Geraldine Anello is a music director, pianist, and conductor. She has conducted for Kinky Boots and School of Rock on Broadway, The Fantasticks off-Broadway, and played in the orchestras of Broadway’s Aladdin, Bronx Tale, Aladdin, On the Town, City Center’s Bat Out of Hell, and An American in Paris at the Chatelet in Paris. She served as music director for Finian’s Rainbow at the Irish Repertory Theatre and Children of Salt at the New York Musical Festival. Anello has a series of published poetry collections: Naked, Power, and most recently, Truth, which was released in January 2022.

Deborah S. Craig is an actress and singer who can currently be seen in the comedy features Me Time opposite Kevin Hart, Mark Wahlberg, and Regina Hall for Netflix, Meet Cute opposite Kaley Cuoco and Pete Davidson on Peacock, and the upcoming The Tiger’s Apprentice from Paramount Animation. Recent theater credits includes Wild: A Musical Becoming at the American Repertory Theater. On television, she is known for her roles on Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens, The Blacklist, Better Things, Workaholics, Transparent, Hart of Dixie, and as a series regular opposite Ken Jeong on the Kevin Kwan pilot The Emperor of Malibu. On Broadway she originated the role of Marcy Park in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, for which she received a Drama Desk Award and the distinction of creating the first Korean American character on Broadway.

Jesse Green is the chief theater critic for The New York Times. From 2013 to 2017 he was the theater critic for New York magazine. Before that, he covered theater and other cultural topics, as well as writing long-form news features, for many national publications. He is the author of the novel O Beautiful and the memoir The Velveteen Father: An Unexpected Journey to Parenthood. His latest book, Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers, written with Mary Rodgers, was published in August.

Kelli O’Hara won a Tony Award for her performance as Anna in The King and I. She has appeared on Broadway in Jekyll & Hyde; Sondheim’s Follies; The Sweet Smell of Success; Dracula; The Light in the Piazza; The Pajama Game; South Pacific; She Loves Me; Nice Work If You Can Get It; The Bridges of Madison County; and Kiss Me, Kate. She has performed at the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, on Capitol Hill, on PBS’s live telecasts, and the Kennedy Center Honors. Some of her film and television credits include Sex and the City 2, Peter Pan Live!, Masters of Sex, The Good Fight, The Independents, 13 Reasons Why, All the Bright Places, and she can currently be seen in The Accidental Wolf, for which she received an Emmy nomination, and The Gilded Age. O’Hara will star in the forthcoming operatic adaptation of Michael Cunningham’s The Hours at the Metropolitan Opera with Renée Fleming and Joyce DiDonato.

Mary Rodgers (1931–2014) was an accomplished composer, author, and screenwriter. She was the author of the novel Freaky Friday and its 1976 screenplay adaptation, and of several other novels. Rodgers also wrote the music for Once Upon a Mattress, which was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Musical. She lived in New York City until her death. Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers, written with Jesse Green, was published in August.

Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times bestselling author of The Female Persuasion, The Interestings, The Ten-Year Nap, and The Wife, which was adapted to film in 2018, starring Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce. She was the guest editor of The Best American Short Stories 2017, and has also published books for young readers, mostly recently a picture book, Millions of Maxes. Wolitzer is a faculty member in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton, where she co-founded and co-directs BookEnds, a one-year, non-credit intensive in the novel. She is excited to be the new host of the literary radio show and podcast Selected Shorts.