From Germany, to GCSU to… space?

It all started in Germany. In the 1960′s, a little girl dreamed of being an astronaut. She became a trained opera singer and an actor. She studied abroad in college, coming to the United States, and found the path to the rest of her life.

Beate Czogalla was that little girl in Germany. Now she spends most of her time in Porter Hall 106. Her office is packed full of books, props, lighting equipment and awards. As an associate professor of theatre, she is known as “Bea” to all of her students and colleagues. There is more to the “tech lady” than most of the people who know her at GCSU would ever imagine.

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“I was born in Germany. Lived in Europe. I lived all over the place. When you grow up in Europe, you become a world citizen right away because all the countries are so teeny tiny so you travel a lot.

I went to the University in Giessen which is Central- well what was then West Germany- now it is Central Germany. At the age of 22, because of my interest in American theatre, I decided to go study abroad. I won a scholarship to come over and study for a year. I did so well that I had the option to extend it another year, which of course I did. Then I had to go back home just to finish my studies there before they kicked me out of school. Because, you know, you can only take so many years off before they erase your record and you have to start over again. During that year, I had already made plans to come back and go to grad school. I’ve been here ever since.

Like most people who work in theatre, you start off as a performer. That’s usually your first exposure in one way or another. Most of us are lousy performers. Some of us refuse to acknowledge that fact, but I learned very quickly that I was a lousy performer and I stand by that.

Even in high school, I found that I had more fun doing sound back stage or dealing with scenery or telling people where to stand- i.e. directing- and that kind of stuff. So I was the leader of the student theatre group and I got a lot of awards for that.
Once I was at the college level, I thought directing was my thing. I loved it and up to this day, I still direct. Over the course of time, I came to the states and started learning more about design. I also got tired of designers and technicians telling me ‘You can’t do that’ and I would say ‘Well, why not?’ The answers were ‘Light won’t go around the corner, platforms won’t float. That’s physics, it just doesn’t work that way.’ I felt the need to educate myself more about the technical part of theatre as a director so I wouldn’t look like a complete idiot. In so doing, I discovered that I actually liked that more than directing. If a lighting unit doesn’t work, you fix it. If an actor has a bad day, though, that’s it.

I learned very quickly that good theatre does not necessarily depend on money. Every one wants more money. You know bigger shows and more money and all of that good stuff. But I firmly believe that good theatre is based on a good idea and a good concept. Whether you have 200 dollars to execute that, or 20,000 dollars, it can still be a good show if the idea is fundamentally good. I’ve always tried to approach my designs and my budget in that frame of mind. Every rehearsal is, in essence, a performance with no money and some of them are pretty darn good.”

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Bea has won many awards for her technical designs including one for lighting in 2005 for the GCSU production of Trojan Women.

Bea’s interests go way beyond theatre, though.
She is a well-rounded traveler citing Cumberland Island, GA the best place she has ever visited. She is an avid hiker and backpacker and is a strong supporter of the Georgia National Park System.

Bea is also a Solar System Ambassador. Solar System Ambassadors bring knowledge of space missions and projects to their community. Bea writes an article focusing on a different Space topic every two weeks for the Union Recorder. Becoming an Ambassador was a small part of Bea’s childhood dream.

“I’ve always wanted to be an astronaut ever since I was a little girl. There were a few things that got in the way of that dream,” Bea said. “I didn’t have 20/20 vision and at that time, it was very important. And, they only used men. So, I never had a chance.”

Bea saw the Teachers in Space program as a back-door way into the space world. She now has connections in NASA whom she works closely with. She also had close friends die in the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster in 2003. She is constantly answering phone calls and emails from her NASA colleagues.

“It all makes me feel like a part of the in-crowd,” Bea said. “I may never make it into Space, but you never know.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Dec 5 2008. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry