Michael Friedman (Music and Lyrics) is an Associate Artist with The Civilians and has composed music and lyrics for the company's This Beautiful City, [I Am] Nobody's Lunch, Gone Missing and Canard, Canard, Goose?; as well as Saved, In the Bubble,The Brand New Kid,God's Ear and The Blue Demon. With Steve Cosson, he co-authored the 2008 Public LAB production Paris Commune. He has been a MacDowell fellow, a Hodder Fellow, and is an Artistic Associate at New York Theatre Workshop. He received an Obie award for sustained achievement.
Benjamin Walker (Andrew Jackson) received rave reviews for his portrayal of Andrew Jackson in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson at The Public Theater. He has appeared on Broadway in Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Inherit the Wind. His off-Broadway credits include workshops of Bye Bye Birdie and Threepenny Opera for Roundabout, Spring Awakening for Lincoln Center, and Arrangements at the Atlantic. He appeared in Romeo and Juliet and Lady Windermere's Fan at the Williamstown Theater Festival, and in the films The War Boys, Flags of Our Fathers, The Notorious Bettie Page, and Kinsey.
The Public Theater (Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director; Andrew D. Hamingson, Executive Director) was founded by Joseph Papp in 1954 and is now one of the nation's preeminent cultural institutions, producing new plays, musicals, and productions of classics at its downtown headquarters and at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. The Public's mandate to create a theater for all New Yorkers continues to this day onstage and through extensive outreach and education programs. Each year, over 250,000 people attend Public Theater-related productions and events at six downtown stages, including Joe's Pub, and Shakespeare in the Park. The Public has won 42 Tony Awards, 151 Obies, 41 Drama Desk Awards and four Pulitzer Prizes. The Public has brought 54 shows to Broadway, including Sticks and Bones; That Championship Season; A Chorus Line; The Pirates of Penzance; The Tempest; Bring In ‘Da Noise, Bring In ‘Da Funk; On the Town; The Ride Down Mt. Morgan; Topdog/Underdog; Elaine Stritch at Liberty; Take Me Out; Caroline, or Change; Well; Passing Strange; the Tony Award-winning revival of Hair; and, this fall, the rock musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and the 2010 Shakespeare in the Park production of The Merchant of Venice. www.publictheater.org.
Jeffrey Richards is celebrating his 10th year as a Broadway producer, having presented "Gore Vidal's The Best Man" in the fall of 2000. Among the plays and musicals which he has presented with his partner Jerry Frankel are "Hair", "August: Osage County," "The Homecoming," "Race", "Speed-the-Plow", "Glengarry Glen Ross", "Radio Golf", "Blithe Spirit", Will Ferrell's "You're Welcome America", "Talk Radio," "reasons to be pretty", "November" and "Enron." Upcoming: David Mamet's "A Life in the Theatre" starring Patrick Stewart and T.R. Knight, directed by Neil Pepe and William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" starring Al Pacino directed by Daniel Sullivan.
Jerry Frankel has received Tony Awards for producing Hair, August: Osage County, Spring Awakening, Glengarry Glen Ross and Death of a Salesman. Other Broadway: Tracy Letts' Superior Donuts; David Mamet's Race; Neil LaBute's Reasons to Be Pretty; Will Ferrell's You're Welcome America...; Blithe Spirit; Enron; All About Me; November; The Homecoming; Talk Radio; Radio Golf (New York Drama Critics Circle Award); Enchanted April (Outer Critics Circle Award); Gore Vidal's The Best Man (Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk Awards, Outstanding Revival of a Play); Jekyll & Hyde; You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown (Drama Desk Award). Regional: numerous productions at the Park Cities Playhouse in Dallas, including Love Letters with Charlton Heston. Film: Slap Shot with Paul Newman, Eye of the Needle with Donald Sutherland, The Big Easy and Fastbreak.
