Alfred Fox Uhry (born December 3, 1936) is an American playwright, screenwriter, and member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He is one of very few writers to receive an Academy Award, Tony Award (2) and the Pulitzer Prize for dramatic writing.

Uhry was born in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of Ralph K., a furniture designer and artist, and Alene Fox, a social worker, married as Uhry. He was born into a Jewish family. Uhry graduated from Druid Hills High School in 1954 and subsequently graduated from Brown University where he wrote two original musicals with Brownbrokers. Druid Hills High School's Uhry Theater is named in honor of Uhry. During his first years in New York City, learning the craft of lyric-writing, Uhry received a stipend from Frank Loesser; after his eventual success, Uhry often praised Loesser's generosity and encouragement. Uhry is married to Joanna Kellogg. They have four daughters and live in New York.

Uhry's early work for the stage was as a lyricist and librettist for a number of commercially unsuccessful musicals, including America's Sweetheart and a revival of Little Johnny Jones starring Donny Osmond. His first collaboration with Robert Waldman was the disastrous 1968 musical Here's Where I Belong, which closed after one performance. They had considerably better success with The Robber Bridegroom, which was mounted on Broadway in both 1975 and 1976, enjoyed a year-long national tour, and garnered Uhry his first Tony nomination.

Martha Clarke (born June 3, 1944) is an American theater director and choreographer noted for her multidisciplinary approach to theatre, dance, and opera productions. She is the creator of plotless, dreamlike works that are perhaps described by the term "moving paintings. Her work frequently emphasizes striking visual tableaux, often directly inspired by visual art, especially painting. Though dance is the primary basis of Clarke's training, she has maintained a career which spans and melds dance, theater, the visual arts, and opera. Probably her best-known original work is The Garden of Earthly Delights (1984), an exploration in theatre, dance, music and flying of the famous painting of the same name by Hieronymus Bosch. In June 2007, a new version of the show opened the 30th anniversary of the American Dance Festival. On November 19, 2008, the re-imagined Garden of Earthly Delights opened Off-Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theater in New York City; two extensions and five months later – it ran until April 5, 2009. A world tour will follow.

David Esbjornson is an award-winning director and producer who has worked throughout the United States in regional theatres and on Broadway, and has established strong and productive relationships with some of the profession’s top playwrights, actors, and companies. Esbjornson was the artistic director of Seattle Repertory Theatre in Seattle, Washington, but left that position in summer 2008.

For seven years (1992–1999) he was artistic director of New York’s Classic Stage Company, and since leaving that post he has become one of country’s most sought after freelance directors. With a list of production credits steeped in the classics from those years at CSC and as a guest director in such leading regional theatres as the Guthrie Theater, Esbjornson has also established himself as an interpreter of choice for playwrights such as Tony Kushner, Edward Albee, and Arthur Miller.

Esbjornson has staged Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (starring Jimmy Smits, Kirsten Johnson, and Sam Waterston) in Central Park and Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, both at New York’s Joseph Papp Public Theater. Other recent credits include the world premieres of Edward Albee’s Tony Award-winning play The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? on Broadway, Neil Simon’s Rose and Walsh at the Geffen Theatre in Los Angeles, Arthur Miller’s Resurrection Blues at the Guthrie, and Mitch Albom and Jeffrey Hatcher’s Tuesdays With Morrie at the Minetta Lane in New York. Among his New York premieres are Edward Albee’s The Play About the Baby, Israel Horowitz’ My Old Lady, and the Tony-nominated The Ride Down Mt. Morgan, by Arthur Miller at the Public Theater and on Broadway (FANY Award for outstanding direction).

The Mark Taper Forum is a 739-seat thrust stage at the Los Angeles Music Center built by Welton Becket and Associates on the Bunker Hill section of downtown Los Angeles. Named for real estate developer Mark Taper, the theatre, the neighboring Ahmanson Theatre and the Kirk Douglas Theatre are all operated by the Center Theatre Group.

The Mark Taper Forum opened in 1967 as part of the Los Angeles Music Center, the West Coast’s equivalent of Lincoln Center. The smallest of the three, the Taper sits between the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and the Ahmanson Theater at opposite ends of a plaza. The three buildings of the Music Center were designed by Los Angeles architect Welton Becket.

Mr. Becket designed the center in the style of New Formalism, which emphasized geometric shapes. The perfectly circular Taper is considered one of Mr. Becket’s best works, featuring a distinctive decorated drum of a design, its exterior wrapped in a lacy precast relief by Jacques Overhoff. The lobby has a curving, abalone wall by Tony Duquette. Charles Moore described Becket's design for the Music Center as "Late Imperial Depression-Style cake".

Vanessa Redgrave, CBE (born 30 January 1937) is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.

She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning both the Tony and Olivier Awards. On screen, she has starred in more than 80 films; including Mary, Queen of Scots, Isadora, Julia, The Bostonians, Mission: Impossible and Atonement. Redgrave was proclaimed by Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams as "the greatest living actress of our times," and she remains the only British actress ever to win the Oscar, Emmy, Tony, Cannes, Golden Globe, and the Screen Actors Guild awards. She was also the recipient of the 2010 BAFTA Fellowship "in recognition of an outstanding and exceptional contribution to film."

A member of the Redgrave family of actors, she is the daughter of the late Sir Michael Redgrave and Lady Redgrave (the actress Rachel Kempson), the sister of the late Lynn Redgrave and the late Corin Redgrave, the mother of Hollywood actresses Joely Richardson and the late Natasha Richardson, and the aunt of British actress Jemma Redgrave.