The Jerry Awards is one of Wisconsin’s high school musical awards programs that recognizes and honors excellence in the musical theater. 

This year the GHS Musical Footloose was nominated for numerous awards and won four of them. “The Jerry awards is a Wisconsin high school musical theater program to have high school musicals judged and adjudicated to lift up good high school talent at the show and individual level,” director Jeff Schaetzke said.

 This year’s individual nominees came in lead performer and supporting performer categories. GHS was also nominated for outstanding ensemble, stage crew, overall design, and orchestra. The entire production staff was also nominated. 

“It’s always good to lift up good high school talent at the sports or performing arts level.  GHS has a great tradition in poms, cheer, music, sports and performing arts, and we do love to enter competitions and see how we measure up,” Schaetzke said. “The Jerry Awards are not the reason we do musicals at all, but it’s a nice parallel program to celebrate our work and other schools.”

Senior Ella Vitrano won for outstanding leading performance for her portrayal of Ariel.

“I definitely was not expecting to win. Although I thought that I did a good job in Footloose, I knew a lot of people who were nominated who are just as, if not even more talented than I am, she said. Something else I kept in mind was that the awards themselves, like all art, can be subjective.”

“Not all of the judges liked the way that I played my role and sometimes that’s just how it is with theater and art in general. Not everyone is going to love you. So I definitely made sure to not get my hopes up. But I was so incredibly excited and grateful that I won,” she added.

Senior Elle Pierzchalski won two awards for outstanding supporting performance and the Spirit Award for the portrayal of Wendy Jo. The Spirit Award is given to the student who displays the spirit of Jerry Awards, someone who’s hard-working, inspirational to their fellow cast/crew mates and encourages others.

 “I did not expect to win. There were so many other incredible performances by my fellow castmates that I did not consider it a possibility for me to win. But it felt great to know someone appreciates what I work so hard on,” Pierzchalski said.

Freshman Kyla Bassler also won for outstanding supporting performance. “It showed me who supports and loves me . Definitely will push me to work harder in future shows to try and achieve this award again,” Bassler said.

Scaetzke also shared how proud he was. “I’m very proud of our 29 nominations this year.  What I love about them is that it’s not just the leads, but they really recognized character roles and great scene work.  Greendale should be proud,” he said.