Peter Francis James recently directed All's Well That Ends Well for the Old Globe in San Diego. He has appeared on Broadway in Left on Tenth, Funny Girl, Hillary and Clinton, Present Laughter, The Merchant of Venice, On Golden Pond, Drowning Crow, and Judgment at Nuremberg. His Off-Broadway credits include Stuff Happens at the Public, for which he won the Obie, Lucille Lortel, and Drama Desk Awards, The Maids at Classic Stage Company, for which he also received an Obie Award, The Lady From Dubuque at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, and Signature Theater in New York, and Cymbeline with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Television and film credits include Godfather of Harlem, Oz, Boardwalk Empire, Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, Rough Night, The Code, The Bold Type, and Katy Keene. James has narrated more than 75 audiobooks and taught Acting (Shakespeare) at the Yale School of Drama from 2000 – 2020.

Richard Kind was recently featured in the star-studded rotating cast of All In: Comedy About Love on Broadway, and has also starred in Broadway productions of Kiss Me, Kate; The Producers; Dirty Rotten Scoundrels; The Tale of the Allergist's Wife; and The Big Knife, for which he received a Drama Desk Award. His film credits include Wolfs, The Out-Laws, Beau Is Afraid, Argo, A Serious Man, The Visitor, The Station Agent, and Bombshell, as well as voicing characters in Inside Out, A Bug’s Life, Cars, Big Mouth, Family Guy, and Toy Story 3. His television appearances include Spin City, Mad About You, Only Murders in the Building, Evil, Girls5eva, Night Court, East New York, The Watcher, History of the World: Part II, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Gotham, I’m Dying Up Here, Burn Notice, Luck, Red Oaks, The Other Two, Brockmire, Mid-Century Modern, Ad World, and Poker Face, among others. Kind served as John Mulaney’s sidekick for Mulaney’s talkshow, Everybody’s in L.A.

Phoebe Robinson is a New York Times bestselling author, stand-up comedian, actress, and producer. She is the co-creator and co-star of the hit podcast turned HBO series 2 Dope Queens, as well as the host of critically acclaimed podcasts Sooo Many White Guys and Black Frasier. A powerhouse in publishing, Phoebe founded Tiny Reparations Books, which recently celebrated its five-year anniversary and has become a critically acclaimed imprint championing marginalized voices, with multiple titles earning prestigious awards and landing on the New York Times bestseller list. As an author, Phoebe has released three bestselling books, including You Can’t Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain; Everything’s Trash, But It’s Okay (adapted into a Freeform series); and Please Don’t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes, the inaugural title from Tiny Reparations Books. She also starred in the films Ibiza and What Men Want, and moderated Michelle Obama’s Becoming book tour. Her debut hour-long comedy special, Sorry, Harriet Tubman, premiered on HBO Max in 2021.

Academy Award–nominated actress Amy Ryan is known for her work on the big and small screen alike, as well as her Tony-nominated work on stage. Some notable film credits include Beau Is Afraid, Worth, Birdman, Clear History, Lost Girls, Late Night, Strange but True, Gone Baby Gone, Bridge of Spies, Win Win, Jack Goes Boating, Beautiful Boy, Capote, Green Zone, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Central Intelligence, and Keane. Her television credits include The Wire, The Office, In Treatment, Broad City, and High Maintenance. She can be seen in the Apple TV series Sugar, opposite Colin Farrell; Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building; and the Apple film Wolfs, opposite George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Amy has worked in the theater for more than 25 years on and off-Broadway and in London. Her work onstage earned her an Obie Award for her performance in LOVE LOVE LOVE and three Tony nominations for A Streetcar Named Desire, Uncle Vanya, and Doubt.

Anna Sale is an interviewer and writer whom The New York Times once likened to “a therapist at happy hour.” Since 2014, she has hosted Death, Sex & Money, Slate’s interview podcast about “the things we think about a lot and need to talk about more.” She has contributed to This American Life, Fresh Air, The New York Times, and The Atlantic, and has hosted national call-in radio specials as well as on-stage variety shows at San Francisco Sketchfest, Tribeca Fest, the Commonwealth Club of California, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Her 2021 book, Let’s Talk About Hard Things, explores how we navigate life’s most fraught conversations. Sale lives in Berkeley, California, with her husband and two children.

Michael Stuhlbarg Broadway credits include: Patriots (Tony nomination), The Pillowman (Tony nomination, Drama Desk Award), The Invention of Love, Cabaret, Taking Sides, and Saint Joan. Off-Broadway, he was honored with an Obie Award for his performance in The Voysey Inheritance, and has appeared in 11 plays with the Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival, including the title roles in Richard II, Hamlet, and Tim Blake Nelson’s Socrates. His film credits include A Serious Man (Golden Globe nomination), Call Me by Your Name, The Shape of Water, The Post, Bones and All, Shirley, Hugo, Men in Black 3, Lincoln, Blue Jasmine, Steve Jobs, Trumbo, Arrival, Pawn Sacrifice, Doctor Strange 1 & 2, Miles Ahead, The Instigators, and The Amateur. His television credits include Dopesick (Emmy nomination), The Looming Tower (Emmy nomination), Your Honor, The Staircase, Fargo, Boardwalk Empire, Traitors, and Transparent. He can currently be seen in Luca Guadagnino’s film After the Hunt, opposite Julia Roberts, and in 2026, he will be seen opposite Tom Cruise in Alejandro G. Iñárritu's presently Untitled next film.

Kevin Brockmeier is the author of the memoir A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip; the novels The Truth About Celia, The Illumination, and The Brief History of the Dead; and the story collections The Ghost Variations, The View from the Seventh Layer, and Things That Fall from the Sky. His work has been translated into eighteen languages and he has published stories in The New Yorker, The Georgia Review, McSweeney’s, Zoetrope, Tin House, The Oxford American, The Best American Short Stories, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, and New Stories from the South. He has received the Borders Original Voices Award, three O. Henry Awards (one, a first prize), the PEN USA Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an NEA Grant. In 2007, he was named one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists. Brockmeier teaches frequently at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Seth Fried is a fiction and humor writer. He is the author of the novel The Municipalists (Penguin Books) and the short story collection The Great Frustration (Soft Skull Press). He is a recurring contributor to The New Yorker’s “Shouts and Murmurs,” and his stories have appeared in Tin House, One Story, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, The Kenyon Review, Vice, and many others. He is also the winner of three Pushcart Prizes and the William Peden Prize.

Alissa Nutting is a novelist, showrunner, and screenwriter. Her shows include the upcoming series The Off Weeks on Apple TV, starring Ben Stiller and Jessica Chastain; the animated series Teenage Euthanasia on HBO Max; and the HBO Max series Made for Love, adapted from her New York Times Editors’ Choice novel of the same name. She is also author of the novel Tampa and the story collection Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls.

Ernie Wang’s short fiction and essays have been published in McSweeney’s Quarterly, Gulf Coast, Epiphany, The Southern Review, Mississippi Review, PEN America, Best Debut Short Stories, and The Threepenny Review, among others. Wang was the recipient of PEN’s Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. His short stories include “Stay Brave, My Hercules,” “Happier Lands,” “Good Luck, Champ,” and “Sacrament of Confession.” Wang is a PhD student at the University of Houston.

Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900) was an Irish writer, poet, and playwright. His novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, brought him lasting recognition, and he became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era with a series of witty social satires, including his masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest.