Suzan-Lori Parks (Playwright) is a multi-award-winning writer and musician. She is the first African-American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Topdog/Underdog, which recently won the 2023 Tony Award for Best Revival. Her other plays include Sally & Tom (2024), Plays for the Plague Year (Drama Desk Award, Best Music, 2023) and Father Comes Home From The Wars (2014). Parks’ first marathon-writing “micro diary plays,” 365 Days/365 Plays were produced worldwide in what was the largest grassroots collaborative theatre project to date. She is a MacArthur “Genius” Fellow, a novelist: Getting Mother’s Body (Random House); and a screenwriter: Girl 6, Genius: Aretha, and The United States vs Billie Holiday. Parks also writes songs and fronts her band “SLP& The Joyful Noise,” with her punk-couture medicine show, The Tune Up, world-premiering this summer. As a college student Parks is grateful to have studied creative writing with James Baldwin, who encouraged her to write for the theatre.

Kenny Leon (Director) is a Tony Award-winning director. Broadway: The Balusters, Othello, Our Town, HOME, Purlie Victorious: A Non-Confederate Romp Through the Cotton Patch, Topdog/Underdog, Ohio State Murders, A Soldier’s Play, American Son, Children of a Lesser God, Holler If Ya Hear Me, A Raisin in the Sun, The Mountaintop, Stick Fly, August Wilson’s Fences, Gem of the Ocean and Radio Golf. Off-Broadway: The Conversation (Astor Place Theatre), This World of Tomorrow (The Shed), King James, The Underlying Chris, Everybody’s Ruby, Emergence-See! (The Public), Smart People (Second Stage). Opera: Amahl and the Night Visitors, Margaret Garner. Television: Robin Roberts Presents: Mahalia, Colin in Black & White, 4400, Amend: The Fight for America, American Son (adapted for Netflix), Hairspray Live!, The Wiz Live!, Steel Magnolias, Dynasty, In My Dreams. Author: Take You Wherever You Go. Artistic Director Emeritus: Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre Company. Senior Resident Director: Roundabout Theatre Company. Awards: Obie, Actors Fund Medal of Honor, George Abbott Lifetime Achievement for American Theatre, Jason Robards Award for Excellence in Theatre.

Arnulfo Maldonado (Scenic Design) Steppenwolf Theatre Company: Dance Nation. Broadway: The Fear of 13, Buena Vista Social Club (Tony nomination), Dead Outlaw, Real Women Have Curves, Yellow Face, Home, Topdog/Underdog, A Strange Loop (Tony nomination), Trouble In Mind. Off-Broadway: Atlantic, Lincoln Center, MCC, MTC, New Group, NYTW, Playwrights Horizons, The Public, Roundabout, Second Stage, Signature, Soho Rep. Obie Sustained Excellence in Set Design, Princess Grace Recipient, Lortel Award recipient/multiple nominee, Drama Desk nominee, Henry Hewes Design Award nominee. Training: NYU Tisch. IG: @arnulfo.maldonado.design www.arnulfomaldonado.com

Dede Ayite (Costume Design) is a costume designer working in theater, opera and film. Ayite previously worked at Steppenwolf Theatre Company on Purpose and Marie Antoinette (2015 Jeff Award). She has designed over a dozen productions on Broadway, including Othello, Buena Vista Social Club, Purpose, Topdog/Underdog, Jaja’s African Hairbraiding (Tony Award) and Slave Play. She has been nominated for 6 Tony Awards and 4 Drama Desk Awards, also earning a special Drama Desk Award in 2022 and The TDF/Kitty Leech Young Master Award. Ayite recently designed X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X at the Met. Select Off-Broadway projects include: Goddess, Hell’s Kitchen, Merry Wives (The Public Theater), Buena Vista Social Club, Marie and Rosetta (Atlantic). Her work has also appeared Off Broadway at Signature Theatre, MCC Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, Lincoln Center Theater, and Roundabout Theatre Company. Regional: Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Arena Stage and more. Television: Netflix, Comedy Central. Awards: Obie, Drama Desk, Henry Hewes, Lucille Lortel, Helen Hayes, Theatre Bay Area, an Audelco and Jeff Awards.

Lee Fiskness (Lighting Design) Steppenwolf Theatre Company: Dance of Death, King James, The Children, The Crucible, The Fundamentals. Chicago: The Goodman, Chicago Shakespeare, Northlight, Drury Lane, Marriott Theatre, Court Theatre, Writers Theatre, Lightscape (Chicago Botanical Garden). Regionally: The Old Globe, Alliance Theatre, Kennedy Center, Manhattan Theatre Club, Mark Taper Forum, Cincinnati Playhouse, Milwaukee Repertory, Emerson Colonial Theatre, Arsht Center. Opera: Chicago Lyric, San Jose, Dallas, Portland, Kentucky, Colorado, Florentine. International: Jurassic World Exhibition (China), Marriage of Figaro (Japan), Movement Stories (Abu Dhabi). Television (Lighting Teams): Oprah Winfrey Show, The Rosie Show, Fox Sports, Chicago Bears Network. www.leefiskness.com

Justin Ellington (Sound Design) Steppenwolf Theatre Company: Familiar. Chicago: School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3), How to Catch Creation, Clyde’s (Goodman Theatre). Broadway: August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf, Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, Topdog/Underdog, Our Town, Proof. Off-Broadway: Heroes of the Fourth Turning (Playwrights Horizons); Pipeline (Lincoln Center Theater). Awards: Three-time Tony Award nominee, Obie Award, Henry Hewes Design Award.

Jyreika Guest (Intimacy/Violence Consultant) is so happy to work with Steppenwolf Theatre again! Steppenwolf Credits include: The Dance of Death, The Seagull and Thanksgiving Play; Covenant and Antiquities (Goodman Theatre), Veal and Is God Is (Red Orchid Theatre); Rock of Ages (Paramount Theatre); Fire Shut Up In My Bones and Champion (Lyric Opera); Sheepdog (Shattered Globe); Gaslight, Brooklyn Laundry, Little Women, Selling Kabul, Intimate Apparel, Fireflies (Northlight Theatre);  Regionally: Fela! (Olney Theatre) and Ain't No Mo (Woolly Mammoth Theatre); October Storm and The Last Pair of Earlies (Raven Theatre). Film/TV: Starz Power Book Series: Force @jevelyng

Kate DeVore (Voice Coach) returns to Steppenwolf Theatre Company where she coached Catch as Catch Can, Amadeus, Mr. Wolf, You Will Get Sick, The Book of Grace, Fool For Love, Noises Off, The Thanksgiving Play, Purpose, a home what howls (or the house what was ravine), POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, Sanctuary City, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and fml: how Carson McCullers saved my life. Kate also happily taught Voice at The School at Steppenwolf for 11 years. She has served as voice and/or dialect coach at Goodman Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Lyric Opera of Chicago, A Red Orchid Theatre, Drury Lane, Second City, Writers Theatre, Piven Theatre Workshop, Theo Ubique, and Chicago Dramatists. Film/TV credits include The Outfit, Ripley, A Prayer for Dying, Last Days, and Caddo Lake. More about her books and coaching services at TotalVoice.net.

Laura D. Glenn (Production Stage Manager) Steppenwolf Theatre Company: 100 + productions over the past 38 years, most recently Catich as Catch Can, The Dance of Death, and Amadeus. Chicago: 22 productions between 2002-2016 (Northlight Theatre). Galway International Arts Festival: True West, Orange Flower Water, Purple Heart (Steppenwolf), Better Late (Northlight Theatre). BITE Festival Barbican Center London: The Man Who Came to Dinner (Steppenwolf). Broadway: Buried Child (Steppenwolf). Laura has proudly worked with all 55 Steppenwolf Theatre Ensemble members, has been a member of Actors Equity Association for 36 years and recently won the inaugural Impresario Jeff Award in Stage Management.

Jaclynn Joslin (Assistant Stage Manager) Steppenwolf Theatre Company: Catch as Catch Can, Amadeus, The Book of Grace, Leroy and Lucy, Little Bear Ridge Road, Purpose, No Man's Land, Last Night and the Night Before, Bald Sisters, King James, Bug, True West, Familiar, Guards at the Taj, BLKS, The Crucible, Between Riverside and Crazy, The Flick, East of Eden. Chicago: Out Here, Big White Fog, A Raisin in the Sun, East Texas Hot Links, The Lion in Winter, Arsenic and Old Lace, Two Trains Running, Othello, Oedipus Rex, The Adventures of Augie March, For Colored Girls, Photograph 51, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, All My Sons, Harvey, The Hard Problem, Blues for an Alabama Sky (Court Theatre); Continuity, The King of Hell’s Palace (Goodman Theatre); Hard Times (Lookingglass Theatre); Roz and Ray (Victory Gardens). Regional: Linda Vista (Center Theatre Group); The Outgoing Tide, Oceanside, 13 Things About Ed Carpolotti, Year Zero (Merrimack Repertory Theatre). Touring: Oklahoma!