As the 2022-2023 school year comes to a close, award season begins. This past month there were two award ceremonies that together, recognized the Preforming Arts Department here at GHS.

On Monday May 15th the band, marching band, and color guard were all invited to an awards banquet to celebrate the year’s accomplishments. The awards include Beiriger Band Award, Beginning Band Award, many ISSMA awards, letters patches and chevrons, the passing of the mace, as well as a collection of individual awards. There was also a special celebration for all of their seniors who will be graduating this year and retiring from Griffith Band. After all of the letters and patches were given out, one of the biggest awards begun, the passing of the mace to the new drum majors for the marching band. The 2023-2024 Drum Majors were announced, Adriana Estrada and Benjamin Carrilo. The last awards of the night were the individual awards like the crescendo award and the Louis Armstrong jazz award for the jazz band. The award ceremony was a great end to a successful year.

On Wednesday May 10 the Choir and Theatre Awards were held in the auditorium. Performances were given by seniors Elijah Neal, Ashley Taylor, and Peyton Stojakovich. The students that received the Gold Rating Soloists award on behalf on ISSMA Solo were Natalie Edwards-Watkins, Jeremiah Fuentes, Paige Hale, Payton McClain, Elijah Neal, Peyton Stojakovich, and Ashley Taylor. Two outstanding students, Elijah Neal and Ashley Taylor, received the National School Choral award for the year of 2023.

On the Theatre end, students were given letter for both performance and technical as well as students who have double or even triple lettered, receiving stars. The awards night recognized all the student thespians. One notable award was the Student Choice Best Thespian Award which was voted on by all the students in theatre. The recipient of this award was Elijah Neal. Other notable awards were Best Overall Acting— Ashley Taylor, Best Overall Vocal— Maxwell Archambault, Best Hair Crew— Sarah Issa, and multiple more similar awards, each emphasizing a different aspect of theatre. A select few students received an Honor Bar, an award that is given to students who have received 60 thespian points, or 600 hours in Theatre. There was also one student who received the National Honor Bar, which is 120 points in theatre or 1,200 hours. This student was the Griffith Theatre Company’s State Thespian Officer, Julia Gonzalez. There was also a slideshow recognizing all the seniors in theatre. Seniors who exceeded 50-60 points were also given graduation cords and stoles accordingly to celebrate their accomplishments.

Additionally, the three biggest theatre awards were announced at Recognition Night on May 17th. These awards were The Griffith Theatre Company Award, The Thespian Award, and The Micheal Goffredo Award. The recipients of these awards were Destiny Magaña-Stokes, Nathan Pinkleton, and Elijah Neal respectively.

Congratulations to all students who got an award these past few weeks and making Griffith Preforming Arts have such a successful season.