In addition to the current Broadway hit Wicked, Stephen Schwartz has contributed music and/or lyrics to Godspell, Pippin, The Magic Show, The Baker’s Wife, Working, Rags, and Children of Eden. On film, he collaborated with Alan Menken on the songs for Disney’s Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Enchanted, and Disenchanted, and wrote the songs for the DreamWorks animated feature The Prince of Egypt. Mr. Schwartz has been inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and has been given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He has won three Academy Awards, four Grammy Awards, and the Isabelle Stevenson special Tony Award.

Lindsey Ferrentino is a prolific playwright whose produced plays include Ugly Lies the Bone (Roundabout Theatre Company; The National Theatre, UK; NYT Critic’s Pick), Amy and the Orphans (Roundabout Theatre Company), This Flat Earth (Playwrights Horizons), and The Year to Come (La Jolla Playhouse). She is currently under commission from Roundabout, Manhattan Theatre Club, and South Coast Rep; and she is currently writing the book for The Artist, based on the film of the same title, directed by Drew McConie.

Ms. Ferrentino is also a screenwriter, with various projects in development. Most recently announced, she is adapting and directing her play Amy and the Orphans, produced by Aggregate Pictures, and writing the screenplay for the film Not Fade Away, for Annapurna Pictures (David O. Russell and John Krasinski producing). She is the recipient of the 2016 Kesselring Prize, a Laurents/Hatcher Citation of Excellence, the ASCAP Cole Porter Playwriting Prize, and the Paul Newman Drama Award, and her work was featured in the 2015 Kilroys List. She holds a BFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and has two MFAs in playwriting, from Hunter College and the Yale School of Drama.

Dane Laffrey is an American designer and creative based in New York City. With Michael Arden on Broadway: set for Parade (Jacobs); set and costumes for Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (Nederlander), which he co-conceived with Arden and for which he was nominated for Hewes and Tony Awards; the 2018 Tony-winning revival of Once on This Island (Circle in the Square), for which he received Henry Hewes, Drama Desk, and Tony Award nominations; set and costumes for the acclaimed Deaf West revival of Spring Awakening (Brooks Atkinson). Elsewhere, he and Arden have collaborated on Guys and Dolls (Toho, Imperial Theatre Tokyo), Merrily We Roll Along (Wallis Annenberg), and Annie (Hollywood Bowl). They are partners in At Rise Creative, which won the 2023 Tony for Best Revival of a Musical for Parade. He has designed for most major off-Broadway theaters including Roundabout, Manhattan Theatre Club (also Fool for Love on Broadway), Lincoln Center Theater, Second Stage, The Public Theater, and Playwrights Horizons. Laffrey also designs Disney’s Hercules, which will next premiere in Hamburg, Germany, in March 2024.

www.danelaffrey.com

Christian Cowan is the founder and creative director of CHRISTIAN COWAN, a collection of womenswear and accessories that is available online and at select retailers around the world.

Renowned for his ability to create pieces that are at once fabulous and wearable, Cowan has been described by Vogue as “the go-to New York designer for high-octane glamour.” He was a finalist of the Council of Fashion Designs of America (CFDA) / Vogue Fashion Fund in 2018, the year after he relocated to New York.

Since launching in 2017, CHRISTIAN COWAN has grown up rapidly from its origins of “performance-ready dresses,” “the must-have cocktail party dress” (FT “How to Spend It”), and “the ultimate rehearsal-dinner gown” (Marie Claire), now joined by strong tailoring and refined silhouettes that have cemented the brand’s positioning in day-to-night dressing. Cowan has expanded the line with “sleek silk tanks, blazers, skirts, and gowns, with clean, unfussy lines” (Vogue), and is developing accessories that are debuting this fall.

Born in England and raised in Spain, Cowan studied fashion at London College of Fashion and Central Saint Martins. His career began while still in school, when Lady Gaga purchased his entire second-year collection.

Natasha Katz has designed for theater, opera, dance, film, concerts, and permanent lighting installations around the world. Recent Broadway and Off-Broadway: Sweeney Todd, Here We Are, Grey House, MJ, Some Like It Hot, Springsteen on Broadway, Aladdin, and Hello, Dolly! (starring Bette Midler). Recent Dance: Like Water for Chocolate at The Met and The Winter’s Tale for The Royal Ballet. She is a TDF Wendy Wasserstein Project Mentor, an eight-time Tony winner, and was recently inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame.

Peter Hylenski received a Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, and an Outer Critics Circle Award Honor for his work on Moulin Rouge! The Musical. A Grammy, Olivier, and eight-time Tony nominee, his selected Broadway designs include Moulin Rouge!, Frozen, Anastasia, Beetlejuice, Once on This Island, Something Rotten, King Kong, Rock of Ages, After Midnight, Motown, The Scottsboro Boys, Side Show, Rocky, Bullets Over Broadway, Shrek the Musical, On a Clear Day, Lend Me a Tenor, Elf. Additional designs include Awakening, Le Rêve, and Lake of Dreams at Wynn Las Vegas. He’s designed for Carnegie Hall, Radio City Music Hall, Madison Square Garden, London’s O2 Arena, and The Kennedy Center. Peter holds a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University.

Mary-Mitchell Campbell is a Grammy Award–winning musician and currently the Musical Director for Encores! at City Center. She has been the Music Supervisor or Music Director for multiple Broadway shows, including Some Like It Hot, Mean Girls, The Prom, Tuck Everlasting, Finding Neverland, Big Fish, The Addams Family, Company, and Sweeney Todd. She has conducted the Chicago Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, and the Nashville Symphony, and she was recently named an Imagination Artist and conductor for the Colorado Symphony. Mary-Mitchell is passionate about arts education and access to arts education for marginalized communities. She is the Founder of Arts Ignite (artsignite.org), which recruits and trains high-level artists to teach young people health education and life skills through the arts. She is very active in Maestra (maestramusic.org) and MUSE: Musicians United for Social Equity.

museonline.org

Christopher and Lauren are NYC-based choreographers, performers, and teachers. Christopher grew up in Mississippi, backyard tumbling and imitating music videos. He received his BFA in Dance Performance and Choreography from the University of Southern Mississippi. Lauren, a native New Yorker, was born a mover and grew up studying ballet, jazz, and modern dance. She received her BFA in Dance with honors from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Their worlds collided when they began dancing professionally with Pilobolus Dance Theater. There they fell in love and toured the world for eight years. They also helped create and performed the internationally acclaimed hit Shadowland. After leaving the company, they performed both on and off-Broadway, in a wide range of immersive theater, music videos, TV, and film.

Christopher and Lauren carry a collaborative spirit of play and creation throughout the work that they do, both as performers and choreographers. Their passion is bringing stories to life through imaginative movement, athleticism, and partnership. Upcoming + Recent Choreography Highlights Include: Tony Award Winning Parade (Broadway), associate directing/choreographing a new immersive show from the producers of Sleep No More; Ragtime (Bay Street Theater).

Performance credits include Alien/Nation (Williamstown Theatre Festival); King Kong, Alive on Broadway; Apple’s holiday spot, “Sway”; Virgin Galactic/Under Armour Spacewear reveal; Spike Jonze’s Changers, A Dance Story; Advil PM’s “Dancing Around Pain”; Seeing You; Fuerza Bruta Wayra; Queen of the Night; “The Royal Variety Performance for the Queen of England”; and “The Conan O’Brien Show.” They also host Vanity Fair’s YouTube series “Movies in Motion.”

Michael Arden received the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry’s Parade, which also received the Tony for Best Revival of a Musical. He was previously nominated for his Broadway revivals of Once on This Island and Deaf West Theatre’s Spring Awakening. His new production of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, starring Jefferson Mays, recently played the Nederlander Theatre. Other theatre credits include Maybe Happy Ending at the Alliance Theatre, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Lincoln Center, American Dream Study, and ALIEN/NATION with his theatre company, The Forest of Arden, at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

Arden has been named on Variety’s Broadway Impact List and is the winner of an NAACP Award for Best Direction of his revival of Merrily We Roll Along at the Willis Annenberg. In addition to directing theater in America and around the globe, he regularly directs “The Connors” for ABC and has appeared in numerous films and TV shows, notably “Grey’s Anatomy,” Bride Wars, Anger Management, Source Code, and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” Onstage, he has appeared on Broadway in Big River; The Times, They Are a-Changin’; and King Lear. Arden is a Presidential Scholar in the Arts, and an alumnus of the Interlochen Arts Academy and the Juilliard School.

Emmy- and Tony Award–winning actress and singer Kristin Chenoweth also acts as a producer on The Queen of Versailles through her production banner Diva Worldwide Entertainment. Ms. Chenoweth’s career spans film, television, voice-over, and stage. She is currently filming the romantic comedy Our Little Secret for Netflix opposite Lindsay Lohan. Notable theater credits include You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown (Tony Award); originating the role of Glinda the Good Witch in Wicked (Tony nomination); and the lead role in Roundabout Theatre Company’s On the Twentieth Century (Drama Desk Award, OCC Award, Tony nomination).

In 2009, Ms. Chenoweth received an Emmy Award for her role in “Pushing Daisies.” Additional select television credits include “Glee” (Emmy nominations), “American Gods,” “GCB,” “Trial & Error,” “The West Wing,” Disney’s “Descendants,” “The Muppets,” and Apple TV+’s “Schmigadoon!” Select film work includes RV, Four Christmases, Holidate, Deck the Halls, and A Christmas Love Story, which she also produced. She has performed to sold-out audiences across the world and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Ms. Chenoweth recently released her hilarious and insightful gift book, I’m No Philosopher, But I Have Thoughts: For Saints, Sinners, and the Rest of Us.

F. Murray Abraham has appeared in more than 80 films including Amadeus, for which he received the Academy Award for Best Actor as well as Golden Globe and L.A. Film Critics Awards. His film credits also include The Name of the Rose, Finding Forrester, Scarface, The Ritz, Star Trek: Insurrection, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Inside Llewyn Davis, How to Train Your Dragon 3, House of Geraniums, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Where Love Begins, Robin Hood, and Lady and the Tramp, where he sang “This Is the Night, Bella Notte.”

Mr. Abraham recently starred in the second season of HBO’s “The White Lotus,” for which he received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. He can currently be seen in the HBO limited series “The White House Plumbers” as “Judge John Sirica.” Previously, he was a series regular on “Homeland” (two Emmy nominations) and had memorable appearances on “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “The Good Wife,” “The Good Fight,” “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” “Mythic Quest,” “Marco Polo,” “Louie,” “Shakespeare Uncovered,” and “Chimerica” for the BBC. Additionally, he was featured on Guillermo del Toro’s critically acclaimed Netflix anthology series “10 After Midnight” in the role of “Dr. Winters.”

A veteran of the stage, Mr. Abraham has appeared in more than 90 plays, among them Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya (Obie Award), Trumbo; Standup Shakespeare; the Italian tour of Notturno Pirandelliano; Susan Stroman’s A Christmas Carol; the musical Triumph of Love; A Month in the Country; the title roles in Cyrano de Bergerac, King Lear, Macbeth, Richard III, and The Merchant of Venice in rep with The Jew of Malta, which he did at Stratford on Avon with the RSC; The Seagull; Oedipus Rex; Creon; Angels In America (Broadway); Arthur Miller’s last play, The Ride Down Mt. Morgan; Waiting for Godot; The Caretaker; The Ritz; Sexual Perversity in Chicago; Duck Variations; A Life in the Theatre; Paper Doll; The Threepenny Opera; The Mentor; and Terrence McNally’s It’s Only a Play (Drama Desk Award nomination). He made his Los Angeles debut in Ray Bradbury’s The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit and his New York debut as a Macy’s Santa Claus, appearing soon thereafter on Broadway in The Man in the Glass Booth, directed by Harold Pinter.

Mr. Abraham’s book, A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Actors on Shakespeare, is published by Faber & Faber. He is proud to be the spokesman for The MultiFaith Alliance.

Honors include the Moscow Art Theatre Stanislavski Award, the Sir John Gielgud Award for Excellence in Shakespeare, and an Obie Award for Lifetime Achievement. He is also a member of the New York Theater Hall of Fame.

Melody Butiu recently starred as Estrella Cumpas in David Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s immersive disco musical Here Lies Love on Broadway, a role she originated at The Public Theater. She appeared in the film Easter Sunday, starring stand-up comedy sensation Jo Koy. Theater credits include Doctor Zhivago (Broadway) and regional performances at Theatre Under the Stars (Houston), South Coast Repertory, Geva Theatre Center, Arena Stage, Denver Center, Wallis Annenberg, Huntington Theatre, Geffen Playhouse, ACT (San Francisco), and East West Players. TV appearances include “Call Me Kat,” “Mom,” “This Is Us,” “NCIS,” and “The Kominsky Method.”

melodybutiu.com / @themelodybutiu

Nina White is an artist from Michigan. Broadway: Kimberly Akimbo. Off-Broadway: Kimberly Akimbo. Regional: Sister Act (Music Theatre Wichita), 2AZ (Purple Rose Theatre Co.). Upcoming TV/Film: “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” (Amazon Prime), A Different Man (A24). University of Michigan alum. She loves to knit.