Walter Schoen has been a professional actor, director and stage manager for more than 25 years. During that time, his work has appeared in theaters from Broadway to Los Angeles. His work has ranged from the most contemporary plays of writers like Eric Overmyer, August Wilson, and Edward Albee to the classic works of Shakespeare, Euripides, and Sheridan. He has enjoyed staging the most challenging plays of David Mamet, Harold Pinter, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller and working on many of America's best-known musicals such as Oklahoma, The Sound of Music and Guys and Dolls. His comic work as an actor and director has been showcased in productions such as Harvey, Born Yesterday and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. In Russia, Mr. Schoen’s directing work is featured in the permanent repertory of The Samara Drama Theatre (Sly Fox), the Saratov Theatre for Youth (The Glass Menagerie) and he has performed Ionesco’s The Chairs (with fellow faculty member Dorothy Holland) at St. Petersburg’s famed Nights of the White Light Arts Festival.
His acting credits include performances at the Bucks County Playhouse in Pennsylvania, the Denver Center Theatre Company, the Arizona Theatre Company, and the San Diego Repertory Theatre. He has directed productions for the Oregon Shakespearean Festival, the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, the Pennsylvania Center Stage, the Western Stage Company of Salinas and Santa Barbara, California's Ensemble Theatre. He also assisted the late Alan Schneider on the Broadway production of Edward Albee's The Lady From Dubuque. In addition, Mr. Schoen has directed and taught at various colleges and universities throughout the country including Villanova University, the University of Arizona, the University of California, San Diego and Arizona State University. Included among his favorite directing credits are Hay Fever, Arms and the Man, I Hate Hamlet, She Stoops to Conquer, Lips Together, Teeth Apart, Death of a Salesman, A Flea in Her Ear, Misalliance, Master Harold and the Boys, Waiting for Godot, Night of the Iguana, Loot, The Winter's Tale, Hamlet, Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, Raymond Chandler's The Little Sister and the world premiere of John Steinbeck's Cannery Row. He has appeared as the old actor in Noises Off, the commodore in Don Juan in Hell, the Friar in Romeo and Juliet and the emcee in Cabaret.
Walter Schoen is an Associate Professor and came to the University of Richmond in 1991. He has taught Acting, Directing, Script Analysis, Modern British and American Drama with Dr. Irby Brown and the interdisciplinary Core Course. In addition to teaching, Walter directs a University Players' production each academic year. Those productions have included Anything Goes, Wings, Return to the Forbidden Planet, The Importance of Being Earnest, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Comedy of Errors, Tartuffe, Our Country's Good, Taking Steps, Reckless, King Lear starring Ralph Waite, and Morning Might Pass by student Matt DiCintio.
