Actor and director David Schramm, a founding member of The Acting Company in New York City, has passed away at age 73. A Juilliard graduate, Mr. Schramm's career spanned several decades in the American theatre, performing both on and Off-Broadway, as well as film and television.
Mr. Schramm's Broadway credits were the 2009 Broadway revival of Finian's Rainbow, in which he played Senator Rawkins, Dion Boucicault's London Assurance (1997), Molière's Tartuffe (1996) and The Misanthrope (1983), Howard Sackler's Goodbye Fidel (1980), Alan Ayckbourn's Bedroom Farce (1979), in which he starred opposite Judith Ivey, and The Acting Company's 1975 repertory productions of The Three Sisters, The Time of Your Life, Edward II, and The Robber Bridegroom.
The Acting Company was founded in 1972 by John Houseman and Margot Harley. Mr. Schramm performed alongside Houseman in his 1983 Off-Broadway production of Marc Blitzstein's opera, The Cradle Will Rock, also starring Patti LuPone, as well as his Off-Broadway staging of King Lear (1982).
Off-Broadway, Mr. Schramm was also seen in Duck Variations at the American Place Theatre (1978), The Palace of Amateurs at the Minetta Lane Theatre (1988), La Terrasse at Manhattan Theatre Club (1999), The Beard of Avon at NYTW (2003); and most recently, York Theatre Company's staging of Enter Laughing (2019).
Mr. Schramm also performed extensively in regional theatres, including George Street Playhouse, the Kennedy Center, Hartford Stage, McCarter Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Cleveland Play House, and Pasadena Playhouse, Philadelphia Drama Guild. He performed in seven seasons of the Williamstown Theater Festival and eight seasons of the Berkshire Theatre Festival. As a director, he helmed Arthur Miller's The Price at Chicago's American Theater Company and Ronald Ribman's The Rug Merchants of Chaos at Pasadena Playhouse.
Onscreen, Mr. Schramm was best known as Roy Biggins from NBC’s hit series Wings.
The date and cause of death, though confirmed by The Acting Company, is not yet known. "We mourn his loss and will miss him,” co-founder Harley shared in a statement.
