Alan, Schneider

Biography

Alan Schneider was born Abram Leopoldovich Schneider on December 12, 1917, in Kharkov, Russia. When the Russian Revolution spread to Kharkov, the Schneiders immigrated to the United States in 1923. His parents, Leo Victor Schneider and Rebecka Malkin Schneider, were both physicians specializing in tuberculosis. They later practiced together at the Maryland State Tuberculosis Sanitorium in Sabillasville, Maryland. Schneider attended high school in Baltimore and began staging productions at summer camp. Schneider entered Johns Hopkins University and studied physics for one year, then transferred to the University of Wisconsin, Madison, to major in political science and literature. He was an award-winning member of the student debate team and president of the college drama group. In 1939 he was awarded a B.A. degree magna cum laude and elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Returning to Baltimore, Schneider worked as a radio announcer and as a speech writer for Postmaster General James A. Farley. He won a fellowship to Cornell University to study drama and received a master's degree in 1941.

During the period 1941-1952, Schneider taught in the Speech and Theater Department of the Catholic University of America. He directed a wide range of contemporary and classical plays, including JIM DANDY in 1941, THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST and THE CHERRY ORCHARD. At Catholic University, Walter Kerr was Schneider's colleague. During the war years, Schneider worked at the U.S. Office of War Information, where he produced a film promoting War Bonds sales, and he also served with the Public Health Service and the Treasury Department. In 1944 Schneider performed in a Broadway production, playing a G.I. in Maxwell Anderson's STORM OPERATION.

In these years he established the pattern that would continue throughout his directing career: alternating academic productions with commercial assignments. Schneider joined the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., during its formative years in the late 1940s. Working with Zelda Fichandler, he directed such works as THE GLASS MENAGERIE (1951), DESIRE UNDER ELMS (1952) and THE COUNTRY GIRL (1953) at Arena Stage. In 1953 he directed THE REMARKABLE MR. PENNYPACKER on Broadway and ANASTASIA the following year.

In 1956 Schneider began a lifelong association with Samuel Beckett, directing the first U.S. production of WAITING FOR GODOT at the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami, starring Bert Lahr. The play was heavily criticized and misunderstood at the time, labeled "atheistic and communistic" by critics. Schneider persevered in bringing Beckett's work to the American public. All subsequent American premieres of Beckett's plays were directed by Schneider.

Schneider also established a long association with Edward Albee, directing THE AMERICAN DREAM in 1961 and the award-winning WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? in 1963. Schneider also staged Albee's A DELICATE BALANCE, THE BALLAD OF THE SAD CAFE, TINY ALICE, and others. Schneider worked closely with Harold Pinter, directing several of his plays, including THE DUMBWAITER, THE COLLECTION, and THE BIRTHDAY PARTY. As a proponent of innovative theater and new talent, Schneider staged a wide range of dramatic works, including those by Robert Anderson, Bertolt Brecht, Michael Weller and Thornton Wilder.

In 1964 Schneider directed FILM, a movie written by Beckett and starring Buster Keaton. Beckett visited the U.S. to supervise the production and worked closely with Schneider to create this award-winning film.

Throughout his career as a director, Schneider was committed to teaching and directing student productions. He served as assistant professor of speech and drama at the Catholic University of America from 1941 to 1952 and as professor of theatre arts at Boston University from 1972 to 1979. Schneider was the director of the Juilliard School Theatre Center from 1975 to 1979. From 1979 until the time of his death he was professor of drama and head of the graduate directing department at the University of California, San Diego.

Schneider received numerous awards during his career as a director. In 1949 he was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Grant for the study of European theater. Later, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship for the study of open stage and a Ford Foundation Director's Grant for work in regional theater. In 1963 he received the Antoinette Perry (Tony) Award for his direction of WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, the Village Voice Off-Broadway (Obie) Award for directing THE DUMBWAITER and THE COLLECTION and the Washington (D.C.) Board of Trade Award "for outstanding contribution to professional community theater in the nation's capital as production director of Arena Stage."

From the guide to the Alan Schneider Papers, 1937 - 2001, (Mandeville Special Collections Library)