SCOTT MCPHERSON graduated from Ohio University. In 1981, he moved to Chicago, where he acted in The Normal Heart, and The House of Blue Leaves. He later joined the play writing group Chicago New Plays. He died of complications from AIDS on November 7, 1992, aged 33. Ohio University named a new theater space for him, while the Goodman Theatre and the Victory Gardens Theater have established an annual playwriting award in his name.

DAVID PETRARCA was director at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago from 1988 until 2005. Recent work as a director includes HBO's Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones, Big Love, Hung, and True Blood. He worked as an executive producer on the ABC series Eli Stone and the Lifetime series Drop Dead Diva. He was the recipient of a TCG/NEA Director Fellowship and has served as associate artistic director for the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and the Chelsea Theatre Centre in New York City, and on the NEA Theatre Panel. He has taught for University of North Carolina School of the Arts, the O'Neill Center and Northwestern University and has developed new work for New York Stage and Film and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. In 1996, Petrarca was chosen by the Chicago Tribune as a "Chicagoan of the Year". In 2006, he completed filming Save the Last Dance 2 for Paramount Pictures. As of mid-2009, he was working on the screenplay of Wendy MacLeod's Schoolgirl Figure, and a film adaptation of David Lindsay-Abaire's Fuddy Meers to be shot in the summer of 2012. (As of October 2013)