Suzan-Lori Parks is an American playwright, screenwriter, musician and novelist. Her play Topdog/Underdog won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002; Parks was the first African-American woman to receive the award for drama. She was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023.
Nilo Cruz is a Cuban-American playwright and pedagogue. With his award of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Anna in the Tropics, he became the second Latino so honored, after Nicholas Dante.
Steppenwolf Theatre Company is a Chicago theater company founded in 1974 by Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry, and Gary Sinise in the Unitarian church on Half Day Road in Deerfield, Illinois and is now located in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood on Halsted Street. The theatre's name comes from Hermann Hesse's novel Steppenwolf, which original member Rick Argosh was reading during the company's inaugural production of Paul Zindel's play, And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little, in 1974. After occupying several theatres in Chicago, in 1991, it moved into its own purpose-built complex with three performing spaces, the largest seating 550.
Femi Euba is a Nigerian actor, writer, and dramatist, who has published numerous works of drama, theory, and fiction. His work as a theatre practitioner encompasses acting, playwriting, and directing. Among the topics of his plays is Yoruba culture.
The Geffen Playhouse is a not-for-profit theater company founded by Gilbert Cates in 1995.
The Magic Theatre is a theatre company founded in 1967, presently based at the historic Fort Mason Center on San Francisco's northern waterfront. The Magic Theatre is well known and respected for its singular focus on the development and production of new plays. Sean San José is the Artistic Director.
Tina Landau is an American playwright and theatre director. Known for her large-scale, musical, and ensemble-driven work, Landau's productions have appeared on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regionally, most extensively at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago where she is an ensemble member.
Bruce Norris is an American character actor and playwright associated with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company of Chicago. His play Clybourne Park won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Rajiv Joseph is an American playwright. He was named a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, and he won an Obie Award for Best New American Play for his play Describe the Night.
John Stephen Gerrard Jeffreys was a British playwright and playwriting teacher. He wrote original plays, films and play adaptations and also worked as translator. Jeffreys is best known for his play The Libertine about the Earl of Rochester, which was performed at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago with John Malkovich as Rochester, and later adapted into a film starring Malkovich and Johnny Depp.
Joshua Elijah Reese is an American actor.
Glenn Davis is an American actor and producer, and the Artistic Director of Steppenwolf Theatre Company — the first person of color in the company's history to assume this position. Davis is a partner at Cast Iron Entertainment with Sterling K. Brown, Brian Tyree Henry, Jon Michael Hill, Andre Holland, and Tarell Alvin McCraney, and the collective is in residence at Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. He is also an artistic associate at the Young Vic Theatre in London and the Vineyard Theatre in New York.
Terence Alan Smith, also known as "Joan Jett Blakk", is an activist, political candidate, and drag queen from Detroit, Michigan. Smith is an African-American actor, writer, and political candidate. Smith, as Joan Jett Blakk first came to national attention when running for president of the United States in 1992.
Tea Alagic is a Bosnian-American stage director and creator of devised theater. Her best-known productions include the premiere of The Brothers Size by Tarell Alvin McCraney, the U.S premieres of plays by Austrian playwright and Nobel Laureate, Elfriede Jelinek and the revival of Passing Strange by Stew and Heidi Rodewald.
Lucas Hnath is an American playwright. He won the 2016 Obie Award for excellence in playwriting for his plays Red Speedo and The Christians. He also won a Whiting Award.
Moonlight is a 2016 American coming-of-age drama film written and directed by Barry Jenkins, based on Tarell Alvin McCraney's unpublished semi-autobiographical play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue. It stars Trevante Rhodes, Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris, Ashton Sanders, Jharrel Jerome, Janelle Monáe, and André Holland.
The Brother/Sister Plays is a triptych of plays written by American playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney.
Barry Jenkins is an American filmmaker. After making his filmmaking debut with the short film My Josephine (2003), he directed his first feature film Medicine for Melancholy (2008) for which he received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best First Feature. He is also a member of The Chopstars collective as a creative collaborator.
Jeremy O. Harris is an American playwright, actor, and philanthropist. Harris gained prominence for his 2018 Slave Play, which received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Play. Harris is also known for his work in film and television. He produced and co-wrote the A24 film Zola (2021), for which he received a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay. He acted in the HBO Max series Gossip Girl (2021), the Netflix series Emily in Paris (2022), and in the film The Sweet East (2023).
Larry Owens is an American comedian, actor, writer, and singer. He received a Lucille Lortel Award and a Drama Desk Award for his leading performance in the off-Broadway musical A Strange Loop. Owens has acted on television shows including Search Party, High Maintenance, Modern Love, and Abbott Elementary.
