Richard Maltby, Jr. (b. Ripon, WI, 6 October 1937) is a lyricist, director, book and screenplay writer, producer, creative consultant, and all-round theatrical idea-man. He is also a formidable award-winner: he conceived and directed the only two musical revues ever to win the Tony Award® for Best Musical: Ain’t Misbehavin’ (1978) and Fosse (1999).

Maltby’s father, Richard Eldridge Maltby, Sr., was a well-known music arranger (Benny Goodman’s “Six Flats Unfurnished”) who moved from Chicago to New York in 1945 – when young Richard was seven – to work with Paul Whiteman, etc. The elder Maltby arranged and conducted for the likes of Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan, Johnnie Ray, Vic Damone and Ethel Merman, achieved fame on his own in 1954 with such recordings as “The St. Louis Blues Mambo” and “The Man with the Golden Arm,” recorded multiple albums for Columbia and RCA, and for the next twenty years had a traveling dance band. Thus his son, growing up, was no stranger to show business.

As an undergraduate at Yale, Richard Maltby, Jr. collaborated with composer David Shire on two musicals. Their partnership continued after college, resulting in full scores for at least half a dozen shows – The Sap of Life was produced off-Broadway in 1961, and in the next decade, five of their songs were recorded by Barbra Streisand, including “Autumn,” the first song they wrote together for a show at Yale; and “Starting Here, Starting Now” featured prominently in Sreisand’s 1966 television special and companion album Color Me Barbra. In 1970 Shire departed for California to write music for films, and Maltby chose to stay on the east coast to pursue a career in the theatre as a writer/director.

Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright, essayist, and a controversial figure in the twentieth-century American theater. Among his most popular plays are All My Sons (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), The Crucible (1953) and A View From the Bridge (1955, revised 1956). He wrote several screenplays and was most noted for his work on The Misfits (1961). The drama Death of a Salesman has been numbered on the short list of finest American plays in the 20th century.

Miller was often in the public eye, particularly during the late 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s. During this time, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In 1980, Miller received the St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates. He received the Prince of Asturias Award, the Praemium Imperiale prize in 2002 and the Jerusalem Prize in 2003, as well as the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Lifetime Achievement Award.

William Makepeace Thackeray was born in Calcutta on 18 July 1811. Both his parents were of Anglo-Indian descent, and his father, Richmond Thackeray, was appointed to a lucrative position as Collector of a district near Calcutta soon after William’s birth. Richmond Thackeray died of a fever in 1815, and his son was sent home to England at five years old to be educated, stopping at St. Helena on the way and having a servant point out to him the prisoner Napoleon, who “eats three sheep every day, and all the little children he can lay hands on!” (Ray 1.66). The separation from his mother, who stayed in India to marry her childhood sweetheart, was recalled by Thackeray nearly half a century later–“A ghaut, or river-stair, at Calcutta; and a day when, down those steps, to a boat which was in waiting, came two children, whose mothers remained on shore” ( Ray 1.65)–and his reunion with her a few years later informs young Henry Esmond’s first vision of Lady Castlewood. Though Thackeray’s recollections of his early years in India were scanty, the culture of Anglo-Indians figures prominently in a number of his works, including The Tremendous Adventures of Major Goliah Gahagan, Vanity Fair, and The Newcomes.

Originally from the farms and fields of upstate New York, Kate is an award-winning NYC-based actor/playwright. She still knows how to milk a cow – albeit not well (both she and the cow get verrry nervous).

She is deeply passionate about creating new feminist, female-centered classics: stories that center around complicated women. Her work as a playwright celebrates theatricality, often features absurdity, and closely examines social and gender issues – as well as the timeless struggle to reconcile conscience / identity with social pressures. As an actor, she tends to play truth-tellers, oddballs, and misfits: complicated people who color outside the lines.

Kate was named 2017’s Playwright of the Year by the Wall Street Journal.  Recent plays include Sense and Sensibility (in which she originated the role of Marianne) – Winner, Off-Broadway Alliance Award; Nominee, Drama League Award; 265+ performances off-Broadway; “Top Ten Theater of 2014” – Ben Brantley; “the greatest stage adaptation of this novel in history” – Huffington Post. Other plays include Vanity Fair (in which she originated the role of Becky Sharp; Nominee, Off Broadway Alliance Award; WSJ Critic’s Pick), Pride and Prejudice (In which she originated the role of Lizzy Bennet; Nominee, Off Broadway Alliance Award; “Best Theater of 2017”, Huffington Post; WSJ Critic’s Pick), In the Mines (Sundance Lab semi-finalist), Little Women, The Scarlet Letter, Mansfield Park, Em (Red Bull New Play finalist), The Prostitute Play (O’Neill semi-finalist).  Her plays have been produced off-Broadway, at A.R.T., Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Guthrie Theatre, Seattle Rep, PlayMaker’s Rep, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Dallas Theater Center, Folger Theatre (8 Helen Hayes Award nominations; Winner, best production – S&S) & others. Future productions on the UPCOMING page. Kate’s Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, & Vanity Fair are published by DPS; her Little Women and Mansfield Park both premiere in 2018. She is currently working on an adaptation of The Odyssey (commissioned by A.R.T.) and a new adaptation of The Scarlet Letter, as well as several new original plays – including Love Poem, In The Mines (Sundance Semi-Finalist) The Piper, and Prostitute Play (O’Neill Semi-Finalist). She was one of 2018-2019’s top 5 most-produced playwrights nationally; she was also 2017-2018’s top 10 most-produced playwrights, and wrote one of the top 10 most-produced plays nationally in both 2017-2018 and 2018-2019.

Dominique Morisseau (born March 13, 1978) is an American playwright and actress from Detroit, Michigan. She has authored over nine plays, three of which are part of a cycle titled The Detroit Projects. Her second play in the series, Paradise Blue, is currently in development at Signature Theater Company. She is a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant” for 2018.