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<< Start < Prev 1 2 Next > End >>By Penny Fletcher
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GIBSONTON — When 5-year-old Krista Pelham danced, sang and made up skits for her family and friends she had no way of knowing she was setting the stage for the rest of her life.
Now, at 36, Mrs. Pelham-Taylor has been teaching for the Hillsborough County School District 11 years and says she’s very fortunate to be at East Bay High School where she can devote all her time to the dramatic arts.
“Most high schools have part-time drama teachers now. They have to squeeze in their classes and performances while also teaching other subjects. East Bay takes the arts very seriously so I get to work with students every period of the day, and rehearse after school. We have also formed our own traveling theater company,” she told me in an interview at the school Feb. 1. Besides her full time position at the high school, Krista is also an adjunct theater professor at the Brandon campus of Hillsborough Community College and is affiliated with Powerstories Theater of Tampa as a Girlstories instructor.
Her own training includes college at the University of Central Florida followed by a Master’s Degree from the University of Mississippi in Oxford.
Krista says she never doubted what she wanted to do with her life. All through school, when the guidance counselors would ask her what she wanted to study, she never once changed her mind.
“While in undergraduate school I wanted to work in professional theater but when I got to graduate school, I decided I’d rather teach and direct,” she said.
She started several theater companies while taking courses at “Ole Miss” which gave her the experience to teach her East Bay students how to form and run a theater company.
 Now she teaches Drama 1 classes for students who need their performing arts credits; Drama 2 classes for advanced students who want to get into the trade, and a stagecraft class to teach about scenery, technology, making costumes and sets.
“They do everything, even supply the snacks for intermission during shows (at the school) and clean the theater,” she said.
“They find out if they’re really serious about touring theater after packing the truck and doing several shows (at elementary schools) in one day,” she said. The theater company has a general manager, and people that fill all the jobs a real theater company would have, she added. “And they can be ‘hired’ and ‘fired’ just like in real life.”
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