DAVID MARANISS is an associate editor at The Washington Post and the author of five critically acclaimed bestselling books about history, sports, and politics. Among the most honored writers/journalists of his generation, Maraniss won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for his reportage on Bill Clinton, was part of a Post team that won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Virginia Tech tragedy, and has been a Pulitzer finalist twice more for his journalism and once in history for his Vietnam work, They Marched into Sunlight. His other major books include First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton; Rome 1960: The Summer Olympics that Stirred the World; Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero; and When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi. The Lombardi biography, winner of the Frankfurt International Book Prize, was hailed by Sports Illustrated as "maybe the best sports biography ever published." It was a New York Times bestseller for more than five months and remains immensely popular ten years after its first publication. In January 2010, Simon and Schuster will publish a collection of his works titled Into the Story: A Writer's Journey through Life, Politics, Sports, and Loss. Maraniss is also at work on a biography of Barack Obama that is to be published in 2011. He lives in Washington, D.C. and Madison, Wisconsin, with his wife, Linda. They have two grown children and two little redheaded granddaughters.
PONTURO MANAGEMENT GROUP, LLC Is a New York based consulting, management and investment company in media, sports and entertainment established by Tony Ponturo in Jan 2009. Annually recognized as one of the most powerful executives in sports, Tony was mostly recently ranked by Business Week as #14 out of the top 100 in 2008. He was ranked as the 12th most influential person in sports by the Sports Business Journal in 2007 and the #1 sports advertiser executive in 2004. With his vast amount of experience and knowledge, Tony Ponturo is developing Ponturo Management Group in many different prominent venues, including associate producing Hair, the 2009 Broadway Tony Award winner for Best Revival of a Musical and producing the new Broadway musical, Memphis. He is also co-executive producer of a soon to be produced film, Keeper of the Pinstripes.
Fran Kirmser PRODUCTIONS LLC provides consulting and fundraising support to productions large and small in both Non-profit and Commercial Theater. A fixture in the arts, she began her professional career as a dancer at 14, and has worked on and off the stage with hundreds of artists and producers in theater. Fran has contributed to the development of new theatrical works at Williamstown Theater Festival and Musical Theater Works. On Broadway, her production of August Wilson's Radio Golf garnered a host of awards, including the New York Drama Critics Circle for Best Play along with four Tony Award nominations. Her most recent show, Hair, won the 2009 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical. Off Broadway in the Non-Profit realm she has provided production support to shows at the New 42nd Street Theatres including the Duke on 42nd Street, BAM (Brooklyn Academy Of Music), The Joyce Theater, Second Stage Theater, Primary Stages, and Lincoln Center/Lincoln Center Festival.
