Lake Mary teacher channels Broadway experience into student confidence

Trevor Southworth did not just arrive in Seminole County as a theater teacher. He brought with him the habits of a working performer, the memory of larger stages in New York, and the kind of creative discipline that changes what students believe they can do. At Lake Mary High School, that background is shaping more than productions. It is helping Seminole County teenagers find their voices, push past nerves, and step into roles they once thought were out of reach.

From New York stages to Lake Mary classrooms

Southworth spent about a decade in the New York theater world before he and his wife, Rebecca Southworth, moved into education. That transition is central to understanding why his classroom feels different from a standard school program. He is not teaching theater as a distant academic subject. He is drawing on years of firsthand experience in a profession where timing, focus, and confidence matter every time the curtain rises.

Rebecca Southworth now serves as an assistant principal at Lake Mary High School, giving the couple an unusual full-circle connection to the school where both of them now work. Their move into education was not an abrupt career change so much as a continuation of the same creative path, carried into a new setting. For Seminole County students, that means the lessons are coming from someone who has lived the pressure, excitement, and discipline of the stage firsthand.

The profile of Southworth makes clear that theater was never just a hobby or a résumé line. It was the environment that shaped how he thinks, how he performs, and now how he teaches. That history matters because students can tell when a teacher is speaking from experience rather than theory, especially in an art form built on trust, rehearsal, and repetition.

What students gain from his approach

The most compelling part of Southworth’s teaching is not simply that he knows theater. It is that he knows what theater can do for a young person. He describes the most rewarding moments in teaching as watching students reach the instant when something clicks, whether they discover theater for the first time, land a note they thought was beyond them, or pull off a character moment that once felt intimidating.

That kind of breakthrough is more than a class exercise. For many students, it becomes a visible change in how they carry themselves. One day they are hesitant to speak, sing, or commit to a scene; later they are willing to take the risk because they have already seen proof that they can succeed. Southworth’s background gives him the instinct to recognize those moments and build toward them.

At Lake Mary High School, the practical benefits of that approach show up in multiple ways:

• Students gain confidence by doing difficult things in front of others.
• They learn to take risks without fear that one mistake defines the whole performance.
• They build discipline through rehearsal, memorization, and timing.
• They discover abilities, vocal, emotional, and physical, that they did not realize they had.

Those outcomes matter because theater asks students to combine vulnerability with control. A young performer has to listen, respond, adapt, and keep going when nerves hit. Southworth’s teaching style appears designed to help students do exactly that.

Why theater matters beyond the stage

Southworth’s story also underscores why arts education can have a lasting effect in a county like Seminole, where families often weigh school programs by the opportunities they create. Theater is not only about applause, costumes, or the final performance. In Southworth’s classroom, it becomes a training ground for confidence, communication, and persistence.

That matters locally because schools are often the first place students encounter a skill that can shape their future. A student who enters theater for the first time may not yet know whether they are headed for a stage career, another creative field, or something entirely different. What they do know, after working with a teacher like Southworth, is that they can stretch beyond the version of themselves they started with.

The Lake Mary profile frames that growth as deeply personal. Southworth remembers the moment in high school when seeing *Phantom of the Opera* changed his life and made him decide he wanted a future in theater. That memory still drives his teaching. He wants students at Lake Mary High to feel the same sense of possibility and transformation he felt as a teenager, when one performance opened a door that had not seemed visible before.

That is what gives his classroom its local importance. Seminole County is not just getting a theater program. It is getting a teacher who understands how one art form can alter a student’s trajectory, especially when that student has never before seen themselves as a performer, a singer, or even a confident speaker.

A full-circle story rooted in experience

The Southworths’ move into education gives this profile its deepest sense of continuity. After about ten years in New York theater, both Trevor and Rebecca Southworth found their way to Lake Mary High School and into roles that shape students’ daily lives. He brings the stage into the classroom; she helps lead the school as an assistant principal. Together, they represent a rare kind of career arc, one where artistic experience did not end but became part of public education in Seminole County.

That full-circle path matters because it helps explain the tone of Southworth’s teaching. He is not asking students to chase applause for its own sake. He is teaching them how to grow through theater, how to trust themselves, and how to work through the uncertainty that comes with performing in front of others. For students at Lake Mary High School, that can mean more than a strong production. It can mean a new level of confidence that follows them long after the final curtain.