JOHN ROBIN BAITZ is currently a professor at Stony Brook Southampton, and The New School where he is Artistic Director of the BFA theatre program. In 1991, Baitz wrote and directed the two-character play Three Hotels, based on his parents, for a presentation of PBS's "American Playhouse", then reworked the material for the stage, earning another Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding New Play for his efforts. In 1993, he co-scripted (with Howard A. Rodman) The Frightening Frammis, which was directed by Tom Cruise and aired as an episode of the Showtime anthology series Fallen Angels. Two years later, Henry Jaglom cast him as a gay playwright who achieves success at an early age - a character inspired by Baitz himself - in the film Last Summer in the Hamptons; the following year he appeared as Michelle Pfeiffer's business associate in the screen comedy One Fine Day. In 1996, he was one of the three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for his semi-autobiographical play A Fair Country. Subsequent stage works include Mizlansky/Zilinsky or "Schmucks", a revised version of Mizlansky/Zilinsky, starring Nathan Lane, and directed by Baitz's then-partner Joe Mantello (1998), a new adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler (first at L.A.'s Geffen Playhouse with Annette Bening in 1999, then at Long Island's Bay Street Theater with Kate Burton in 2000, followed by a Broadway production with the same star the following year), Ten Unknowns (2001), starring Donald Sutherland and Julianna Margulies, and The Paris Letter (2005) with Ron Rifkin and John Glover. His screenplays include the adaptation of his own Substance of Fire (1996), with Tony Goldwyn and Timothy Hutton joining original cast members Rifkin and Parker, and People I Know (2003), which starred Al Pacino. His play Other Desert Cities opened Off-Broadway at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater (Lincoln Center) in New York on January 13, 2011, starring Stockard Channing, Linda Lavin, Stacy Keach, Thomas Sadoski and Elizabeth Marvel. The play was originally titled Love and Mercy. The production transferred to Broadway, opening at the Booth Theatre on November 3, 2011, with Judith Light replacing Lavin and Rachel Griffiths replacing Marvel.

Mark Lamos  is a Tony Award-winning American theatre director, producer, and actor. Born in Chicago, Illinois, Lamos studied violin and ballet at an early age and attended Northwestern University on a music scholarship. He began his theatrical career as an actor at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. His early Broadway appearances all were in short-lived productions: The Love Suicide at Schofield Barracks and The Creation of the World and Other Business in 1972, Cyrano in 1973, and a revival of Man and Superman in 1978. He also appeared in the film Longtime Companion. Lamos joined the Hartford Stage as Artistic Director in 1980. During his reign the company staged Einstein and the Polar Bear, Is There Life After High School?, Stand-Up Tragedy, and Our Country's Good, all of which transferred to Broadway. Additional New York directing credits include The Deep Blue Sea, The Gershwins' Fascinating Rhythm, The Rivals, and Seascape. Lamos has directed Much Ado About Nothing for the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C., Giuseppe Verdi's I Lombardi at the Metropolitan Opera House, and John Harbison's operatic adaptations of Winter’s Tale and The Great Gatsby.