SIMON STEPHENS. For more than twenty years Simon Stephens work has been widely translated and produced throughout the world. He has won many awards including Olivier and Tony Awards for new plays. His work ranges from the deeply political, considering such subjects such as the 7/7 London bombings (Pornography) or the possibility of school shootings in the UK (Punk Rock), to the intimate and personal (Heisenberg, Harper Regan). His adaptation of Jose Saramago’s Blindness was made into a light and sound installation that was produced internationally during the COVID-19 pandemic. His most famous play is his adaptation of Mark Haddon’s best-selling novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. He is under commission to the National Theatre in the UK; Manhattan Theatre Club; the Schauspielhaus Stuttgart; and Parco, Tokyo. He has been Artistic Associate at the Lyric, Hammersmith and Associate Playwright at the Royal Court Theatre. He has taught playwriting workshops in five continents. He is a Professor at the Writing School of Manchester Metropolitan University.

MARK EITZEL has released over 17 albums of original material with American Music Club and as a solo artist. The Guardian has called him “America’s greatest living lyricist,” and Rolling Stone once gave him their Songwriter of the Year award. Originally formed in 1983, AMC released seven albums before breaking up in 1995. The band reunited in 2004 for two full-lengths, Love Songs for Patriots and The Golden Age. In April of 2012 while working on his last solo record, Eitzel suffered a heart attack which forced him to slow down and delayed the album’s release. In 2015, he wrote music for Simon Stephens’s Song from Far Away, (Toneelgroep Amsterdam and Young Vic; dir. Ivo Van Hove) his second collaboration with the English playwright following the Brighton based Marine Parade (Brighton Festival; dir. Jo McInnes). In 2017 Mark released “Hey Mr Ferryman” which UNCUT magazine called “Eitzel at his unflinching best” and Q said “Eitzel’s best album in years” with Spain’s El Pais gave it new album of the week as did Rolling Stone Germany. Mark is currently working on a new musical and solo album while the American Music Club early back catalogue will be reissued in 2023.

NEIL PEPE (Director) received a Tony nomination for Best Director for the production of American Buffalo. Broadway: Hands on a Hardbody, Speed-the-Plow, A Life in the Theatre. Off-Broadway/regional: A Play Is A Poem (CTG); Juno and the Paycock (Irish Rep); On the Shore of the Wide World, The Penitent, Marie and Rosetta, Hold on to Me Darling, Dying for It, 3 Kinds of Exile, Happy Hour, Offices, Almost an Evening, Parlour Song, The Night Heron, Mojo, Celebration, The Room, Dreams of Flying Dreams of Falling, Sea of Tranquility, Blue/Orange, Wolf Lullaby (Atlantic); The Subject Was Roses, Keep Your Pantheon, Romance (Center Theatre Group, Atlantic); Red Angel (Williamstown); Further Than the Furthest Thing (MTC); The Beginning of August (South Coast Repertory, Atlantic); American Buffalo (Donmar Warehouse, Atlantic); Refuge (Playwrights Horizons). Neil has been the artistic director of Atlantic Theater Company since 1992.