Biography
Myrl Schreibman began his career as a child actor with The Cleveland Playhouse, appearing in productions such as "Critics Choice" and "Sunrise at Campobello". In his teenage years he worked in theater during the summer all over Ohio, where he appeared in shows such as "The Music Man" (starring Bobby Vinton), "Finian's Rainbow" and "Best Foot Forward" (starring Paul Petersen).
He went on to study for a period of time with Uta Hagen at The Herbert Berghof Studios in New York, where he continued his acting, taking classes at different times from Stella Adler and other luminaries of the theater. He decided to get his college degree and enrolled at UCLA, where he received his Bachelors in Theater with a specialization in Film and Television (only this time behind the camera). His classmates included Rob Reiner, Jim Morrison, Allen Daviau, Colin Higgins, Dan Gordon, Jeff Margolis, Louis J. Horvitz (with whom he was a roommate).
He continued his study in the Master of Fine Arts Degree program in Theater with a specialization in Film and Television at UCLA at a time when the program only accepted four candidates a year. Francis Ford Coppola was a couple of years ahead of him. Here he studied with faculty that included Norman Jewison, James Wong Howe, Norman Corwin, Viola Spolin and Marcel Marceau. He also met and was given the opportunity to observe legendary film director Jack Arnold (The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), It Came from Outer Space (1953) and The Mouse That Roared (1959)) and, after graduating from UCLA, he continued his study for the next several years, only now at the side of his mentor Jack Arnold. During that time he got on-the-job experiences in various aspects of producing (including a stint as a cost controller for Samuel Goldwyn Studios), and he produced his first feature film at the age of 28.
Schreibman's career has been thought of as an adventurous journey with stops along the way (writing "The Indie Producers Handbook, Creative Producing from A to Z") on his professional journey, first by helping to establish the film/TV program at Cal State University-Northridge, then introducing film and television to Moorpark College in Moorpark, CA, and then finally as a faculty and administrator at where his original training began: UCLA.
His work as a director continued throughout this period in theater, film and television and he was the first to bring cinematic visual techniques to the concert stage. Performance and telling the story has always been the underlying foundation of his work and his teaching: from directing classes, producing classes, and even in a workshop he privately ran for ten years in a cold-reading technique that he developed and is now used by hundreds of actors today. All of this continues today with new stops along the way.
