Maria Schneider was born in 1982 in Frankenberg/Saxony. She studied dramaturgy at the Bayerische Theaterakademie August Everding and the Ludwig Maximilians-Universität in Munich from 2001 to 2007. In 2003/04 she spent a year studying at the faculty of theatre studies at the University of Warwick in England as part of the Erasmus programme and subsequently received a scholarship from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. In 2007 she graduated with distinction with her diploma thesis on contemporary German drama. During her studies she worked as an intern at the Münchner Kammerspiele, the Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel, the Bayerische Staatsoper and the Berliner Theatertreffen. From 2007 to 2010 Maria Schneider worked as a dramaturg for Young People's Theatre and head of theatre education at the Augsburg Theatre, where she worked with Lilli-Hannah Hoepner and Marcel Keller, among others. From 2011 to 2017, she worked as a dramaturg for the categories Theatre, Opera and Musical Theatre at the Theater Osnabrück. She worked with Alexander Charim, Annette Pullen, Laura Linnenbaum, Pedro Martins Beja, Guillermo Amaya, Ramin Anaraki and Felicitas Braun, among others, and took over as the interim head of the categorie Theatre for the 2015/16 season. In 2015 she was part of the artistic direction of the Osnabrück Spieltriebe-Festival for contemporary theatre, which she also planned for 2017. She has held various teaching positions at the Universitäten Augsburg an Osnabrück and since 2020 she has also taught at the Universität Heidelberg. In 2020 she completed training as a mediator at the Heidelberg Institut für Mediation, and in 2022 she is a participant in the further training for theatre and music management at the LMU München. Since 2018/19, Maria Schneider has been working as a theatre dramaturg at the Theater und Orchester Heidelberg, where she has worked with the directors Alexander Charim, Bernhard Mikeska, Holger Schultze and Marie Bues, among others.