Alan Schneider to become professor and head of Drama Department's directing program

April 4, 1979

Alan Schneider, one of the foremost directors of modern American theater, will become a full professor and head of the directing program of the University of California, San Diego Department of Drama this September.

Schneider, currently Head of the Drama Division at the Juilliard School in New York City, is perhaps best known for introducing most of the works of Albee, Beckett and Pinter to American audiences.

"I welcome the opportunity to get out of New York and into a most incredibly alive part of the nation," Schneider said in a telephone interview from his Juilliard office. He said he is looking forward to working with young directors in the university's three-year Master of Fine Arts program, and he called the training of new directors one of the major needs of American theater today.

"We're absolutely delighted that he's joining us," said Michael Addison, chairman of the UC San Diego drama department. "In our minds he's one of America's preeminent directors and a leader in the theater. He is in every sense a practicing theater artist as well as a teacher."

Schneider's duties at the university will include teaching and directing one major production a year. His first production tentatively will be presented in the fall, Addison said. He added that Schneider will also continue his professional work in the theater outside of the university.

Schneider, 61,was born in Kharkov, Russia. He came with his parents to the United States in 1923. He lived in Maryland while his parents, both doctors specializing in tuberculosis, worked at the Maryland State Tuberculosis Sanitorium. It was while he was in high school that Schneider's interest in theater first was sparked.

He studied physics at Johns Hopkins University before transferring to the University of Wisconsin, where he was awarded a bachelor of arts degree magna cum laude in political science and comparative literature. After working as a radio announcer, a ghostwriter of speeches for the postmaster general and director of public relations for the Washington Civic Theatre, Schneider enrolled at Cornell University to earn his master of arts degree in drama.

Upon graduation, Schneider joined the faculty of the Catholic University of America. During his 11 years at the university, Schneider not only directed a variety of classical and modern plays, but also began working with locally subsidized repertory theater groups, especially the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.

Schneider established his reputation as a Broadway director in the early 1950s with successful productions of "Anastasia" and "The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker." In 1956, he directed the United States premiere of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" in Miami, and though the production was a commercial flop and the Broadway booking was canceled, it marked the beginning of Schneider's long championship of avant-garde theater.

"Commercial success has nothing to do with real values," Schneider said in a 1965 interview. "My best work is often done on shows that are commercial failures." Schneider's instincts have proven true, however. He went on after that initial disaster to direct "Endgame," "Krapp's Last Tape," "Happy Days" and other works by Beckett, all to critical acclaim.

In 1960, he began a fruitful relationship with Edward Albee, who once sent Schneider a novelty-shop newspaper with a headline proclaiming "Schneider Essential to Stage Truth." Schneider has directed the premieres of all but one Albee play, and he won the Antoinette Perry (Tony) Award in 1962 for his direction of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

The same year, Schneider received an Obie Award for the off-Broadway production of Harold Pinter's "The Collection," one of three Pinter plays Schneider has directed. Schneider is the only director to have received both the Tony and the Obie in the same year.

Alan Levy of the New York Times once compared Schneider to Bertolt Brecht, a writer whose popularity in America is due in part to Schneider's efforts to present his works on the American Stage. Brecht and Schneider share "the same wistful sanity in a lunatic world, the same alert smile not fully masking some fierce ideals, the same cynical intensity," Levy wrote.

As head of the directing program at UC San Diego Schneider will help train the six MFA students in the program. Two students are selected each year for the program, after a nationwide talent search.

Schneider said he also will be looking for promising new playwrights to direct, but, he added, "You don't find a Sam Beckett every day."

Schneider is married to the former Eugenie Rosa Muckle and has two children: Viveca, named after actress Viveca Lindfors, and David Alan.

For information contact: Leslie Franz, 452-3120

TO THE EDITOR: Alan Schneider will be in San Diego April 10 and 11. Arrangements will be made for Mr. Schneider to meet with interested members of the press.

(April 4, 1979)