Voting for Awards

Preparing For Voting Day

At the end of the year, you and your fellow Critics will vote to determine who is nominated for and wins Cappies awards. You'll be presented with the Critic's Choices (by actor name, versus character name) in each category and asked to score them in three ways, as shown below. Keep in mind that if you are the Critics' Choice in any category for your school's show, you won't get to vote for anyone in that category.

Before voting day, you may want to refresh your memory about the shows you saw by looking over the programs, your notes, and your reviews. (To see your reviews as kept by CIS, go to the "View your submitted reviews" page at www.cappies.com/cis and click on the name of a show.) You may bring notes with you to the voting place. When you get there, you will also be able to see your Critics' Choices sheets with the notes you made at each show.

The Voting Process 

On voting day, you'll check in, pick up your Critics' Choices sheets, receive voting instructions, and be directed to the in-house computers, where you will vote in all three of the following ways.

Evaluation Scores

Give each Critics' Choice (from the shows you saw) a score from 1 (poor) to 10 (professional quality). You may use the same score you wrote on your Critics' Choices sheet at the show or you may adjust it up or down. Remember to keep your scoring average somewhere between a 5 and a 6.

Tie-Breakers

 Rank the candidates within each category. If you gave the same score to more than one candidate, still rank one above the other. For instance, if you gave three candidates a score of 6, designate them as 6A, 6B, and 6C, with "A" being higher than "B", and "B" higher than "C".

Nomination and Award Points

Give points to those candidates you think deserve nominations or awards. You will have five nomination points and one award point to distribute for every show you reviewed. (For instance, if you reviewed five shows, you'll have 25 nomination points and 5 award points to distribute.) You must give out all the points you earn, and one-fifth are to go to tech categories. You may give these points to candidates in several shows or in one show, but you may only give one of each kind of point to any one candidate.

How Results Are Calculated

When voting is over, the following scores are calculated for each candidate:

• a mean evaluation score (the mean of the evaluation scores received from Critics),
• a nomination point score (the number of nomination points received by a candidate,
  • divided by the number of Critics who saw their show), and
  • an award point score (the number of award points received by a candidate, divided by the number of Critics who saw their show).
• Nominations and awards are based on a combination of these scores – with tie-breaker rankings used as needed. The nominations will be announced a day or two after voting.

Multiple nominations

A candidate may receive only one performing-category nomination or award and one non-performing-category nomination or award per show. If a candidate earns enough votes to merit more than one nomination or award, the candidate will be nominated or awarded in the more prestigious category (for performing categories) or the category in which they are listed alone (for non-performing categories).

Voting Irregularities

Any possible outcome-swaying "gaming" or "strategic voting" by critics is observable in the results, with program officials retaining the authority to disqualify any votes that they, the auditor, and an international Cappies official conclude were not cast objectively.  Students participating in such behavior will be removed from Cappies.  At the discretion of the steering committee, the critics’ school may be put on probation or removed from the program.

Critic Awards

 Awards for Critic' teams  and individual Critics are based half on how many reviews you do and half on how many of them get picked for publication (with extra credit given for selection for the major newspaper).

Special Awards

Your chapter's Steering Committee may give one Special Award for Service per year. This is for extraordinary service on behalf of the Cappies or high-school theatre in general. There will be no nominees, only a winner will be named in this category.

The Awards Gala 

At the end of the year, the nominees will be applauded and the Cappie awards will be given – in a style reminiscent of the Tonys – at the Cappies gala. This is the night where the talents of actors, dancers, singers, costumers, set-builders, sound people, Critics, and so forth are acknowledged. It's everybody's turn to shine.

The gala is a formal event, so everybody's dressed up – which adds to the electric atmosphere. Schools cheer for their classmates and for the talents from other schools. Excerpts from some of the shows are presented, and the winners make short, excited, acceptance speeches. As a Critic, you helped make it all possible. Enjoy!