Dionysus  /daɪ.əˈnaɪsəs/ dy-ə-NY-səs (Ancient Greek: Διόνυσος, Dionysos) was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete. His origins are uncertain, and his cults took many forms; some are described by ancient sources as Thracian, others as Greek. In some cults, he arrives from the east, as an Asiatic foreigner; in others, from Ethiopia in the South. He is a god of epiphany, "the god that comes", and his "foreignness" as an arriving outsider-god may be inherent and essential to his cults. He is a major, popular figure of Greek mythology and religion, and is included in some lists of the twelve Olympians. His festivals were the driving force behind the development of Greek theatre. He is an example of a dying god.

Brian Russell De Palma (born September 11, 1940) is an American film director and writer. In a career spanning over 40 years, he is probably best known for his suspense and crime thriller films, including such box office successes as the horror film Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, The Untouchables, and Mission: Impossible.

Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, De Palma worked repeatedly with actors Jennifer Salt, Amy Irving, Nancy Allen (his wife from 1979 to 1983), Gary Sinise, John Lithgow, William Finley, Charles Durning, Gerrit Graham, cinematographers Stephen H. Burum and Vilmos Zsigmond (see List of noted film director and cinematographer collaborations), set designer Jack Fisk, and composers Bernard Herrmann, John Williams and Pino Donaggio. De Palma is credited^{[by whom?]} with fostering the careers of or outright discovering Robert De Niro, Jill Clayburgh, John C. Reilly, John Leguizamo, Andy Garcia and Margot Kidder.

De Palma, whose background is Italian Roman Catholic, was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Vivienne (née Muti) and Anthony Federico De Palma, an orthopedic surgeon. He was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire in various Protestant and Quaker schools, eventually graduating from Friends' Central School. He won a regional science-fair prize for a project titled "An Analog Computer to Solve Differential Equations".

Richard Schechner (born August 23, 1934) is University Professor and Professor of Performance Studies at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University , editor of TDR: The Drama Review. His BA is from Cornell University (1956), MA from the University of Iowa (1958), and PhD from Tulane University (1962). Schechner is one of the founders of the Performance Studies department of the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University (NYU). He founded The Performance Group of New York in 1967. Schechner was artistic director of The Performance Group from its start in 1967 until 1980 when TPG changed its name to The Wooster Group which continues under the leadership of Elizabeth LeCompte. The home of both TPG and TWG is the Performing Garage in New York's SoHo district, acquired by Schechner in 1968. In 1992, Schechner founded East Coast Artists, of which he was the artistic director until 2009 when Benjamin Mosse became ECA's artistic director. Schechner continues to work with ECA. In the 1990s, Schechner originated "rasaboxes," a technique of emotional training for performers and others.

Olaf Hayer is a power metal vocalist from Gifhorn, Germany.

Treasure Seeker

Dionysus

Luca Turilli

Magic Kingdom

Symphonity

Ayn Rand ( /ˈaɪn ˈrænd/; born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum, February 2 [O.S. January 20] 1905 – March 6, 1982) was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism.

Born and educated in Russia, Rand moved to the United States in 1926. She worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood and had a play produced on Broadway in 1935–1936. After two initially unsuccessful early novels, she achieved fame with her 1943 novel The Fountainhead. In 1957, she published her best-known work, the philosophical novel Atlas Shrugged. Afterward she turned to nonfiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own magazines and releasing several collections of essays until her death in 1982.

Rand advocated reason as the only means of acquiring knowledge and rejected all forms of faith and religion. She supported rational and ethical egoism, and rejected ethical altruism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed all forms of collectivism and statism, instead supporting laissez-faire capitalism, which she believed was the only social system that protected individual rights. She promoted romantic realism in art. She was sharply critical of the philosophers and philosophical traditions known to her besides Aristotle.