The Saturday Explorer Series 2021

Bennett Schneider shares two fairy tales from Europe about the magic made by love and compassion. Or the love made possible by magic! 

• "The Young King" by Oscar Wilde

• “The Frog Prince” from Grimm’s Fairytales

About Bennett Schneider

Actor, writer, and director Bennett Schneider was originally born and reared in New England.  His mother taught Shakespeare at a private high school near Boston and his father was Bozo the Clown for a television station in southern Massachusetts.  In his early years, Bennett trained in performance techniques from radio production to method acting to Japanese Noh. After a private school education and graduating with a BA in Theater from Wesleyan University, Bennett interned at two classical theaters in Maine before moving to Los Angeles.  Once ensconced on the West coast, he studied advanced improvisation with the Groundlings and performed there and with Los Angeles Theater Sports.  Then he gave up performing entirely.  He spent the next two years studying meditation and Hindu ritual, mythology and philosophy in New York and India.  Returning to theater initially through performance art workshops at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, Schneider was asked by Robert Prior to join his newly forming company, Fabulous Monsters, with whom he appeared for seven years.  He won an LA Weekly Theater Award for his work in Fabulous Monsters’s production of “Speed Hedda” in April of 2000.

He has written, directed and performed full length solo shows at Highways, 24th Street Theatre, and Glaxa Studios and has performed for 17 years with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence for whom he has written, directed and acted in 5 full stage productions such as The History of Religion and Red Leather Ridinghood as well as countless short performances and guerilla theater events. In the Entertainment Industry, he has appeared on the Andy Dick Show on MTV, Mind of Mencia on Comedy Central, the Anna Nicole Smith Show, in numerous commercials and in Aerosmyth , Brian Adams, and White Zombie music videos. Bennett taught writing for theater, acting and directed at The Lee Strasberg Theater Institute for 6 years. He has been a guest lecturer at UCLA, Occidental, Loyola Marymount and the University of Redlands in Redlands, California. Bennett is a producer, writer and voice over artist for Doozycards.com where he has co-created over seventeen hundred unique animations. He produces his own short videos storytelling the mythology of Hinduism and wildly distorting Grimms’ fairy tales. Bennett performed over 5 years in the LA Phil.’s “Summer Sounds” shows at the Hollywood Bowl.