Aurin Squire is a playwright, reporter, and screenwriter from South Florida. He has been awarded the Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights, Seattle Public Theatre's Emerald Prize for new plays, and fellowships at National Black Theatre and The Dramatists Guild. His political satire Obama-ology was first developed at The Juilliard School's summer workshop before going on to be produced in London, Los Angeles, and Dallas. Squire was also a writer for Miami New Drama's 7 Deadly Sins, which won a Drama League Award for Outstanding Interactive Theatre, and Confessions of a Cocaine Cowboy which he co-wrote with Billy Corben. In TV, Squire was a co-executive producer and writer on the TV dramas The Good Fight and Evil. He has been nominated for two NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series, a Black Reel Award, and a WGA Award for his work on This is Us.  Most recently he wrote the book for A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical on Broadway.

He is a New Dramatists resident playwright, a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, and the Writers Guild of America. He graduated from The Juilliard School and Northwestern University.

Justin Townsend is an international lighting designer for performance.  Broadway lighting designs include Death Becomes Her, Once Upon a Mattress, Here Lies Love, Moulin Rouge! The Musical (Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award), Jagged Little Pill (Tony Nomination), American Psycho (Tony nomination, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, and Henry Hewes Award), The Humans (Tony nomination, Drama Desk Award), The Nap, Little Foxes, Present Laughter, Casa Valentina, A Night with Janis Joplin (NAACP Theatre Award), Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, The Other Place, and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (Hewes Nomination, OCC Nomination).

Justin received an Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Lighting Design in 2014.    He is the Chair of the Department of Design for Stage and Film at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.  www.justintownsend.com

Tina Landau is a writer, director and teacher whose work includes directing/conceiving her original musical Floyd Collins, Redwood, SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical, Tarell Alvin McCraney's Head of Passes (Steppenwolf, The Public and the Mark Taper Forum), WIG OUT! (Vineyard Theatre), and In the Red and Brown Water (The Public), Bill Irwin/David Shiner's Old Hats, Chuck Mee's Big Love and Iphigenia 2.0 (all Signature Theatre), Paula Vogel's A Civil War Christmas (New York Theatre Workshop). On Broadway, Landau also directed Tracy Letts's Superior Donuts, and the revival of Bells are Ringing. At Steppenwolf, where she is an ensemble member, directing credits include The Wheel, Hot L Baltimore, The Brother/Sister Plays, The Tempest, The Time of Your Life (also Seattle Rep, ACT), The Diary of Anne Frank, The Cherry Orchard, The Ballad of Little Jo, Berlin Circle and her own play Space (also Mark Taper Forum, the Public). Landau has co-authored The Viewpoints Book with Anne Bogart and has taught regularly at such schools as Yale, Columbia, Harvard and Northwestern.

Awards: USA Fellow, Princess Grace Award, TCG/NEA Director Fellowship, Pew, J. Alton Jones and Rockefeller Awards.