Episode 208: Production Case Study: You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown

Bekah Schneider is a teacher in South Korea and there was a lot to overcome with this production: students not knowing the source material, fear of failure, and doing choreography by Skype. After all that this was her best production experience in 20 years. Listen in to learn why!

Show Notes

• Drama Teacher Academy


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Episode Transcript

Welcome to the Drama Teacher Podcast brought to you by Theatrefolk – the Drama Teacher Resource Company.

I’m Lindsay Price.

Hello! I hope you’re well.

Thanks for listening!

This is Episode 208, and you can find any links to this episode in the show notes which are at Theatrefolk.com/episode208.

Today, we’ve got a production case study. Oh, production case studies are some of my favorite, favorite episodes. I hope you like them, too! I hope you like them, but I like them because I love learning the how and the why behind a production, and this particular conversation is a real treat.

We’re talking musicals today – one particular musical – You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

Our guest today had quite the experience with the show. Little teaser for you! Let’s find out why!

I’ll see you on the other side.

LINDSAY: Hello everybody! Welcome to the podcast!

I am talking with Bekah Schneider.

Hello, Bekah!

BEKAH: Hey there!

LINDSAY: First of all, tell everyone where in the world you are. You’re in an extra special place.

BEKAH: I am in Suwon, South Korea.

LINDSAY: This is pretty awesome because I’m doing this recording which will mean nothing to you much later in the time when this gets posted, but it’s a Thursday night, and where you are, it’s a Friday morning.

BEKAH: Yes, it’s true. It’s very fun.

LINDSAY: Yes, I’m sure it is. It must be hilarious when you’re trying to communicate home, you know?

BEKAH: Yes. Yes, exactly.

LINDSAY: How long have you been a drama teacher?

BEKAH: I have been a drama teacher officially in school systems, this is year seven.

LINDSAY: Were you an unofficial drama teacher?

BEKAH: Yeah. Actually, you know, I was a professional actress growing up and I did work in our state and traveled with our state. And then, I was a creative director at the church and did acting classes for students outside of that. I didn’t step into formal classroom education until much later in life, but it’s been very fun.

LINDSAY: What made you want to step into the classroom?

BEKAH: I loved what I did working with children, but I knew the influence of working with children would be greater if I had kind of a steady stream of students and classes. I am a single parent. And so, from a work perspective, teaching was something that I was passionate about already with the schedule and then working with children, and it just kind of all fit together. I get to do what I want to do which is drama. And so, I love it. I absolutely love it.

LINDSAY: How did you end up in Korea?

BEKAH: Ah! Now, that is a story!

My brother actually moved to Korea twenty years ago and has been in the international school scene. There’s quite a large community. In fact, even with our DTA community, there’s many of us from all over the world.

And so, he had been over here for twenty years and called me and said, “There’s a job and you should apply.” I said, “No, I’m super happy.” He’s my older brother, so he kind of bullied me and harassed me into at least looking at it.

And then, I applied confident that I would never get the job and confident that we would never move and, you know, we did. So, we’ve been overseas for three years now. It’s been really fun. We really felt like just the series of events that orchestrated us over here were pretty phenomenal and really unexpected. It wasn’t something we were looking for, but I’m so glad we’re here.

LINDSAY: What’s the makeup of the students that you teach? Is it international? Is it American? Is it Korean?

BEKAH: Yeah, this is an international school, but many of the Korean international schools will tell you that they are ethnically mostly Korean.

I would say we are probably – I think the last count was 80 percent Korean students, and those students hold passports from other countries. They have lived abroad in America or Canada. We have also Chinese and Japanese students and a strong Indian population. The company where I am is Samsung. And so, of course, as they bring in employees, their employees can then send their children to the international school.

I teach six through twelve. In our six through twelve school entirely, we’re at about 210 students. It’s a smaller school that way, but they’re really amazing, amazing students – just the kind you dream of working with truly.

LINDSAY: That’s so awesome! I was going to say, if they were mostly Korean, you must be dealing with English as a second language, but it kind of sounds like they’re well-traveled, so maybe that’s not an issue where you are.

BEKAH: They are more travelled, but actually we do have an issue with English as a second language. That’s something that, in every step of my classroom, oftentimes, when they come into the international school, this is the first time they’re forced to speak in English all the time. If they had lived abroad, they might have lived abroad younger – you know, early childhood years where, at home, they’re speaking in their mother tongue.

English is the expected language in every class and I’m amazed at how quickly they learn languages. I don’t have that gift. The students learn it. We struggle a lot with diction and enunciation and pronunciation. Words like “years” with a Y sound, they often will say “ears.” Instead of saying “years and years,” it’s “ears and ears.”

We have to work through some of those issues and how to move the mouth as an actor in this language. The Korean language is very closed-mouth when you speak. Of course, speaking in English – and with theatre – is a very mouth-moving language. And so, it’s been really interesting to see that with our students.

LINDSAY: Which leads us to a very interesting segue because what we’re actually going to talk about today is we’re doing a production case study. You, this fall, did You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

BEKAH: Yes!

LINDSAY: Oh, there’s so many things to talk about in terms of just the singing of it and the choosing of it and the response of it. Let’s start with the choosing of it. Why did