Paul Seeger - Character of the Month

Paul Seeger

Paul Seeger is an actor friend of Lydia Grant’s who returns to New York City. His desire to do quality work has him turning down a TV series because it’s too light weight, with too much emphasis on the clothes rather than the character.

We first meet him in the episode “New Faces”, where he’s working part time as a day player/extra on a movie and part time as a cab driver.  

Paul is a gifted acted but also outspoken and can be brutally honest which means he often upsets people and loses out of some acting parts.

Lydia believes that Paul is a born teacher and organises for him to have an interview to be an artist in residence at the school to teach acting. At first he’s reluctant and is pretty hard on the kids which cause friction. Also at first he’s not that committed so when a part comes up he quits the school. 

However, he can’t help himself in saying what he thinks of the script, which results in him not getting the part. When Lydia accuses him of sabotaging his own career, he realises his mistake and returns to the school.   

Paul is a perfectionist and he’s most demanding on himself.   He doesn’t see the point in needless procedures and rebels against all the forms that the board of education requires and he hates handing out grades.  More important to him is the respect of the kids which he gains relatively quickly.

Paul is keen to shake things up at the school and encourages the kids to rebel. Although he realises he’s gone too far in “A Different Drummer” where Reggie Higgins gets suspended from school and discovers that teaching is harder than he thought it would be.  

In the Big Contract Dyrenforth pressures Paul to take on some extracurricular activity and Paul ops to be the faculty adviser for the School Newspaper, mistakenly thinking it’ll be an easy ride.  

Over time Paul becomes to love his job at the school.