Sara Bareilles is an award-winning singer, songwriter, actor, producer, activist, and New York Times bestselling author whose accolades to date include two GRAMMY Awards, three Tony Award nominations, and three Primetime Emmy Award nominations. As a recording artist and songwriter, she has sold more than 3 million albums and 15 million singles in the U.S., and her songs have been streamed more than 3.5 billion times worldwide. On Broadway, she composed music and lyrics for Waitress, stepping into the lead role both on Broadway and in the West End. Other musical theater credits include her Tony-nominated performance as The Baker’s Wife in Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods, a song in the Tony Award-nominated score for SpongeBob SquarePants, and an Emmy Award-nominated appearance as Mary Magdalene in NBC's Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert. She plays Dawn Solano on the Emmy-nominated musical comedy series Girls5eva, the third season of which is streaming now on Netflix.

Michael Arden is a two-time Tony Award-winning director, most recently honored in 2025 for Best Direction of a Musical with Maybe Happy Ending, which garnered six Tony Awards, including Best Musical. In 2023, Arden won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for the acclaimed revival of Parade, starring Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond, which also earned the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical. Arden also received Tony nominations for his productions of Once on This Island and Deaf West’s Spring Awakening. Additionally, he directed and co-wrote Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol on Broadway starring Jefferson Mays. In 2024, he directed Ben Platt’s solo concert residency, Ben Platt Live at the Palace, which marked the reopening of the legendary Palace Theatre on Broadway. Arden co-directed The Preacher’s Wife at the Atlanta Alliance Theatre by Tituss Burgess and Azie Dungey, and most recently the Broadway engagement of the new Stephen Schwartz and Lindsey Ferrentino musical The Queen of Versailles, starring Kristin Chenoweth and F. Murray Abraham at the St. James Theatre on Broadway. His upcoming work includes the stage adaptation of The Lost Boys musical which is set to open on Broadway in April 2026 at the Palace Theatre. Additional directing credits include Annie at the Hollywood Bowl, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, the site-specific works American Dream Study and ALIEN/NATION, and the 2024 Met Gala. Arden has been recognized on Variety’s Impact List, and he received a NAACP Award for Best Direction for his revival of Merrily We Roll Along. Beyond theater, Arden has directed episodes for The Connors on ABC, and has appeared in numerous films and television shows, most notably Grey’s Anatomy, Bride Wars, Anger Management, Source Code, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Arden has performed on Broadway in Big River; The Times, They Are A-Changin’; and King Lear. A Presidential Scholar in the Arts, Arden is an alumnus of the Interlochen Arts Academy and The Juilliard School.

Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous novels including The Interestings, The Female Persuasion, The Uncoupling, The Position, and The Ten-Year Nap. Wolitzer’s work has been translated into over twenty languages and published worldwide. Wolitzer’s novel The Wife was adapted into a film of the same name starring Glenn Close, and the film version of her novel This is My Life marked the directorial debut of Nora Ephron. Wolitzer is the host of the literary radio show and podcast Selected Shorts, and her own stories have appeared in the anthologies The Best American Short Stories and The Pushcart Prize. Also the author of several books for young readers, she is on the MFA faculty of SUNY Stony Brook and is the co-founder and co-director of its BookEnds program for emerging novelists.