Backstage drama taints Cappies program.

Byline: Karen McCowan / The Register-Guard

THE GOAL: Give local high school thespians some of the same publicity routinely showered on high school athletes.

The result: Hundreds of area kids saw their theatrical efforts spotlighted in the newspaper this school year, thanks to reviews written by peer critics through the Eugene-Springfield Cappies program.

If local drama students enjoyed a degree of the public attention that athletes enjoy, however, they also got a taste of one of the worst problems in youth sports: poor behavior by the "adults" involved.

To be sure, what occurred here with the Cappies this spring comes nowhere near the notorious "Hockey Dad" case, in which an irate parent killed a coach.

But adult power struggles, squabbles and e-mail "flames" nearly killed the fledgling Cappies program this spring.

In fact, a gala Cappies Awards Night planned at the McDonald Theatre on June 15 has been canceled. Nearly all of the local Cappies advisory board has resigned - including program director Maida Belove, who had done a stellar job of greasing the skids between the organization and The Register-Guard.

The Cappies will limp to the end of this school year - with a scaled-down June 15 awards picnic - under acting program directors Jonathan Siegle and Al Villanueva. Siegle, theater teacher at Springfield High School, was a driving force in training and organizing student reviewers. Villanueva, drama teacher at North Eugene High School, was the teacher representative on the advisory board.

As a Cappies volunteer who spent some off-duty time selecting and editing student reviews, I had the misfortune of seeing some of those destructive e-mails. Because I wasn't privy to all the conflicts - and because those I did see boiled down to "worst moment " power struggles between people who had spent countless hours helping kids work the magic that is high school theater - I won't name names.

Suffice it to say that some local drama teachers disagreed with what one called the "anal" rules of the national Cappies organization. Some also objected to the awards gala planned by the now-defunct advisory board.

TO UNDERSTAND, you may need a bit of back-story: The Cappies were launched four years ago in Washington, D.C. Bill Strauss, co-founder of the Capitol Steps political comedy troupe, persuaded The Washington Post to run student-written reviews of area high school shows.

When Strauss came to Eugene as a conference speaker in early 2001, he talked to local drama teachers and to me about creating a Cappies program here. (There are now Cappies in Cincinnati, Dallas, El Paso and Las Vegas, as well.)

Siegle, a former journalist, immediately stepped up to recruit and train student reviewers. The Register-Guard features department, impressed by the quality of Cappies reviews in the Post, agreed to make space available.

Things appeared to run smoothly until April, when the nasty e-mails began flying and board members announced their resignations.

Among the sources of contention:

The nature and scope of the gala awards presentation - including some objections to making the event competitive by singling out a "best" performance in various categories.

A dispute over who should pick award nominees, student reviewers or adult directors.

Disagreement over whether the adult director of a show should sit in on student critics' discussions of it.

While the first two concerns may be matters of local preference, I agree with Strauss that the latter two go to the heart of the program's impartiality and critic autonomy. And, without the latter attribute, I'm not sure newspapers would make space available for reviews.

Which would be a real loss.

As a volunteer editor, I've been wowed by unfailingly high-quality and constructive student reviews. Sitting in on a "Cappies Night" at Sheldon High, I've been impressed by Siegle's seizing of teachable moments as he engaged a dozen bright teens in a witty discussion of the challenges posed by "Brigadoon."

As a community member, I've seen Cappies reviews persuade readers to attend high school shows they would never otherwise have heard of.

I'd hate to see us part ways with the Cappies organization for another reason.

Thanks to the clout of the D.C.-based group, two local kids will get a Big Time opportunity this summer: The best actor and best actress selected by each Cappies affiliate - including Eugene-Springfield, will be automatically accepted into Paramount Studios' otherwise "audition-only" Hollywood Musical Theater Camp for high school students this summer.

"Some really yucky stuff did happen this year," Villanueva said. "But what really matters is opportunities for our kids."