The Elsie Allen theater players returned home from their stay in London and performance run at Scotland’s Edinburgh Fringe Fest just in time for the start of school last week.

On Wednesday, the troupe was honored by the Santa Rosa School Board.

“You have made your community very proud,” said board member Donna Jeye.

Andrea Carrillo, an Elsie senior who wrote the one-act play “Happiness” that was performed in Scotland, said the whole trip blew her away.

“To see people’s reaction to it and to see how they took it in, I was blown away,” she said. “They showered me with compliments that I never expected to receive from anyone.”

Calling the process “an incredible quest,” drama department chair Rob Burt thanked the board and the community that rallied behind Elsie’s efforts to raise the $63,000 necessary to send nine students and two teacher chaperones on the trip.

“We all travel for enrichment,” he said. “That sense of enrichment is magnified exponentially when you are experiencing something for the very first time. It’s important for students to experience the world first hand. It’s important for them to appreciate and understand the global society in which we live.”

Jeye said the board would honor Montgomery High School, who also sent a theater group to Scotland to perform, at a later board meeting.

A scene from "Happiness"

A scene from "Happiness"

Elsie drama department chair Rob Burt with Jesse Nee-Vogelman, an Elsie grad and current Harvard student who wrote a play that was performed at this year's Fringe Fest.

To read more about Elsie’s trip to Scotland click here: http://bit.ly/ezsZQe and here http://bit.ly/opy5Df and here http://bit.ly/q3owkS