Governor’s Honor Program (GHP) auditions for fine arts programs took place on Monday, November 6. Students came together at Pebblebrook to audition for their spot in the GHP summer program. Theatre, dance, and chorus teachers nominated rising juniors and prepared them for their auditions.

GHP for fine arts gives artistically gifted students the ability to explore their talents and enrich their education specifically in that field. This year’s four-week summer program takes place at Berry College and allows students to receive targeted instruction not usually received in school. 

“I want to be in the GHP program this year to further my dance knowledge and become better as a dancer all around. I just want to do everything I can to make myself the best at what I do,” sophomore Ashley Skaggs said.

Once students arrived at Pebblebrook, they checked in and found the times of their audition panels. The start to each student’s audition begins with an interview. An instructor from that category conducts the interview and creates the basis for the student’s profile.

Instructors ask the students questions relating to future careers in their field and how they handle failure. For theatre, dance, and choral students, their profile moves on to the cold reading instructor, but for visual art students, the audition ends there.

At a cold reading, each student gets no time to rehearse their piece, forcing them to quickly adjust to the role. This shows the judges the student’s ability to snap into character and jump right on a task or role and nail it.

For theatre students, the audition then continues on to an improvisation section. Judges group up seven to ten students and give them activities to perform. Improv activities include turning a prop into something out of the ordinary. During this year’s audition, the judge gave the group a feather duster, and each student took turns creating a scenario where the feather duster acts as something else. The groups also received exercises to test how well the students listened and reacted with other actors.

If students pass through the county-level audition, they continue on to the state audition in February of 2018. Administration posted the results from this year’s regional auditions on the North Cobb homepage.

“If I don’t get to participate this year, I think for my future audition process it will make me more comfortable. I won’t be as nervous and it might give me a better shot at getting in next year,” Skaggs said.