Monticello is the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson, who designed it. He was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence, third President of the United States, and founder of the University of Virginia. Located just outside Charlottesville, Virginia in the Piedmont region, the plantation was originally 5,000 acres, with extensive cultivation of tobacco and mixed crops, with labor by slaves. At Jefferson's direction, he was buried on the grounds, an area now designated as the Monticello Cemetery, which is owned by the Monticello Association, a lineage society of his descendants through Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson.

The house, which Jefferson designed, was based on the neoclassical principles described in the books of the Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. He reworked it through much of his presidency to include design elements popular in late eighteenth-century Europe. It contains many of his own design solutions. The house is situated on the summit of an 850-foot (260 m)-high peak in the Southwest Mountains south of the Rivanna Gap. Its name comes from the Italian "little mountain." The plantation at full operations included numerous outbuildings for specialized functions, a nailery, and quarters for domestic slaves along Mulberry Row near the house; gardens for flowers, produce and Jefferson's experiments in plant breeding, plus tobacco fields and mixed crops. Cabins for field slaves were located further from the mansion.

Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 (April 2, 1743 O.S.) – July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Father, the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence (1776) and the third President of the United States (1801–1809). At the beginning of the American Revolution, Jefferson served in the Continental Congress, representing Virginia. He then served as a wartime Governor of Virginia (1779–1781). Just after the war ended, from mid-1784 Jefferson served as a diplomat, stationed in Paris, initially as a commissioner to help negotiate commercial treaties. In May 1785, he became the United States Minister to France. He was the first United States Secretary of State (1790–1793) during the administration of President George Washington. Upon resigning his office, with his close friend James Madison he organized the Democratic-Republican Party. Elected Vice-President in 1796, under his opponent John Adams, Jefferson with Madison secretly wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which attempted to nullify the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (known as Pasek and Paul) are an award winning musical theatre composing team. Their works include A Christmas Story, Dogfight, Edges and James and the Giant Peach. They are graduates of the University of Michigan and winners of the 2007 Jonathan Larson Award, named after the late Rent composer, that honors achievement by composers, lyricists and librettists.

Pasek and Paul began their collaboration as freshmen at the University of Michigan where they completed their BFA degrees in 2007.^{[not in citation given]}

In 2010, Pasek and Paul joined the creative team of A Christmas Story: The Musical! The show opened at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre on December 9th, 2010. Since the Seattle premiere, the show recruited Tony award-winning director John Rando and choreographer Warren Carlyle to launch a national tour in 2011, concluding at the Chicago Theatre in Chicago, Illinois.

Pasek and Paul, together with book writer Peter Duchan, are adapting the 1991 River Phoenix and Lili Taylor film Dogfight. The show will have its world premiere at Second Stage Theatre in July of 2012 and will be directed by Tony award winner Joe Mantello. The musical was the recipient of the 2011 Richard Rodgers Award for Musical Theater given by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.