Marshall Yaeger studied acting with (among others) Herbert Berghof, Steven Strimpell, William Hickey, Alice Spivak, Aaron Frankel, and Lee Strasberg. He has directed his own work in New York at the Assembly Theatre and the French Cultural Embassy.
He has acted onstage with Stacy Keach, Maureen Stapleton, and Walter Matthau; has written scripts and speeches performed by Christine Lahti (in her professional acting debut), Katherine Harrold, Faye Dunaway, Joan Rivers, Elizabeth Taylor, Austin Pendleton, Gary Merrill, Lois Smith, and Greer Garson; co-produced the original New York off-Broadway production of Umabatha: The Zulu MacBeth (which returned to New York in July, 1997 at Lincoln Center).
More than a dozen of his plays were produced at the Actors Studio, the Lee Strasberg Institute, the French Embassy in New York (his own translation of Phaedra), the Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Assembly Theatre, the University of California, Performing Arts of Woodstock, and the HB Playwrights Foundation (a reading with Gary Merrill; "Sue Drinkwater Thinks So Too!" directed by Uta Hagen, starring Christine Lahti in her first professional acting role; "Across the Lake," directed by Herbert Berghof; and a full-length evening of one-acts called Happiness Is No Laughing Matter!).
In 1972, Marshall Yaeger was invited to participate in CBS's Writer Development Program; and in the following year, during a Writer's Guild of America strike, he was appointed Head Writer of CBS's The Secret Storm.
His play Pavilion, which was written while he was a member of the Playwrights Unit at the Actors Studio, was produced off-Broadway at the Provincetown Playhouse by Xander Productions. The Bishop's Head received three productions in New York: at The Assembly Theatre, the Ensemble Studio Theatre, and the Carter Theatre.
His writing projects in 1999 included a production at the 42nd Street Workshop of his play The Wirecutters; and the book and lyrics for a Broadway musical based on the Hindu classic The Ramayana, commissioned by Crystal Theatre Productions..
