It’s rare that the person behind the scenes is also the show’s star, but senior Abe Bredl manages to do it all. Abe has been involved in many of San Mateo High’s productions, both on stage performing and behind the scenes as a crew member. He acted as Hawking Clam in “Peter and the Starcatcher,” did the makeup for “Cabaret” and worked on the crew for “25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.”
Abe explains that his involvement and interest in theater has only grown since taking SMHS’s Musical Theater class sophomore year. “I wanted to get involved and change things up, so junior year—when we came back to school—I got into our theater program and did a lot of crew stuff like costuming and design.” Abe clarifies that “the school’s Musical Theater class sophomore year and junior year, and even Advanced Drama (which I’m in now), have all really helped me grow an appreciation for theater, and I got to act in many mini-musicals which was always a lot of fun.”
On top of his activity in our theater program, Abe has balanced marching band for three of his four years here at SMHS. He explains “I started off by doing music here because I did music a lot in middle school, so freshman year I did marching band.” He played the trombone freshman year, and has been a percussionist during his junior and senior years.
But that’s not all, outside of his theatrical and musical pursuits, Abe works on the journalism staff as the Features Section Editor. Abe reflects “I really like being the features section editor [because] I get to see weird stories and I get to look at insanely chaotic ideas that our journalism class comes up with.” He goes on to explain he would sincerely recommend being on the journalism staff to anyone who is interested because “it really pays off once the newspaper is made—like ‘wow I made this thing and it’s getting distributed all across the campus.'”
Abe also co-hosts his own podcast Peak Cinema with San Mateo Hi’s Arts & Entertainment Editor Junwoo Oh. Abe comments that “we both love cinema as a form of art, and we just decided we want to make a podcast about really bad movies and so we did, and it’s so fun.” He encourages everyone to find it on Spotify and listen for a lighthearted film critique podcast.
Junwoo Oh explains, “I feel like the bulk of the entertainment for the podcast comes from Abe’s creativity. He’s very good with improv and at coming up with jokes on the spot.” He says that, for these reasons, he “really doesn’t think the podcast would be possible without Abe; he brings so much to it.”
Junwoo goes concludes “the word that keeps coming to mind for Abe is creative; in everything he does, he brings a lot of ideas to the table that I think a lot of people enjoy. He’s an incredibly bright, optimistic young lad.”
Abe shows us all that it’s possible to pursue many passions at once. As someone who has also worked with Abe, I agree with Junwoo and I think everyone who has worked with Abe must also agree with how much life and creativity Abe brings to everything that he pursues. From everyone at San Mateo, thank you Abe for contributing so generously to the school.