- Mark Morris
Mark Morris (born: August 29, 1956) is an American modern dancer, choreographer and director whose work is acclaimed for its craftsmanship, ingenuity, humor, and at times eclectic musical accompaniments. Morris is popular among dance aficionados as well as mainstream audiences.
- Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens FRSA (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870), pen-name "Boz", was the foremost English novelist of the Victorian era, as well as a vigorous social campaigner. Considered one of the English language's greatest writers, he was acclaimed for his rich storytelling and memorable characters, and achieved massive worldwide popularity in his lifetime. Later critics, beginning with George Gissing and G. K. Chesterton, championed his mastery of prose, …
- Valery Gergiev
Valery Abisalovich Gergiev (b. 2 May 1953) is a Russian conductor and opera company director. He is general director and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and principal guest conductor of the Metropolitan Opera.
- Bill T. Jones
Bill T. Jones is an American artistic director, choreographer and dancer based in New York City. He is the recipient of the 2007 Tony Award, the 2005 Wexner Prize, the 2005 Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement and the 2003 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, as well as a 1994 MacArthur Fellowship. Jones began his dance training at the State University of New York at Binghamton (SUNY), studying classical ballet and modern dance.
- Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of Italian opera in the 19th century and went well beyond the work of Bellini, Donizetti, and Rossini. His works are frequently performed in opera houses throughout the world and, transcending the boundaries of the genre, …
- Michael Tilson Thomas
Michael Tilson Thomas (b. December 21, 1944), aka MTT, is an American conductor, pianist and composer who directs the San Francisco Symphony.
- Oskar Eustis
Oskar Eustis is the artistic director at the Public Theater. Previously he was the artistic director of Trinity Rep. Eustis is best known as a developer of new plays. Two plays that he helped develop, "Angels in America" and "The Kentucky Cycle", won Pulitzer Prizes. His real first name is Paul, but Eustis adopted the name "Oskar" in part because of his affinity for German cultural and political history, …
- Mark Rylance
Mark Rylance is an internationally well-known actor and theatre director. His various film roles include Ferdinand in "Prospero's Books" (after a play by William Shakespeare), Jay in "Intimacy" (after a novel by Hanif Kureishi) and Jakob van Gunten in "Institute Benjamenta" (after a novel by Robert Walser (writer)), where he worked with directors like Peter Greenaway, Patrice Chéreau and the Brothers Quay.
- Bartlett Sher
Bartlett Sher most recently directed the world premiere of "Singing Forest" by "Craig Lucas" at Intiman Playhouse; "The Light in the Piazza" by Lucas and Adam Guettel at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, for which he has received a Joseph Jefferson Award nomination; and "Mourning Becomes Electra" for Seattle Opera and New York City Opera. He has received national and international recognition for his work as a classical director, …
- Pina Bausch
Philippine "Pina" Bausch (born July 27, 1940 in Solingen, Germany) is a modern dance choreographer and a leading influence in the development of the Tanztheater style of dance. She is the artistic director and choreographer of the "Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch" company, based in Wuppertal in Germany. The company has a large repertoire of original pieces, and regularly tours throughout the world. Bausch began dancing from a young age.
- Michael Grandage
Michael Grandage is a British theatre director who is currently Artistic Director at the Donmar Warehouse in London, England. He made his directorial debut with a production of "Last Yankee" at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester. From 2000 – 2005 he served as Artistic Director of Sheffield Theatres where his high profile productions included "Edward II" with Joseph Fiennes, "Richard III" with Kenneth Branagh and "The Tempest" with Derek Jacobi.
- Charles Amirkhanian
Charles Amirkhanian (born 19 January 1945) is a California-based composer, living in El Cerrito, California. He is a percussionist, sound poet, and radio producer of Armenian origin. He is mostly known for his electroacoustic and text-sound music.
- Terence Blanchard
Terrence Blanchard (b. March 13, 1962, New Orleans, Louisiana) is an American Mainstream jazz musician and composer, though he performs in various jazz mediums. He has been one of the top trumpet players in jazz since the 1980s, and has worked with some of the legends of the genre. He rose to prominence through his association with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers from 1982-1986.
- Kenny Leon
Kenny Leon is an African-American director notable for his work on Broadway and in regional theater. His success on Broadway has made him one of its foremost African-American directors. He gained prominance in 1988 when he became one of the few African-Americans to head a notable nonprofit theater company as the artistic director of Atlanta's Alliance Theatre Company. During Leon's tenure, the company staged premieres of Pearl Cleage's "Blues for an Alabama Sky", …
- Edo de Waart
Edo de Waart (b. June 1, 1941) is a Dutch conductor of opera and symphony orchestras, particularly well-known as an orchestra builder havings elevated the status of a number of orchestras to top-notch ensembles.
- Joe Dowling
Joe Dowling is the Artistic Director for the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is also well known for his work as Artistic Director of the Abbey Theatre in Ireland, and has directed plays in all the major theatres in Ireland as well as theatres in London, New York, Washington D.C., Montreal and Alberta. Dowling has been long connected Irish theatre having founded Ireland's premiere drama school, the Gaiety School of Acting, …
- Nina Ananiashvili
Nina Ananiashvili (also: "Nino Ananiashvili",, born on March 28, 1963) is a Georgian ballerina. She was born in Tbilisi, Georgia (at the time part of the Soviet Union to Gedevan Ananiashvili and Lia Gogolashvili in 1963 and has two brothers. She began her training in Georgia in 1969 when she entered the Georgia State Choreographic Institute (prior to that, she was practising figure skating and had become a Georgian State champion in the junior division).
- Robert Joffrey
Robert Joffrey (1930-1988) was an American dancer, teacher, producer, and choreographer, known for his highly imaginative modern ballets. Of Afghan parentage, he was born in Seattle, Washington, and originally named Abdulla Jaffa Anver Bey Khan. Joffrey studied ballet and modern dance in New York City and made his debut in 1949 with the French choreographer Roland Petit and his Ballets de Paris.
- Michael Smuin
Michael Smuin was a ballet dancer, choreographer, and theatre director. Born in Missoula, Montana, Smuin was a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre and the San Francisco Ballet, for which he served as co-artistic director from 1973 through 1985. He also choreographed for the Dance Theatre of Harlem, Washington Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and Milwaukee Ballet, among others. Smuin's Broadway credits included "Little Me" (1962) as a dancer, …
- Austin Pendleton
Austin Pendleton (born March 27, 1940) is an American film, television, and stage actor, a playwright, and a theatre director and instructor. Born in Warren, Ohio, Pendleton is a graduate of Yale University, where he was a member of Scroll and Key Society. As a stage actor, he has appeared in "The Last Sweet Days of Isaac" (for which he won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance), "The Diary of Anne Frank," "Grand Hotel", …
- Gary Griffin
Gary Griffin, born 1960 in St. Louis, Missouri, is an American theater director. Griffin grew up in Rockford, Illinois, where he graduated from East High School in 1978. From there, he moved to Chicago, where he began his directing career in 1988.
- Thomas Adès
Thomas Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor. Adès studied piano with Paul Berkowitz and later composition with Robert Saxton at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. He graduated in 1992 from King's College, Cambridge after studying with Alexander Goehr and Robin Holloway. His degree was classified as "double starred first", indicating outstanding academic distinction. He was made Britten Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music, …
- Jean-Paul Gaultier
Jean-Paul Gaultier (born April 24 1952, in Arcueil, Val-de-Marne) is a French fashion designer and past television presenter.
- Michael Ritchie
Michael Ritchie (born on October 17 1957 in Worcester, Massachusetts) is the artistic director of Center Theatre Group, overseeing the Mark Taper Forum, the Ahmanson Theatre and the Kirk Douglas Theatre.
- Dwight Rhoden
Dwight Rhoden is a choreographer and artistic director of Complexions Contemporary Ballet who began dancing at the age of 17 while studying acting. He has performed with the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Les Ballet Jazz De Montreal and was a principal dancer with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. He has appeared in numerous television specials, documentaries and commercials throughout the United States, …
- Rupert Goold
Rupert Goold is an English theatre director. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge. He is the artistic director of Headlong Theatre, previously known as the Oxford Stage Company. Between 2002 and 2005, he was artistic director of the Royal and Derngate Theatres in Northampton. Prior to that, he was an associate at the Salisbury Playhouse in 1996-97.
- Anthony Dowell
Sir Anthony James Dowell, CBE (born 16 February 1943 in London, England) is a famous ballet dancer and was Artistic Director of England's Royal Ballet from 1986 to 2001, when he officially retired. He studied at the Hampshire School and The Royal Ballet’s Lower and Upper Schools. In 1961 he joined The Royal Ballet and only two years later was chosen by choreographer Frederick Ashton to create the role of Oberon in "The Dream".
- Moses Pendleton
Moses Pendleton is the Choreographer and Artistic Director of Momix a company of dancer-illusionists that formed as an offshoot of Pilobolus which he had co-founded in 1971. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1977 and the Positano Choreographic Award in 1999.
- Garry Hynes
Garry Hynes is an award-winning Irish theatre director.
- Gordon Edelstein
Gordon Edelstein is the Artistic Director of the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut - a position he has held since July 1, 2002. Prior to that he was Artistic Director at ACT Theatre in Seattle for 5 years.. Also, he has taught acting and directing at NYU, University of Iowa, and Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle and directed two Emmy-nominated television movies.
- Christopher Hogwood
Christopher Hogwood is one of the greatest proponents of the early music movement, as well as a renowned conductor of twentieth century works. This season he became Emeritus Director of the Academy of Ancient Music, the orchestra he founded in 1973, and begins a series of Handel operas in concert with the rarely performed Amadigi .
- Paul Hillier
Paul Hillier is from Dorset in England and studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. His career has embraced singing, conducting, and writing about music. Earlier in his career he was founding director of the Hilliard Ensemble, and subsequently founded Theatre of Voices. He has taught in the USA at the University of California campuses at Santa Cruz and Davis, and from 1996-2003 was Director of the Early Music Institute at Indiana University.
- Michael Attenborough
Michael John Attenborough (born 13 February 1950) is a successful English theatre director. His parents are the actors Richard Attenborough (Baron Attenborough) and Sheila Sim. He was educated at Westminster School and Sussex University. He is currently the artistic director of the Almeida Theatre in London and the joint vice-chairman of RADA.
- Wolfgang Sawallisch
Wolfgang Sawallisch (born August 26, 1923) is a German conductor and pianist.
- David Esbjornson
David Esbjornson is an award-winning director and producer who has worked throughout the United States in regional theatres and on Broadway, and has established strong and productive relationships with some of the profession’s top playwrights, actors, and companies. Esbjornson is currently the artistic director of Seattle Repertory Theatre in Seattle, Washington. For seven years (1992-1999) he was artistic director of New York’s Classic Stage Company, …
- Tanja Liedtke
Tanja Liedtke (born 1978 Stuttgart, Germany) is an Australian based contemporary dance choreographer. She has been selected to be the artistic director of the Sydney Dance Company, succeeding founding director Graeme Murphy from October 2007. She went to Australia with her family when Bosch posted her father there in 1996. She was educated in England, beginning dance and theatre studies in Madrid including the Elmhurst School for Dance and Ballet Rambert School.
- Martyn Brabbins
Martyn Brabbins is a conductor. He studied at Goldsmiths College, London University, then with Ilya Musin at the Leningrad Conservatory. He first came to international attention when he was awarded first prize at the Leeds Conducting Competition in 1988. He has subsequently conducted all of the leading British Orchestras. Brabbins is an accomplished operatic conductor and a prolific recording artist.
- Wesley Enoch
Wesley Enoch is a Murri playwright and artistic director. He was born in 1969, the eldest son of Doug and Lyn Enoch from Stradbroke Island. Wesley has been Artistic Director of Kooemba Jdarra Indigenous Performing Arts; an Associate Artist with the Queensland Theatre Company; a Resident Director with the Sydney Theatre Company, Artistic Director of Ilbijerri Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Theatre Co-Operative and Associate Artistic Director Company B Belvoir St.
- Libby Appel
Libby Appel, the fourth artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, retired in June 2007 and was succeeded by American theater icon Bill Rauch. Appel directed more than 25 productions at OSF, and her artistic vision influenced the 11 plays presented each year during her reign. Despite the festival’s name, she placed greater emphasis on new works. “We have made major connections with world playwrights, …
- Alessandra Ferri
Alessandra Ferri (born in 1963) is an Italian ballerina, dancing as a Principal Dancer with the American Ballet Theatre in New York, Prima Ballerina with the La Scala Ballet in Milan, and as an international guest artist. She retired on June 23, 2007 after a 22 year career with ABT, at age 44, with a performance of Kenneth MacMillan's "Romeo and Juliet" at the Met.