Julie Harris (born Julia Ann Harris on December 2, 1925) is a distinguished American stage, screen, and television actress. She has won five Tony Awards and three Emmy Awards, and was nominated for an Academy Award. She is a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

Gregory Hines was a Tony Award-winning American actor, singer, dancer, and choreographer. Born Gregory Oliver Hines in New York City, Hines and his older brother Maurice started dancing at an early age, studying with choreographer Henry LeTang. Together with their father the three were known as "The Hines Kids" and later as "The Hines Brothers" only to have the name change again in 1963 to "Hines, Hines and Dad". Hines appeared in such movies as "The Cotton Club", …

John Arthur Lithgow (pronounced "lith-go") (born October 19, 1945) is an American actor perhaps best-known for his starring role as Dick Solomon in the NBC sitcom "3rd Rock from the Sun". He has also acted on stage, film, and radio. He has earned multiple Emmy Awards and Tony Awards, as well as other honors. He has also recorded music for children.

George Gershwin (September 26, 1898 - July 11, 1937) was an American composer. He wrote most of his vocal and theatrical works in collaboration with his elder brother, lyricist Ira Gershwin. George Gershwin composed both for Broadway and for the classical concert hall. He also wrote popular songs with success. Many of his compositions have been used on television and in numerous films, and many became jazz standards.

Carol Elaine Channing (born on January 31, 1921 in Seattle, Washington) is an American singer and actress. The winner of three Tony Awards (including a lifetime achievement award), a Golden Globe and an Academy Award nominee, Channing is best remembered for two roles: Lorelei Lee in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and Dolly Gallagher Levi in "Hello, Dolly!". She is easily recognized by her distinctive voice and wide eyes, …

Richard Burton CBE (November 10 1925 - August 5 1984) was a Welsh actor. He was at one time the highest-paid actor in Hollywood.. Known for his distinctive voice, he was nominated seven times for Academy Awards for acting, yet never won.

Alan Jay Lerner (August 31, 1918 - June 14, 1986) was an American Broadway lyricist and librettist. Born in New York City, he was the son of Joseph Jay Lerner, the brother of the owner of the Lerner Stores, a chain of dress shops. The founder and owner of Lerner Stores was Samuel Alexander Lerner. Alan Jay Lerner was educated at Bedales School, Choate Rosemary Hall, and Harvard, where he befriended classmate John F. Kennedy.

Dame Julie Elizabeth Andrews, DBE (born Julia Elizabeth Wells on 1 October 1935) is a BAFTA, Emmy, Grammy and Academy Award-winning English actress, singer, author and cultural icon. Andrews rose to prominence after starring in Broadway musicals such as "My Fair Lady" and "Camelot", as well as musical films like "Mary Poppins" (1964) and "The Sound of Music" (1965).

George Campbell Scott (October 18, 1927 - September 22,1999) was a stage and film actor, director, and producer. He was best known for his Academy Award-winning portrayal of General George S. Patton Jr. in the film "Patton", as well as for his flamboyant performance as General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb".

Geraldine Fitzgerald (November 24, 1913 - July 17, 2005) was an Academy Awards-nominated Irish/American actress and a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

Marian Hall Seldes (born August 23, 1928) is an award-winning American stage, film, radio, and television actress whose career has spanned six decades and who was elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

Oscar Hammerstein II was an American writer, producer, and (usually uncredited) director of musicals for almost forty years. Born in New York City, his father, William, was from a non-practicing Jewish family; his mother, née Alice Nimmo, was the daughter of Scottish immigrants and their children were raised as Christians. His grandfather was the great opera impresario and theater builder Oscar Hammerstein I, one of the most remarkable, and most famous, …

Estelle Parsons (born November 20, 1927 in Marblehead, Massachusetts) is an American theater, film and television actress. Parsons originally studied law, and then worked as a singer with a band before settling on an acting career in the early 1950's. Moving to New York, she worked as a writer, producer and commentator for The Today Show .

Ira Gershwin (6 December 1896 - 17 August 1983) was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century. With George he wrote more than a dozen Broadway shows, featuring songs such as "I Got Rhythm," "Embraceable You," "The Man I Love" and "Someone to Watch Over Me," and the opera "Porgy and Bess".

Sir Ian Murray McKellen, KBE (born May 25, 1939) is a veteran English stage and screen actor, the recipient of a Tony Award and two Oscar nominations. McKellen is best known to moviegoers in recent years for his roles as Gandalf in the "Lord of the Rings" film trilogy and as Magneto in the "X-Men" trilogy. His work has spanned genres from serious Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction.

Rosemary Harris (born September 19, 1930) is a Tony Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated English actress and a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

Jerry Herman (born Gerald Herman on July 10, 1931 in New York City) is an American composer/lyricist of the Broadway musical theater. He composed the scores for the hit Broadway musicals "Hello, Dolly!", "Mame", and "La Cage aux Folles".

Sada Thompson (born September 27, 1929) is an acclaimed American stage, film and television actress. Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Thompson first appeared in television in 1954 in a "Goodyear Television Playhouse" production and made her Broadway debut in 1959. She went on to an illustrious career that included a 1972 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play for "Twigs", …

James Hubert Blake (February 7 1887], - February 12 1983), composer, lyricist, and pianist of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. With long time collaborator Noble Sissle, Blake wrote the Broadway musical "Shuffle Along" in 1921; this was one of the first Broadway musical ever to be written and directed by African Americans. Blake's compositions included such hits as, "Bandana Days", "Charleston Rag", "Love Will Find A Way", "Memories of You", …

Eric Bentley, (born September 14, 1916 in Bolton, Lancashire, England) is a renowned critic, playwright, singer, editor and translator. He became an American citizen in 1948, and currently lives in New York City. In 1998 he was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame; he is also a member of the New York Theater Hall of Fame, in recognition of his years of performances in cabarets. In addition to teaching at Columbia University, which he joined in 1953, …

George Abbott (June 25 1887 - January 31, 1995) was a theatre producer and director, playwright, screenwriter, and film director and producer whose career spanned more than seven decades. He was born George Francis Abbott in Forestville, New York, near the town of Salamanca, which twice elected his father mayor. In 1898 his family moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where he attended Kearney Military Academy. Within a few years his family returned to New York, …

Lois Maureen Stapleton (June 21 1925 - March 13 2006) was an Academy Award-winning American actress in film, theater and television. She also won an Emmy Award, two Tony Awards and was elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

George Grizzard (born April 1, 1928), is an American film and stage actor. Born in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, Grizzard has appeared in more than forty films and dozens of television programs. He appeared in "Advise and Consent" in 1962, as well as guest starring several times on the NBC television drama "Law & Order". Grizzard portrayed John Adams in the Emmy Award-winning WNET-produced PBS mini-series "The Adams Chronicles".

Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave CBE (March 20, 1908—March 21, 1985) was an English actor of great renown. Redgrave was born in Bristol, the son of the silent film actor Roy Redgrave and the actress Margaret Scudamore. He never knew his father, who left when Michael was only six months old, to pursue a career in Australia. His mother remarried Captain James Anderson, a wealthy tea planter, but he hated his step-father.

Frank Henry Loesser was an American composer and lyricist. He died of lung cancer at age 59. During World War II, he wrote 1942's "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition". Formerly a successful lyricist in collaboration with other composers, this was the first song for which Loesser composed the melody in addition to the lyric. Loesser was awarded a Grammy Award in 1961 for Best Original Cast Show Album for "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying".

Len Cariou (born September 30, 1939) is a Canadian actor.

Morris Carnovsky (September 5, 1897-September 1, 1992) was an American stage and film actor born in St. Louis, Missouri. He was briefly associated with the Yiddish theatre before attending Washington University in St. Louis. Opting for a mainstream acting career, he appeared in dozens of Broadway shows.

Michael Bennett (April 8, 1943 - July 2, 1987) was a Tony Award-winning American musical theater director, writer, choreographer, and dancer. Born Michael Bennett DiFiglia to a Roman Catholic father and a Jewish mother in Buffalo, New York, he studied dance and choreography in his teens and staged a number of shows in his local high school before dropping out to accept the role of Baby John in the US and European tours of "West Side Story".

Raymond Hart Massey (August 30 1896-July 29 1983) was a Canadian actor. Born in Toronto, Ontario, he was a son of Chester D. Massey, the wealthy owner of the Massey-Ferguson Tractor Company. He attended secondary school briefly at Upper Canada College, before transferring to Appleby College in Oakville, Ontario, and graduated from university at University of Toronto where both he and his brother were active members in the Kappa Alpha Society, and Balliol College, Oxford.

William Gibson (born 13 November 1914) is a Tony Award-winning American playwright. Gibson's most famous play is "The Miracle Worker" (1959), the story of Helen Keller's childhood education, which won him the Tony Award for Best Play. His other works include "Dinny and the Witches" (1948, revised 1961), …

A.R. Gurney (b. November 1, 1930) is an American playwright and novelist. The playwright is known for works including Love Letters, The Cocktail Hour, and The Dining Room. Gurney currently lives in both New York and Connecticut.

Dorothy Loudon (September 17, 1925 - November 15, 2003) was a Tony Award-winning Broadway actress noted for her comedy and belting singing voice, which she used to deliver a wide range of musical comedy and Roaring Twenties songs. She was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and began singing as a child. She moved to New York and landed a job as a featured nightclub performer. She became a lounge singer, mingling song with ad-libbed comedy, …