Marshall High School had rates above the school division and state averages.

James Madison High School's on-time graduation rate of 98.1 percent was above the school division average of 94.2 percent and the state average of 92.1 percent. It is also up from Madison High School's 97.8 percent on-time graduation rate in 2021.

Find out what's happening in Viennawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In the neighboring Oakton High School, the on-time graduation rate was 97.8 percent, compared to 98.2 percent in 2021.

George C. Marshall High School, which serves some Vienna area students outside the Town of Vienna, had an on-time graduation rate of 94.9 percent. In 2021, the school had a rate of 97.4 percent.

Find out what's happening in Viennawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The school district continues to see gaps between different student groups, although all student groups had improvements in on-time graduation rates across FCPS from 2018 to 2022.

Here is a breakdown of graduation rates for different student groups at FCPS:

According to FCPS, the school division's on-time graduation rate trends "reflect the impact of long-term programmatic reforms, targeted school support structures, staffing investments, and intentional student engagement and intervention strategies." School divisions have also benefited from state graduation flexibilities introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic school closures, although fewer flexibilities are in place compared to 2021. State flexibilities will continue to be rolled back in the coming years.

More on-time graduation rate data is available on the School Quality Profile for Fairfax County Public Schools. From there, click on individual high schools to see school-level data.

OAKTON, VA — Few invasive species may be is deceptively named as the Tree of Heaven. It grows quickly, is tough to kill, and the spotted lanternfly — an annoyingly invasive insect species — love to eat it. Maybe it was the bugs that came up with the name.

On Friday, representatives from Dominion Energy presented the Fairfax County Park Authority with a $20,000 check to help remove the Tree of Heaven from Blake Lane Park in Oakton

"The park foundation was granted the $20,000 from Dominion Energy for reforesting Blake Lane Park," said Patricia Pearl Greenberg, an ecologist and invasive management area program manager with Fairfax County.

Find out what's happening in Oaktonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The foundation received funding from the county's urban forest management division to help with the Tree of Heaven removal effort at the park

"We need to reforest," Greenberg said. "We want to replace this invasive species with native trees to create a healthy wildlife habitat. With those $20,000, we're going to use some of the funds to help with prepping the site and then to purchase the trees and the supplies to protect those trees."

Find out what's happening in Oaktonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Last fall Jennifer Progress, Fairfax County's invasive management area site leader, led a team of volunteers to begin removing other invasive species from the park, such as bush honeysuckle.

"That's when it came to light that there was this many Tree of Heaven at this park.," Greenburg said. "When we realized there was funding coming for Tree of Heaven removal and efforts to control spotted lanternfly from urban forest management division, we said, 'Hey, this is a great opportunity to help support volunteers and help restore a park.'"

Tree of Heaven spreads quickly and removing it can be difficult, according to Greenberg. The trunk of the tree is easy to cut, but unless herbicide is applied to the stump, the remaining tree will send signals to the roots, which will begin sending out feelers underground.

"It's a constant flow of work to try to reduce the invasives and now we're dealing with the spotted lanternfly," Providence District Supervisor Dalia Palchik said, on Friday morning. "The $20,000 from Dominion will really help win those efforts, especially here at Blake Lane Park. It's great to get sponsors who are able to help enhance that work and help enhance what the volunteers are able to do."

Fairfax County has information available online on how to identify and remove the Tree of Heaven. Residents can also find more information about how to report the spotted lanternfly. Reports can also be emailed to ReportSLF@fairfaxcounty.gov.

By Wilson Weingast of Lake Braddock Secondary School

"Take me back to a time before I was aware of time." We can't stay young forever, but in times of difficulty, we often turn to the memories of our youth.

Wendy and Peter Pan is a progressive retelling of J. M. Barrie's classic novel Peter Pan. First commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2013, the script by Ella Hickson, reimagines the original in which Wendy is not a femme fatale. Rather, through her own courage, she is able to save her family from Captain Hook, and restore joy to all.

Find out what's happening in Oaktonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The Darling family is trying to cope with the death of their youngest son, Tom (Nate Hampel). One year after his untimely death, Mr. and Mrs. Darling (John Poncy and Sarah Driessen) are constantly fighting, struggling to keep their home life together. The other two sons, John (Carson Harter) and Michael (Ben Miller), turn to their older sister Wendy (Gwen Ihde) for support. While Wendy has always been the mother figure to her siblings, she must figure out how to handle her own grief before she can comfort them. One night, she meets the boisterous Peter Pan (Colt Craddock), the boy who won't grow up. Peter takes Wendy, John, and Michael to Neverland, where they befriend the sassy fairy, Tink (Kaitlyn McCarley), the fearless Tiger Lily (Zahraa Hussain), and a band of Lost Boys. Wendy believes that if she goes to Neverland, she will find Tom and bring him home. In her quest, Wendy must fight Captain Hook (Kyumin Kim) and his swashbuckling crew.

Oakton's production sparkled with amazing performances. In the titular roles, Ihde and Craddock were phenomenal. They played off each other seamlessly, in serious and comedic scenes alike. While Ihde was more reserved, Craddock was brimming with energy. Their dynamic progressed through the show, with their evolution from friends to romantic interests appearing authentic.

Find out what's happening in Oaktonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The Pirates and the Lost Boys ensembles were the backbone of the show. Using their strong physicality, both groups became an extension of the set, drawing the audience into the fantastical world of Neverland. The ensembles never left a dull moment, creating space for the other actors to shine.

Additionally, Oakton's technical department was superb. From Shane Roy's set to the lighting by JJ Feeny and River Le, the designers used colors and textures to complement the characters on stage. This was underscored by the three major locations of the show: The Jolly Roger, The Forest, and The Darling Nursery. Each space was associated with a specific color - red, green, and blue respectively - and all technical elements incorporated those colors effectively.

Highlighting the major conflicts of the story were the fights, masterfully choreographed by Pyro Maguire. Maguire tailored each battle to the character. Whereas professional buccaneers, such as Hook, were more elegant with their swordplay, the Lost Boys and Peter moved sporadically. The contrast made for entertaining duels, infusing the show with a sense of peril and excitement.

Wendy and Peter Pan deals with difficult subjects centering around childhood. How do we let go of our past, but keep the happy memories alive? With Hook fighting and succumbing to time, personified as a crocodile, and the Darling children trying to remember the good times with Tom, we see why embracing our childhood is so important.

Oakton reminded us of what it is like to be a kid again. With their heartwarming production, Oakton High School took us back to a time when life was easier, back when we all believed in fairies.

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