On September 23rd, several South High theatre students attended the Ivey Awards, an award show that several students called “Minneapolis’s Tony Awards”. For students, the  show was eight dollars and included a teen only pre-party, a general admission to the award show, and an invite to the after party. Students got to intermingle with actors from other schools and see Minnesotan performers receive acknowledgement for their artistic talents.

“It was really awesome because it was Minnesotan actors and they got recognized not for basic things . . .  it was for their artistic methods,” Junior Sarah Doll recalled.

Not only did students attend the Ivey Awards, one South student got to assist with planning the pre-party. Senior classmen, Haris Erpelding, was on the Teen Pre-Party Planning Committee. Erpelding had been planning the Teen Pre-Party since last spring with ten to fifteen other theatre students from Southwest and Washburn High Schools. The party was hosted at the Le Meridien Chambers Hotel in Minneapolis and featured a DJ, served refreshments, and was an overall good opportunity for teen actors and techs to meet other artists.

“It was an event to get theatre students talking to each other, a networking kind of thing,” Erpelding stated, “It was was a lot of fun, the people were really nice.”

After the party, the teens headed to the State Theatre to tryout walking the red carpet with many professional performers, directors, designers, and other people who are a part of the Minnesota theatre community.

“There was kind of a paparazzi,” said Erpelding, “ten people taking pictures with flash photography. It was the city pages actually, and they posted it [online].”

For the South High students, the Ivey Awards was interesting for different reasons. To Haris Erpelding, it was interesting to find out what was going on in the Minnesota theatre community. She said, “I like going to the Iveys because I get to find out what’s going on, like, ‘oh that went really well, awesome.’”

Doll added,“I would definitely go again. I go just because I’m in the theatre at South and we get a discount so I might as well [go].”