LYNN NOTTAGE’s new play, By The Way, Meet Vera Stark, enjoyed an extended run Off-Broadway at Second Stage Theatre (Lily Award, Drama Desk Nomination) and most recently at the Geffen Playhouse.  It can be seen this upcoming season at Lyric Stage in Boston and The Goodman Theatre in Chicago.  Her Pulitzer Prize-winning play Ruined premiered at Manhattan Theatre Club and Goodman Theatre (OBIE, Lucille Lortel, New York Drama Critics’ Circle, Audelco, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Play).  It subsequently toured widely throughout US regional theatres and premiered internationally at the Almeida Theatre in London. The play has since been produced throughout the world, including Cambodia, Chad, The Caribbean, The Democratic Republic of Congo, and Germany.  Her other plays include Intimate Apparel (American Theatre Critics and New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards for Best Play); Fabulation, or The Re-Education of Undine (OBIE Award); Crumbs from the Table of Joy; Las Meninas; Mud, River, Stone; Por’knockers and POOF!.

Nottage is the recipient of the 2010 Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, the Dramatists Guild Hull-Warriner Award, the inaugural Horton Foote Prize for Outstanding New American Play (Ruined), Helen Hayes Award (Ruined), the Lee Reynolds Award, and the Jewish World Watch iWitness Award. Her other honors include the 2007 MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant,” the National Black Theatre Festival’s August Wilson Playwriting Award, the 2005 Guggenheim Grant for Playwriting, the 2004 PEN/Laura Pels Award for Drama, as well as fellowships from the Lucille Lortel Foundation, Manhattan Theatre Club, New Dramatists and New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a graduate of Brown University and the Yale School of Drama, where she is currently a visiting lecturer. She is a co-founder and producer at Market Road Films LLC, a film production company. 

Nottage is a board member for Theatre Communications Group, BRIC Arts Media Bklyn, Donor Direct Action, The New Black Fest, Voice and Vision, and the Dramatists Guild. 

Like a number of British actors of the same generation, ROGER REES was originally trained for the visual arts. He acted in church and Boy Scout stage productions while growing up in London, but studied painting and lithography at the Slade School of Art, and his first paying jobs in show business were as a scenery painter.

He turned to acting on a full-time basis in the mid-1960s. After his fourth audition, the Royal Shakespeare Company finally hired him as a bit player in 1968. He then worked his way up through the RSC's ranks, finally achieving stardom in the early 1980s in its production of "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickelby", for which he won both an Olivier Award and a Tony Award. He was also nominated for an Emmy Award for the television version of the play. By this time, he had several television movies to his name, but he did not make his large-screen debut until Star 80 (1983). More recently, he has acted in several British and American television series and in a number of independent films.

Roger Rees received Olivier and Tony Awards for his performance inThe Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby and a Tony nomination forIndiscretions. His stage credits also include Broadway productions ofUncle Vanya, The Rehearsal, The Red Shoes, London Assurance andThe Addams Family. Off-Broadway he starred in A Man of No Importance and received an Obie Award for The End of the Day. He is well known for his work on TV'sCheers and The West Wing.