Appleton North Theatre Takes 25th Consecutive Critic’s Choice Award at State Competition

APPLETON, WI (WTAQ) — For the 25th year in a row; they’ve done it again.

After performing their one act play, Metamorphoses, at the 2023 Wisconsin Interscholastic Theatre Festival State competition at UW-Green Bay, Appleton North High School Theatre has taken home their 25th consecutive critic’s choice award.

Every fall, qualifying high schools from around the state compete with a timed 40 minute one act play. That means crews must put up the set, perform, and take it down in that time frame. Plays that go over 40 minutes are automatically disqualified.

A panel of four judges, who are theatre professionals, pay close attention to acting technique and production quality. They may give awards for outstanding acting, outstanding direction, outstanding ensemble, outstanding crew, and the highest honor of all; the critic’s choice award.

Director Ronald Parker reflected on the performance after their show on Friday:

“It was wonderful. They received a sustained standing ovation after the show which was very cool, and they had wonderful comments from the judges,” said Parker. “They were at their best and they really opened up all the floodgates and did their very best. It’s very cool when it all pays off.”

Although this was North’s 25th consecutive win, North actually has 27 critic’s choice awards under their belt.

Parker became the theatre teacher at North in 1999. When North first opened in 1995, the theatre department was led by Roger Danielson.

Danielson participated in one act every other year, and took home two critics choice awards for their one act performances in 1995 and 1997.

At the 2023 state festival, North Junior Kai Handwerker won an outstanding acting award for their performance as Hunger.

“The judge said he really liked Hunger’s movement and I put a lot of work into that so I was really proud of that. But I thought that was the peak,” said Handwerker. “Then he called my name for an acting award and I was like ‘Really? Is this real? This is happening?! Oh my goodness!’”

Senior Eryn Lemmert also received an acting award for playing Midas. She noted how one act is really a team effort.

“Maybe you bring in one crate. If that one crate isn’t brought in, all of a sudden the entire set isn’t built and show show can’t happen,” said Lemmert. “Every person is just as important as the next person, and that feels so great because you know every single person is just as dedicated as you are.”

With teamwork comes overcoming obstacles together. Cast and crew said putting a pool of water on stage presented its challenges.

“Figuring out how we would get all of that off the stage at the end, then realizing we needed to bring in towels and but those under the pool, making sure to always have a bucket and passing the towels out, that was something really big to overcome,” said sophomore stage manager Mya Ballerstein.

One of North’s judges last year at the state competition when they performed Treasure Island was a judge for them this year, too. Parker describes an interaction between them:

“I said ‘You were one of our adjudicators last year’ and he said ‘Really? What’s the show you did?’ I said ‘Treasure Island’ and his eyes became the size of saucers and his jaw dropped and he said ‘You’re that school? You’re the one who did that? I talked about you all year last year. Now I’m going to talk about this show all year’ and that was very gratifying,” said Parker.

In all, Appleton North is going home with two outstanding acting awards, outstanding ensemble award, outstanding technical theatre Award, director’s award, and the 25th consecutive critic’s choice.

Photos from Metamorphoses