Joanna Gleason (née Hall; born June 2, 1950) is a Canadian actress and singer. She is a Tony Award-winning musical theatre actress and has also had a number of notable film and TV roles.

Gleason was born in Toronto, Ontario as the daughter of Marilyn (née Plottel), a producer, writer, and actress; and television personality Monty Hall. At the time of her birth, her father was working at the Canadian Wheat Board and had changed his name from Halperin to Hall. He later started his TV career and went on to fame as host of Let's Make a Deal. Monty Hall's brother, Robert Halperin, also changed his name to Hall.^{[citation needed]}

In May 1956, the Hall family moved to New York and, in the early 1960s, they again moved to Los Angeles, California. Gleason graduated from Beverly Hills High School in 1968. While attending BHHS she was in the school's productions of The Music Man, The Mikado, The Grass Harp, and The Madwoman of Chaillot. In high school Gleason received acting instruction from John Ingle, the soap-opera star, who taught at BHHS from 1955 to 1985. She continued her education at UCLA, then Occidental College, from which she graduated. Gleason has been a teacher herself, holding classes and workshops all over the country.^{[citation needed]}

Susan Blackwell is an American actress, writer and singer, best known for playing herself in the musical title of show. She has appeared in other plays, musicals, and television shows including Law & Order, P.S. I Love You, and Speech and Debate (play). She also hosts her own talk show "Side By Side By Susan Blackwell" on Broadway.com.

[title of show], which played on Broadway in the 2008 Season after a successful extended Off-Broadway run at the Vineyard Theatre in 2006.

The musical documents its own creation by two Broadway fans, who want to enter the New York Musical Theatre Festival and struggle to complete the show in three and a half weeks, and their two actress friends. The actors are also the writers and characters of the musical.

Blackwell's character, "Susan," is a quirky performer by night and corporate drone by day—what Blackwell calls a "distillation" of her true personality.

Blackwell became involved in the musical's development early on, through her longstanding friendships with the show's writer, Hunter Bell, and composer, Jeff Bowen (who also star in the show, as "Hunter" and "Jeff"). Blackwell had worked with the two men as part of her previous Off-Off-Broadway performing duo, the New Wondertwins.

Chip Zien (born Jerome Herbert Zien; March 20, 1947) is an American actor. He is best known for playing the lead role of the Baker in the original Broadway production of Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim. Later he played the role of Buzz Richards in Applause at City Center Encores!, Thénardier in the Broadway production of Les Misérables and in the films Howard the Duck as Howard and United 93 as Mark Rothenberg.

Zien was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and graduated from Whitefish Bay High School and later from the University of Pennsylvania. There, he was the President of Mask & Wig, the nation's oldest all-male collegiate musical comedy troupe.

Zien's first major role was as Marvin in William Finn's first musical, In Trousers. In its sequels, March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland, this role was played by Michael Rupert, while Zien played Mendel, a role he reprised when these two one-act musicals were joined together and played Broadway as Falsettos. Several years later, Zien was featured in another Finn musical when he played a bizarre children's show host called Mr. Bungee in A New Brain. He also starred on Broadway in Grand Hotel (as Otto Kringelein), The Boys from Syracuse (as Dromio of Ephesus), The Suicide (as Victor Victorovich), Into the Woods (as the Baker) and Ride the Winds (as Inari). He provided the voice of the title character in George Lucas' Howard the Duck.

In the Woods is a 2007 mystery novel by Tana French about a pair of Irish detectives and their investigation of the murder of a twelve year old girl. The novel won several awards such as the 2008 Edgar Award for Best First Novel By An American Author, the 2008 Barry Award for Best First Novel, the 2008 Macavity Award for Best First Mystery Novel, and the 2008 Anthony Award for Best First Novel.

Twenty years prior to the novel's events, twelve year-old Adam and his two best friends failed to come home after playing in the familiar woods bordering their Irish housing estate. A search is called by the families, and the police find Adam shivering, clawing the bark of a nearby tree, blood on his shoes and slash marks on his back. He is unable to tell them what happened or where his friends are. His amnesia holds to the present day, where he goes by his middle name, Rob, to avoid the attention of the media to his famous case. His friends were never found.

The plot of the novel circles around the murder of a twelve year old girl, Katy Devlin, whose case Rob and his partner Cassie Maddox are given to investigate. The body is found in the same woods where Rob’s friends disappeared, at an archeological dig site, and the coincidence is enough to make Rob nervous, though he insists to his partner that he is fine.

Chris Sarandon (born July 24, 1942) is an American actor who is best known for playing Prince Humperdinck in the film The Princess Bride, the vampire Jerry Dandridge in Fright Night and Detective Mike Norris in the first entry of the Child's Play series, and providing the speaking voice of Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Leon in Dog Day Afternoon.

Sarandon was born and raised in Beckley, West Virginia, the son of restaurateurs Cliffie (née Cardullias) and Chris Sarandon, Sr. His mother is of Greek descent and his father, whose surname was originally "Sarondonethes", was a Greek immigrant.

In his teens, he played drums and sang back-up with a local band called The Teen Tones, which later went on to tour with such acts as Bobby Darin and Gene Vincent. He graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in Beckley. He went on to West Virginia University and earned his degree in performing arts. He earned his master's degree in theater from The Catholic University of America (CUA) in Washington, D.C., where he met his first wife, actress Susan Sarandon; they divorced in 1979. Sarandon then married and divorced model Lisa Ann Cooper during the 1980s; they have three children, Stephanie, Alexis, and Michael Sarandon. He went on to marry actress and singer Joanna Gleason in 1994.