Anne Commire was an American playwright, author, and editor. Her plays include Shay, Put Them All Together, The Melody Sisters, and Starting Monday. Commire has recieved accolades for her theatre work, winning the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Award four times. She has edited many books and publications including Breaking The Silence and Women In World History. She is the author of one book, Mooreville, which details her family's struggles during the Prohibition era.

Born and raised in NYC, Elinor Renfield studied with The Martha Graham Dance Company, at The High School of Performing Arts, and Emerson College in Boston Massachusetts where she received a BA in English.  After completing a scholarship year at The Central School for Speech and Drama in London, she began her graduate work in Theatre and Film at C.U.N.Y (Hunter College) where she received an MA.  Her thirty year career as a stage director has included work on Broadway, Off Broadway and in Regional Theaters.  She had the good fortune of working with playwrights as diverse and challenging as Romulus Linney, Peter Nichols, Mark St. Germain, Doug Wright, Thomas Babe, Craig Lucas, Ronald Ribman, Susan Miller and Shirley Lauro among others.  At the Ensemble Studio Theatre marathon Ms. Renfield directed a one act play, Open Admissions by Shirley Lauro, that was voted one of the season's top ten productions by The New York Times, before it was expanded into a full length play on Broadway, with the original team.  At Washington DC's Arena Stage she directed Passion Play by Peter Nichols (Helen Hayes nominee) which she later mounted in New York at The Minetta Lane Theatre.  Ms. Renfield has received two NEA Grants for developmental work.  One at The Gutherie Theatre in Minneapolis and the other at The American Place Theatre in NYC where she spent a season as Associate Artistic Director under Julia Miles at The Women's Project. An accomplished educator, Ms. Renfield has taught and directed in The Graduate Acting Program at Tisch School of the Arts NYU, Princeton University, where from 1988 thru 2004 she was a member of the faculty in the Dept. of Theatre And Dance, Yale University undergraduate Theatre Program where she taught "Acting Chekhov", and The New School For Drama, in NYC, where for 6 years she was Chair of The Graduate Directing program, and where she continues to teach Directing. (As of 1982)