Playwright Murray Schisgal was born in New York City on November 25, 1926. After his service as a radioman in the Navy from 1944 to 1946, Schisgal was employed for a short time as a musician. In 1953 he graduated from Brooklyn Law School, and later worked as an attorney and as a junior high school teacher in New York City. Schisgal and his wife, the former Reene Schapiro, currently (1976) live in New York City.
During the 1960's, Schisgal wrote a number of comedies and one-act plays, many of which were first produced in Europe. The Typists and The Tiger, his first two one-act plays to be produced in the United States, appeared off-Broadway in 1963. Other plays included A Simple Kind of Love Story (1960), Ducks and Lovers (1961), Luv (1965), Fragments (1967), The Basement (1967), and Jimmy Shine (1968). Jimmy Shine (Brooks Atkinson Theatre, December 5, 1968) was a two-act play starring Dustin Hoffman as a frustrated painter; it was produced by Claire Nichtern and Zev Bufman.
