Steven Schub
- Actor
- Writer
- Composer
Steven Schub was born in Brooklyn, New York, but was raised primarily
in Berkeley and Piedmont, California. At age 16, he attended the
American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, studying under
Annette Bening. After high school, he
spent the summer as a volunteer with the Israeli army before entering
New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. At NYU, he studied at
both the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute
and the Stella Adler Conservatory, and
formed a notoriously short-lived theater company, "The Bullstoi
Ensemble" with roommate
Philip Seymour Hoffman and
director Bennett Miller. In Schub's
junior year, he went back to Israel to study Religion and Philosophy at
Hebrew University in Jerusalem. It was there that he founded the punk
band "Jew2" and met Lynyrd Skynyrd
drummer Artimus Pyle at a "Battle of the
Bands" Mr. Pyle was judging. After returning to the US and graduating
from NYU, Schub met Pyle again while employed as a bellhop at "The Park
Central Hotel" in New York City. Pyle subsequently quit
Lynyrd Skynyrd and flew Schub down to
Jacksonville, Florida, where the ten-piece "Afro-Celtic Yiddish Ska"
band, "The Fenwicks", was born, with Schub as the lead singer (within
72 hours and with just three rehearsals, The Fenwicks' first gig was
opening for Foreigner and
Billy Squier in front of 8,000 very
confused classic rock fans in Jacksonville's Metro Park). Schub has
continued to bounce back and forth from a successful career as an actor
in film and television to his role as lead singer for "The Fenwicks".
He has starred in over 15 films, several of them critically acclaimed,
including the Sony Pictures Classics film
Caught (1996), directed by
Robert M. Young, in which Schub
plays the homicidal comedian son of
Edward James Olmos and
Maria Conchita Alonso. "Caught"
was the Centerpiece Premiere at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival and has
since gone on to earn cult-hit status. His work in "Caught" garnered
raves in the national and international media, including The New York
Times, The Washington Post,
Siskel & Ebert (1986),
Variety, and others. Schub also starred in the films
No Vacancy (1999) with
Christina Ricci,
Morning (2001) with
Annabeth Gish,
Little Noises (1991) with
Crispin Glover and guest-starred on
television shows ranging from
Sesame Street (1969),
NYPD Blue (1993),
Wanted (2005) and
E-Ring (2005), to playing the role of
a recurring guest star terrorist on Season Six of
24 (2001), among others. "The Fenwicks"
have three nationally released CDs and endless national tours to their
credit, including shows at Town Hall on Broadway in New York City, as
part of the 2002 Toyota Comedy Festival, alongside
Jon Stewart, The Ayn Rand
Institute's 2003 USC Philosophy Conference, and, most recently, the
2005 Vans Warped Tour. "The Fenwicks" are now widely-considered to be
one of the progenitors and instigators of "3rd Wave Ska". Steven Schub
is a Lifetime Member of the Actors Studio.