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By Sofia Watts
GRC Smoke Signals

While many people are too busy keeping up with all the games and sports recently, they may have not heard about what’s happening with the arts here at GRC.

Four GRC students have been selected as GSA finalists.

GSA, Governor’s School For the Arts, is a three-week intense audition-based summer program. Students audition for different artistic majors like drama, musical theatre, vocal, dance, architect and design, creative writing, and photography.

If you pass all the rounds, then, you are able to study your major and learn new skills for three weeks during the summer.

Juniors Hallee Cecil, Ella Cooper, Natalie Shoemaker, and Kylee Stinnett are all finalists for GSA.

Hallee is a musical theatre finalist. “GSA, to me, means that you just have a community of people with the same passion for your art form that you do,” she says. “You’re surrounded by people who love their art form and really take it seriously, whereas, at school, not everyone understands what you do.”

Hallee has always been around the theater community, and so many of her friends have participated in the GSA program.

Ella is a vocal and musical theatre finalist. “GSA is something I have been preparing forever since I entered high school,” she says. “It has been my focus and dream since then.”

Natalie, a drama finalist, got interested as a junior high student. “I was first interested in seventh grade,” she says. “I was in a production with high schoolers at GRC and they were talking about GSA and how incredible the summer program is.”

Kylee is a finalist for instrumental music on clarinet. “GSA is a program that allows young artists to pursue their art form further,” she says. “It can give you knowledge and a further understanding of what your art form means, stands for, and it also focuses on how you can always grow and improve in your art form.”

The GSA program is very important to anyone interested in pursuing a career in the arts because it gives you all the important skills you need to bring your art into the world and make it a better place.

Getting into the GSA program, which is different for each art form, is so much more than just teacher recommendations, an essay, and an interview.

It requires hours and hours of work rehearsing and putting together performance/portfolio submissions.

“It is an honor and accomplishment for these students to have made it through to the final round,” said Fine Arts Cohort leader Katherine Lowther, “as they were chosen over several hundreds of qualified applicants.”