JACKSON R. BRYER is a Professor of English at the University of Maryland, College Park. In 1981, he served as a consultant to the National Endowment for the Humanities for the William Inge Archives at Independence Community College. He is the editor of The Theatre We Worked For: The Letters of Eugene O’Neill To Kenneth MacGowan (1982) and many other publications. In 1988 he published “An Interview with Robert Anderson" in Studies In American Drama and most recently edited The Playwright's Art: Conversations With Contemporary American Dramatists, published by Rutgers University Press, and New Essays on F. Scott Fitzgerald's Neglected Stories.

GEORGE GRIZZARD is one of Broadway’s most distinguished actors, creating the role of Nick in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Tobias in the recent revival of A Delicate Balance, for which he received the Tony Award for Best Actor. He recently starred in and toured the country in Harold Prince’s production of Show Boat as Captain Andy. He starred in Gurney’s Another Antigone at Playwrights Horizon, and toured nationally in Love Letters. Other Broadway appearances include The Glass Menagerie, Neil Simon’s California Suite, Robert Anderson’s You Know I Can’t Hear You When the Water’s Running, and Arthur Miller’s The Creation of the World and Other Business. Film credits include From the Terrace, Advise and Consent, Comes a Horseman, Seems Like Old Times, and Bachelor Party. Television appearances include Emmy Award-winning performance in Caroline? for the Hallmark Hall of Fame, An Enemy of the People for PBS, the mini-series Queen, his Emmy Award-winning performance in The Oldest Living Graduate, John Adams in the PBS series The Adams Chronicles, Scarlet, The Five Mrs. Buchanans, and Breaking the Silence. He made several appearances on The Golden Girls, Touched by An Angel, 3rd Rock From the Sun and as Arthur Gold in several episodes of Law and Order.

JIM HALSEY is an artist manager and agent with 50 years of experience in the entertainment business. Halsey discovered and/or guided the careers of such illustrious personalities as Roy Clark, The Oak Ridge Boys, Waylon Jennings, The Judds, Reba McEntire, Minnie Pearl, Dwight Yoakum, Lee Greenwood, and many others. In 1990, the booking agency division of The Jim Halsey Company was sold to William Morris Agency and he served as a consultant for the next five years. In the past few years, his attention has been directed to education. From 1995-99 he created and served as director of the Music and Entertainment Business Program at Oklahoma City University. He has lectured about the business of the music business to colleges and universities all over the world and is a Visiting Professor at HED Music College in Yehud, Israel. He is currently focused on The Halsey Institute of Music and Entertainment Business in Tulsa, OK. Halsey currently serves on the Boards of Directors for The National Music Council, International Federation of Festival Organizations (FIDOF/UNESCO), Tulsa Ballet Theater, and the Business Circle for Arts Education in Oklahoma.

MARIETTE HARTLEY began acting at the age of 10 in Westport, CT, studied under the legendary Eva La Gallienne at 14, and won a drama scholarship to Carnegie Tech at the age of 15. She appeared in The Merchant of Venice at the Goodman Theatre and Measure for Measure for Joseph Papp’s Shakespeare Festival in the Park. Eventually, she toured nationally with John Houseman’s Stratford, CT Shakespeare Festival. She appeared in the classic film Ride the High Country, which led to a seven-year contract with MGM and many feature films. An Emmy Award winner and six-time nominee, Mariette has appeared in numerous television films and series. She recently played Ellen Cornell on the CBS series To Have and To Hold and hosts the nationally syndicated series Wild About Animals and Healthy Solutions which airs on CNBC. Mariette won three Clio awards for her Polaroid commercials with James Garner and has been honored with a star on the prestigious Hollywood Walk of Fame.

On stage, she starred in The Detective Story, The King and I, A Little Night Music, and Mame. She played to standing room only audiences in The Center Theatre Group’s national tour of Sisters Rosensweig for which she won a Drama-Logue Award and won a second Drama-Logue Award for her portrayal of Andromache in The Trojan Women. She recently starred in the national tour of Ira Levin’s Deathtrap and in the Manhattan Theatre Club (New York) and the Coronet Theatre (Los Angeles) productions of Gurney’s hit play Sylvia. One of the country’s most popular motivational speakers, she is the author of the best-selling autobiography Breaking the Silence and is involved with numerous charitable organizations. She will read the part of Jane in Ancestral Voices on Thursday, April 13.

GILBERT PARKER has represented writers and directors for forty years. Starting out in the agency business, he was the assistant to Audrey Wood before moving on to MCA Artists, Ltd. where he handled foreign stock and amateur rights to the plays of William Inge and numerous others. Later, Mr. Parker formed his own agency, Savan-Parker, Inc. which eventually merged with the Agency for the Performing Arts. He headed the Theatre and Motion Picture Department at Curtis Brown before joining the William Morris Agency where he is currently a Senior-Vice President. His clients include A.R. Gurney, Scott Ellis, Beth Henley, Terrence McNally, Nicholas Martin, and John Tillinger. Plays and musicals Mr. Parker has helped bring to production include: Love Letters, Once Upon a Mattress, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds, Company, Candide, Da, Children of a Lesser God, Crimes of the Heart, The Dining Room, Greater Tuna, The Cocktail Hour, Crazy For You, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Tommy, The Grapes of Wrath, Love! Valour! Compassion!, Sylvia, Master Class, and Ragtime.

JOHN RUBINSTEIN, perhaps best known for this Emmy Award-winning performance in the television drama series Family and Crazy Like a Fox, has a long and varied career in the arts . In 1997 he won the L.A. Drama Critics Circle, Drama-Logue Awards, and Ovation Award nomination for Best Actor off-Broadway in Ragtime. Other Broadway honors included the Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, Los Angeles Drama Critic Circle Award, and Drama Logue Award for Best Actor in Children of a Lesser God. He was nominated again for another Drama Desk Award for his work in The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial and won the L.A. Drama Critics Circle Awards and the Drama Logue Awards both for Best Leading Actor and Director for his work in Counselor-at-Law in 1994. He created the role of Andrew Makepeace Ladd, III, in Love Letters, and starred in Camelot, Kiss of the Spider Woman, South Pacific, Into the Woods and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. His feature films include Someone to Watch Over Me, The Boys from Brazil, Getting Straight, and Journey to Shiloh. In addition to minseries and movies of the week such as The Two Mrs. Grenvilles, and Roots: The Next Generation, he has held many guest star roles on shows such as E.R., Early Edition, NYPD Blues, The Practice, Party of Five, and Star Trek: Voyager Murder.

FRANCES STERNHAGEN Two-time Tony Award winner, has a long and illustrious career on stage, film and television. Most recently she starred in The Exact Center of the Universe at the Century Theatre off-Broadway. In addition to her Tony winning performances in The Good Doctor and The Heiress, her long list of Broadway appearances include Equus, On Golden Pond, Grownups, The Sign in Sydney Brustein’s Window, You Can’t Take it With You, and Home Front. Off-Broadway she played Mary Tyrone in Long Day’s Journey into Night, the title role in Driving Miss Daisy, Margaret in Terrence McNally’s A Perfect Ganesh, and A.R. Gurney’s The Dining Room and Love Letters. Her films include Starting Over, Independence Day, Misery, Doc Hollywood, and Raising Cain. As a member of APA and Lincoln Center Companies, she appeared in Gurney’s The Cocktail Party. On television she has had recurring roles on Cheers, E.R., and Law and Order. Her television movies include Stephen King’s Golden Years, Follow Your Heart, The Road Home, Resting Place, At Mother’s Request, Tales from the Crypt, The Dining Room, Reunion, The Con, and Locked Away.

JAMES STILL is a native Kansan who grew up in Pomona and graduated from the University of Kansas. He is the current recipient of the TCG/Pew Charitable Trust National Theatre Artist Grant with the Indiana Repertory Theatre (IRT) in Indianapolis where he is the Playwright-in-Residence. His newest play, Amber Waves, premiered at The Kennedy Center and received several awards including the Distinguished Play Award from the American Alliance for Theatre and Education. Still’s solo performance play, The Velocity of Gary (Not His Real Name), premiered in New York at the Ensemble Studio Theater and was released as a Columbia/Tri-Star feature film, The Velocity of Gary. Other plays include And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Ann Frank, The Secret History of the Future, A Village Fable, The Velveteen Rabbit with Jimmy Roberts, and Hush: An Interview with America. TV credits include three seasons for the Nickelodeon television Maurice Sednak series “Little Bear." He is currently working as the story editor for “Little Bear” and is a writer for the Bill Cosby series “Little Bill” which began airing on Nickelodeon late in 1999.

DAN SULLIVAN has been covering the arts for more than thirty years. Starting his newspaper career as a general assignment reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, he reviewed the early years of the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre for the Minneapolis Tribune, covered music and Off-Broadway theater for the New York Times and for 21 years was theater critic for the Los Angeles Times. In 1990 he returned to the Twin Cities to write and teach. He teaches Journalism and Mass Communication courses at the University of Minnesota. He is director of the National Critics Institute, a summer workshop for emerging theatre critics at the O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut, is a founding member of the American Theater Critics Association and a past president of the Center for Arts Criticism.

FAITH SULLIVAN's new novel, What a Woman Must Do, will be published by Random House in July. Sullivan grew up in a small town in Minnesota and graduated from Mankato State University. In 1975, she began writing novels and has since published five novels: Repent, Lanny Merkel; Watchdog; Mrs. Demming and the Mythical Beast; The Cape Ann; and The Empress of One. She is currently at work on her new novel, tentatively titled The Woman On The Roof. She and her husband Dan have three children: Maggie, Ben, and Kate-all writers.

HOLLAND TAYLOR is an award-winning actress who has appeared on Broadway, in films and television. She won an Emmy in 1999 as Best Supporting Actress in a drama for The Practice. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Ms. Taylor graduated from Bennington College in 1964. Her Broadway debut was in 1965 in The Devils with Anne Bancroft. Other theatre work includes A.R. Gurney's The David Show, The Cocktail Hour, Children, and Love Letters and the Off-Broadway Drinks Before Dinner directed by Mike Nichols. Her long list of films include Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile, To Die For, One Fine Day, George of the Jungle, The Truman Show, Keeping The Faith directed by Edward Norton and the soon-to-be-released Town and Country with Warren Beatty. Her fame in television began with the Tom Hanks hit comedy Bosom Buddies and continued with starring roles in The Powers That Be and The Naked Truth with Tea Leoni. She has appeared in Veronica's Closet, Diagnosis Murder, Roseanne, and television movies The Spiral Staircase, Mail To The Chief on Disney, and The Lot, an AMC mini-series. She has also been a guest on the popular Politically Incorrect and The Martin Short Show. Other guest appearances include ER and The Ally McBeal Show and a recurring role on The Practice.

Lila M. Stromer, director of The Boy in the Basement, has been involved with the productions of Lonely Planet, Rumors, Veronica’s Room, Heidi Chronicles and Lost in Yonkers. She has directed and dramaturged new plays including The Green Room’s Minutes From the Blue Route, and Center Theatre’s Building Sympathy: The Richard Nickel Story.

Joseph Bowen plays the character of Spencer Scranton. His previous ELT credits include Lonely Planet, the As You Like It Hike in Chicago and New York, Marisol and The Panties. Recent credits include Back to Methuselah and Lady Windermere’s Fan with Shaw Chicago and a commercial for Visual Freedom Centers.

Jared Leal, playing Joker Evans, made his first appearance in ELT in Short Plays by William Inge. He has appeared in Finian’s Rainbow, Wizard of Oz, Houdini and Peggy Sue Got Married at Marriot Lincolnshire Theatre in Illinois. He is a founding member of the Artistic Home Ensemble.

Pat Vern-Harris plays Mrs. Scranton. Past theatre credits include a two-year run with the National Tour of Showboat. Favorite roles include the Duchess of York in Richard III, Fraulein Schneider in Cabaret, Fanny in Painting Churches, and the Mayor’s Wife in Tommy Tune’s Bye Bye Birdie.

James Severns, who plays Mr. Scranton, returned to his hometown of Chicago following 35 years as a university theatre instructor and director. In addition to directing several plays for ELT, he has appeared in Short Plays by William Inge, A Midsummer’s Night Dream and The Lancaster Cycle.

Linnea Todd, director of The Tiny Closet, received most of her work experience on the performing side of the stage in such Chicago area theatres as Victory Gardens, National Jewish Theatre, Next, Forum, Goodman, and others in the Midwest area. She studied directing as a student of Goodman Theatre’s Artistic Associate, Mary Zimmerman.

Wendye Clarendon, who plays Elsie and also serves as the stage manager, has over 20 years of acting in theatre, radio, television and film. She has done stage readings at Chicago Dramatists, a one-woman show, and is a founding member of THEM Theatre Company.

Nancy Nickel, who plays Mrs. Crosby and is the writer of Mrs. Inge’s dialogue, has spent the last two summers playing Rosalind in ELT’s As You Like It Hike. In Illinois she has appeared at National Jewish Theatre, the Illinois Theatre Center, Shakespeare Repertory and at the Oak Park Shakespeare Festival.

R. John Roberts, Mr. Newbold, last appeared as Nightingale in the critically acclaimed ELT production of Vieux Carre` in Chicago. He is the Artistic Director of THEM Theatre Company. Favorite roles include Hysterium in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Max in Bent and Lloyd Dallas in Noises Off. He is also a director.

Lucinda Underwood, Mrs. Hergesheimer, appeared in ELT’s Hamlet as Horatio and in As You Like It and A Midsummer Night’s Dream theatre hikes. She spent several years with the Great Lakes Theatre Festival in Cleveland, Ohio, where she appeared in The Seagull, the nationally acclaimed production of Horton Foote’s Dividing the Estate.

Helen Merrier, Mrs. Inge, appeared in ELT’s outdoor Shakespeare hikes, as Orlando’s family retainer in As You Like It and as Snug the Joiner and Titania’s Red Fairy in A Midsummer’s Night Dream. She most recently appeared in Vieux Carre` as the crone, Mary Maude and is an active member of the Chicago Cabaret Professionals.

Olga Raquel Diaz-Croom was born in Havana, Cuba and immigrated to the United States as a refugee in 1962. Olga earned her Bachelor’s in International Relations and Economics from Florida International University, a Master of Science in Psychology and a Specialist in Education degree from Pittsburg State University. Olga married William E. Croom in 1973. Together they have a daughter, Kristy, whose interest in theater led to Olga’s appreciation of the American theater. Olga has just completed her Doctorate in Child and Youth Studies from Nova Southeastern University and is a early to middle age child developmental psychologist. She is employed by Tri-County Special Education Interlocal 607 as a school psychologist and serves the Neodesha and Cherryvale School districts. Her paper is entitled: “Unconscious Minds Find One Another.”