Citrus High director and students describe statewide festival wins, invite community to spring musical

Kristin Leander, director of theater at Citrus High School, told the Citrus County School Board that Citrus students recently participated in the state theater festival and earned top honors, and she invited the public to the school’s spring musical April 24–26.

Leander, speaking during the board’s citizen-comments portion, described a year of productions, student leadership roles and festival work that she said build “time management, problem solving, collaboration” and other skills students can list on college applications and resumes. “It is my honor to be here today. Thank you so much,” she said.

The program’s participation included a large statewide festival in Tampa, which Leander said drew “over 10,000 students.” She said Citrus High’s one-act entry, The Dining Room, was selected as a top-honor one-act and received the highest score in its event. Leander said the students who staffed the statewide festival — about 25 to 30 from Citrus High this year — planned and ran the event’s logistics and attended master classes with visiting performers.

Two seniors addressed the board about what theater has meant to them. Elena Nick, introduced as a Citrus High senior and president of the school’s drama club, said theater had helped her build confidence and offered “the opportunity to connect with people from all over the state.” Isabella Hollingsworth, also a Citrus High senior and a member of the Florida Thespian State Executive Staff and the International Thespian Society, said the festival “has the power to connect thousands of people” and that theater “teaches us empathy, collaboration, and the joy of self-expression.”

Leander said she is in her 24th year at Citrus High and has taken students to the state festival each year of her tenure. She highlighted extracurricular programming — a main-stage fall play, district 12 preliminaries, junior festival outreach with middle-school students, student-directed one-act plays, the state festival in March and a spring musical — as opportunities that give students practical leadership experience and community-service hours she estimated can total up to about 200 for some students.

Leander requested attendance and community support for the spring musical, The Drowsy Chaperone, which she said runs April 24–26. She also noted alumni and school leaders attended the recent festival performance at a larger regional venue, which she said gave Citrus students an opportunity to perform before a larger audience than the school’s own auditorium.

Votes at a glance: During the meeting’s agenda setup, the board adopted the agenda with a correction to an educational-services item. The motion to adopt the agenda was made by Mister Franklin and seconded by Mister Faraday; the board voted in favor and the agenda was adopted with that correction.

The presentation and student remarks were delivered during the citizen-comments segment of the meeting and did not include board action on theater program funding or curricular policy. Board members did not propose new directives or formal motions related to theater programming during the presentation; the board’s formal action at that point was limited to adopting the meeting agenda with the noted correction.