Richard Nelson's plays include Farewell to the Theatre, Nikolai and the Others, Sweet and Sad, That Hopey Changey Thing, Conversations in Tusculum, How Shakespeare Won the West, Frank's Home, Rodney's Wife, Franny's Way, Madame Melville, Goodnight Children Everywhere, The General From America, New England, Misha's Party (with Alexander Gelman), Columbus or the Discovery of Japan, Two Shakespearean Actors, Some Americans Abroad, Left, Life Sentences, Principia Scriptoriae. He was written the musicals Unfinished Piece for a Player Piano (with Peter Golub), James Joyce's The Dead (with Shaun Davey), My Life With Albertine (with Ricky Ian Gordon), the screenplays for the films Hyde Park-on-Hudson (Roger Michell director) and Ethan Frome (John Madden director). He has received numerous awards both in America and abroad, including a Tony Award (Best Book of a Musical for James Joyce's The Dead), and Oliver Award (Best Play for Goodnight Children Everywhere), Tony nominations (Best Play for Two Shakespearean Actors; Best Score as co-lyricist for James Joyce's The Dead), an Olivier nomination (Best Comedy for Some Americans Abroad), two Obies, a Lortel Award, a New York Drama Critics Circle Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Lila Wallace-Readers' Digest Writers Award. He is the recipient of the PEN/Laura Pels Master Playwright Award, an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and he is an Honorary Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He lives in upstate New York. (As of January 2007)

This season marks Robert Falls’ 20^th anniversary as artistic director of Goodman Theatre. From 1977 to 1985, he served as artistic director of Chicago’s Wisdom Bridge Theatre. Mr. Falls has directed some 30 major productions for the Goodman, including eight world premieres and eight plays that he subsequently remounted on Broadway and/or abroad. Two of his most highly acclaimed Broadway productions, Arthur Miller’s Death of A Salesman and Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night (first staged at the Goodman in 1998 and 2002, respectively, and both starring his longtime collaborator Brian Dennehy) were honored with seven Tony Awards and three Drama Desk Awards. Most recently, Mr. Falls directed Oliver Platt, Brian O’Byrne and Martha Plimpton in the American premiere of Conor McPherson’s Shining City, which opened on Broadway last spring and received two Tony Award nominations. Also during the 2005/2006 season, he directed David Mamet’s A Life in the Theatre for the Goodman, as well as the London revival of Death of a Salesman. His production of Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida for Walt Disney Theatricals, which ran on Broadway for four years, is currently playing in Germany, Japan and South Korea. For the Goodman’s 2004/2005 season, Mr. Falls directed the world premiere of Arthur Miller’s final play, Finishing the Picture; the world premiere of Rebecca Gilman’s Dollhouse; and Eugene O’Neill’s Hughie. (As of January 2007)