She made her acting debut at an early age
Her father, a mechanic, had lost his job. Her mother took a job as a waitress to make ends meet. Money was tight.
When a newspaper in Dubuque, Iowa, advertised for children to audition to be movie extras, all the kids in the family went to the audition. It was a young Beth Oberfoell who wowed the casting directors and got the job.
"I was 6 years old and maybe a bit bored," said Oberfoell, who teaches at Batavia High School. "So I got on to a table and started to dance. It was sort of my version of the Grammys. I guess they thought that any kid who was brave enough to do that would be able to handle the job of being an extra in a feature film."
Oberfoell not only made it into the 1981 production of "Take This Job and Shove It," she also received 10 lines to say. Some of the lines ended up on the cutting room floor but the tiny 6-year-old had caught the acting bug. She did community theater and regional theater, playing Oliver in "Oliver" and one of the evil stepsisters in "Cinderella."
"I was 8 when I did 'Cinderella,' " she said. "Most of the people in the cast were 18 and 19 but the director thought it would be funny to have me do the part."
Funny is something that Oberfoell knows all about. She studied for two years with an Improv group in New York and spent some time in stand-up comedy. She also studied with the William Esper Professional acting Program at Rutgers University. She did off-Broadway and regional theater then decided to re-evaluate her career decisions.
"When I was in college, I wanted to either go into acting or be a teacher. I really like working with kids" she said. "I looked around and saw many of my friends waiting for their big break and I decided what I really wanted was to come back here in the Midwest and teach."
Oberfoell got some jobs with Noble Fool and Looking Glass Theater and began pursuing a master's degree in education at UIC. After a brief stint working at a parochial high school, she got the job in Batavia teaching theater and English.
"I love working with the kids and coming to Batavia has been great," she added. "The kids are so talented."
One of the first changes she made in theater was to inaugurate a new audition process.
"I want to prepare these kids for the real world," Oberfoell said. "I want them to be prepared to go out into professional theater and be able to audition for any role. The audition for the fall play was done exactly as it is done in professional theater."
Another change that Oberfoell made was to put the comedy in the fall and the musical in the winter. She chose "The Nerd" for the fall play and "The Pajama Game" for the musical in February.
"When I was in high school, the director chose to do "The Nerd," she said. "I tried out but I didn't make it so the director asked me to be the assistant director. The play was so much fun and every night the audience would leave the theater laughing. They laughed from the time the lights went up until the curtain call. It's that funny.
"Some consider it one of the funniest plays ever written. The cast here at Batavia is equally as good. It is a very funny show about an unwanted house guest who doesn't leave."
Tickets for "The Nerd" by Larry Schue are $6 and are on sale at the BHS atrium from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. when school is in session. "The Nerd" will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 9 and 10. For information, call the ticket hotline at (630) 879-4600, ext. 6840.