Pell City’s CEPA awards held a Spotlight Awards show to celebrate all of the shows that were performed in the last year. “Camp Rock,” performed by Moody High School in May 2021 was named show of the year.

The decision was made based on an online poll, which was open to the community. 

The event was organized by Jeff Thompson, CEPA executive director, Shelby Duke, Spotlight coordinator and Nicholas Fason, Spotlight Studio coordinator. 

Awards were also given in categories of kids, high school and community. Some of the subcategories included best actor, actress and technical work recognition. 

Tristan Gressett performed two of his original songs between categories. Gressett has plans to audition for American Idol later this year. 

“If you don’t know Tristan Gressett, you will soon,” said Thompson. “He’s performed in all the Pell City shows since I’ve been here, and recently he’s been chasing another passion, his music.”

Later, Spotlight Studio, a program started from a need to perform in a digital format due to the pandemic, campaigned for their upcoming project, “Sem;colon.” 

Thompson said that, led by Pell City High School, Spotlight Studio is going to explore aftermath of a pandemic that led a lot of young people into isolation and mental health issues. 

“Our hope that working together as a community, by talking about the struggles that our youth are facing internally, we can really make a difference,” said Thompson.

Anna Claire Hathorn, director of “Sem;colon,” said the production began as a silent film she created for a class assignment. Now, Hathorn and her fellow students are working to create a podcast and short film from the idea. 

“We created project ‘Sem;colon’ to shine light on mental health and suicide across all ages. This story shows the life of a teenage girl and her struggles with her mental health and suicidal thoughts,” said Hathorn. 

Further into the show, performers from Shakespeare Project from Jacksonville State University presented a scene from their upcoming production, “Romeo and Juliet.” CEPA will host the show and admission will be free for the community later this year.

At the end of the show Thompson took the opportunity to celebrate his five-year mark of being the CEPA executive director. He said he was thankful and loved the community CEPA has created that has allowed so many to do what they love. 

“Five years ago we started this thing with the idea that there would be enough of you to show this community that theater was important. You’ve let this community know that what you love is important and that’s what I love,” said Thompson.