Meet Angela Schoenbauer

1. What is your official role at HTLC? I am the Video Production Intern so I help edit the [online] services for Sunday. I collect videos from people who are doing the readings and sometimes I do the songs and other special projects. For VBS, I wrote the scripts for the skits, contacted all the actors, and edited their videos. That was a ton of fun.

2. So… no pressure…. are you enjoying the position? Yes! I love it so much! It’s so fun. Especially when I get to edit the music. One week I edited the children’s song and it was SO cute! They sang “A Million Dreams” from The Greatest Showman. There were 20 involved so it’s AWESOME to see that involvement! I loved to sing when I was a kid and I wish I had done it more, so I’m really happy to see them doing it at their age!

3. Where do you find fun in your life? I’m in the Swing Dancing Club at college. We meet every Monday night. We learn a new move every week and then on Thursday nights we go dance at the community center with people of all ages. I’m also in theater club and choir.

4. When did you first become interested in theater? I was in my first musical, Fiddler on the Roof, in the 6th grade. I’m honestly surprised I didn’t do it before then. I was always watching the musicals in town, but I’d never considered doing it. But in 6th grade, Toby Thietje, who was my music teacher at St. Wenceslaus School, told me about the auditions and I knew then I wanted to do it. It was so much fun even though I was super nervous. Ever since then I’ve been doing theatre every single year.

5. Were you in one of the grades that had all of the Thietje teachers? My 6th grade year was Mrs. Addie Thietje’s last year [to direct the musical]. She was super nice and welcoming. Even when there were a lot of people in the cast, she always gave everyone attention and made them feel special. Then, we had Nicole Thietje for middle school choir and when I came to high school, she became the high school choir director. She was so kind and inclusive. You can tell she really cares about everyone; she’s very talented. And Ben Thietje was my theater director in middle school and then switched to the high school when I was a junior. So the Thietjes have basically run my entire theater and choir career! Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to have Ms. (Rita) Sapp.

6. What other productions were you in? I’ve been in 19 shows total. I was in Beauty and the Beast last summer, a production with Generations Theater Company. That was my favorite musical I’ve ever been in. Such a fun experience and the cast was amazing! It’s so fun to see the whole town involved. I’ve been in Generations for 5 summers. Then COVID-19 hit and the theater company closed down. I’m really missing that creative outlet part of my life. We’ve been posting older clips on Facebook and it’s been fun to relive those memories.

7. What is your favorite musical? Beauty and the Beast really is my favorite. It was so exciting to finally be in it. I really love Wicked, too. I wrote a paper on it in high school, totally geeked out on that. It’s very fun to dig into the details and messages and story lines. I love to see the story lines where they explain [the roots of] the villain. If people choose to see [the villain] that way and persist that way, that is what you will become. It’s so much about the environment you are in.

8. What else is really important to you? My family! My close family (parents and 2 sisters), are all very close and get along really well. Everyone is so surprised when I tell them I don’t really fight with my sisters and I’m really thankful for that. We’re good at problem solving; they’re my best friends… my parents, too. And during this quarantine time, it’s been really fun to get to spend a lot of time with them. We’ve played lots of games and watched lots of movies. I’m also close with my extended family. The entire Schoenbauer side is so fun because there are 19 of us cousins and lots of aunts and uncles. It’s been great to get to grow up with them because we’re all close in age. My mom’s side lives all over the world, so we don’t see them as much, but it’s always so fun when we get to see them. We get to see the entire side every three years in Colorado and that’s always super fun!

9. Introvert or Extrovert? It really depends on the situation. With new people, I consider myself an introvert, but with close friends I’m more outgoing.

10. What role does faith play in your life? I went to St. Wenc[eslaus Catholic School] so we talked about faith a lot growing up. Faith is a grounding thing I can always come back to. I realize everything in my life eventually circles back to that. All of my beliefs stem back to that. You are raised that to love your neighbor is the “Golden Rule,” so I realize that is where all of my beliefs come back to.

11. Why did you decide to attend HTLC? I went once with (sister) Meg and my mom and it was so welcoming. I loved the music, obviously music is a huge draw for me, and I loved how there was a full band. Everyone made me feel very welcome. I appreciated the focus on inclusion. I like that about the Lutheran faith, the focus on being inclusive to everyone. To me, Lutheranism is always pushing you to be a better person in all areas of life. Sometimes people use religion as an excuse to not be a good person, even though that’s the opposite of how it’s supposed to be. I never felt that way about the Lutheran faith. I felt like it was always pushing you to grow in your faith and to become the best person you can be.

12. You seem have a theme of inclusion. As a New Prague native, why is this important to you? It’s always been important to me because I’ve been very lucky to have different communities where I’ve felt I belonged. I think that’s important for everyone to have. That’s how I grew to become who I am. All of those communities contributed a different part to me, so it’s really important for everyone to find their own places so they can grow into who they are meant to be. There have been places where I don’t feel I belong and times when I knew I was in the right place.

13. How can you tell you are in the right place? It’s a feeling…. It’s where I can be my true self. In many situations, I felt like I was putting on a shell, morphing myself to fit into a situation. But in theater, anytime throughout those times, I felt I could be my truest self.

14. How do you know when you were in the wrong place? If I feel I’m not being authentic.

15. Despite your freshman year being during COVID, are you enjoying college? I love college! I am so happy with my decision. It has been the perfect fit, great all around. I’ve met a lot of really great people, my classes were great. I loved choir; singing in a college choir is so exciting.

16. What are you majoring in? Marketing. My older sister is a marketing major and I loved hearing everything about what she does. Everything about the major was really interesting to me. It felt like a good fit. This year I’ll be a sophomore at St. Thomas.

17. What is it about marketing that called to you? I really love data and analytics, but I also like the creative and design side of it. It’s the perfect combination. I always wanted something I could be creative with, but I’m also a big numbers person.

18. What are you doing to stay sane during COVID? Lots of FaceTime with my friends! We found some online games we could play together. I also spend a lot of time with my family. We had a quarantine prom for [recent high school graduate] Megan. My family dressed up, had a fancy dinner, and danced on the porch, just the five of us, blaring music. We also had a quarantine graduation for Megan, too. She’s missing out a lot and I feel really bad. I’ve been really lucky because this happened at the best time for me.

19. What are some of your favorite memories? I sang in a quartet with my friends. We sang at every choir event, solo/ensemble contest, variety shows in the summer… We sang and won at the county fair so we got to perform at the State Fair.

20. HTLC staff loves Enneagram. What is your number? I’m a 2. The description fit me pretty well.