Photo Credit: Michael Hull
The New York Times hailed director Robert W. Schneider as a “loyal subscriber since 2014” and, after their first collaboration, musical theater legend Stephen Sondheim once asked Robert “Can you please stop calling me at my home?”
Since its inception in 2020, Robert has served as Artistic Director of off-Broadway’s award winning J2 Spotlight Musical Theater Company, where he directed the first New York City revivals of eleven classic musicals. His productions of A Class Act, The Baker’s Wife, Lucky Stiff, and Zorba were all created in collaboration with the show’s original writers including Stephen Schwartz and John Kander. For their inaugural production of Seesaw, Robert received the Broadway World Award for Best Off-Off Broadway Musical and Director and The Baker’s Wife for Best Musical. For their most recent production, Robert lost the Broadway World Award for Best Off-Off Broadway Director to a middle school teacher who directed a groundbreaking revival of Parade Jr at the Thomas E. Dewey Middle School.
As a freelance director, Robert has collaborated with Second Stage, Lincoln Center, The New York Philharmonic, Manhattan Theater Club, The York Theater, North Shore Music Theater, Walnut Street Theater, Center Theater Group, Music Theater of Wichita as well as academic intuitions Yale University, Fordham University, Penn State University, and University of Southern California. He has been the proud winner, or nominee, of such awards as The Elliott Norton Award, The Ovation Award, The StageScene LA Award, The BroadwayWorld Award, and many others. Robert’s greatest achievement is that he is always able to get three extra dipping sauces automatically added to all Burger King orders.
Biography
Selected credits include Addams Family, Bye Bye, Birdie, Cinderella, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Eubie, Frozen (regional premiere), Guys and Dolls, Hairspray, I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, Jekyll and Hyde, Key Stage Musicals, La Cage Aux Folles, Memphis (regional premiere), Nine, Once Upon a Mattress, Peace in Our Time, Queen’s We Will Rock You (New York City premiere), Rock of Ages, Sweeney Todd, Trouble in Tahiti, Unsung, Very Good Eddie, You Can't Take It With You, Wizard of Oz, and Zorba! One day, he would really like to direct Xanadu.
He has served as an assistant/associate director to Lonny Price, Susan H. Schulman, and Richard Maltby, Jr.
Since working as an Original Programming Producer at the Tony Award winning 54 Below, Robert has directed and produced over one hundred concerts for the venue, collaborating with almost every major Broadway artist. For his work, Robert was nominated by Broadway World as Best Cabaret Director of the Decade (he lost to Faith Prince...I mean she has a Tony, so why she needed to take this away from him, he’ll never know).
For the past ten years, audiences around the world have been introduced to Rob’s love of musical theatre through his podcasts Behind the Curtain: Broadway’s Living Legends, Broadway Bound: The Musicals That Never Came to Broadway, Fifty Key Stage Musical, Gay Card Revoked, and This Was A Thing: The Retro Podcast. To date, Robert’s most elusive guest is the Old Lady from the Grand Hotel commercial.
Despite finding every excuse imaginable not to go to classes in undergrad, including saying he had Elm Disease which apparently only trees get, it’s ironic that Robert is now one of the most notable figures in theatrical education and holds academic appointments at Pennsylvania State University, New York Film Academy, and Mount Union University. He received his MFA in Direction for the Musical Theatre Stage from Pennsylvania State University and his BA in Political Science from California Lutheran University.
Robert is a proud member of SDC, AEA, AGVA, DG, ATHE and UPS Mail and Shipping Center.