ACTORS & ARTISTS
Ethan Canin is the author of the short story collections Emperor of the Air and The Palace Thief and the novels Blue River, For Kings and Planets, Carry Me Across the Water, America America, and A Doubter’s Almanac. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, The Paris Review, and Granta, among other publications, and four of his short stories have been adapted to film. Canin has been honored with the Henfield/Transatlantic Review Prize, the Lyndhurst Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and a Guggenheim fellowship. He currently serves as the F. Wendell Miller Professor of English at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
Crystal Dickinson won the Theatre World Award for her Broadway debut in the 2012 production of Clybourne Park. She subsequently appeared in You Can’t Take It With You on Broadway in 2014, A Raisin in the Sun at the Two River Theater, and The Low Road at the Public Theater. Her film and television credits include House of Payne, I Origins, This Is Where I Leave You, The Good Wife, Feed the Beast, Collateral Beauty, New Amsterdam, and The Chi. Dickinson has taught at Stella Adler Studio, Spelman College, Pace University, Princeton University, the Juilliard School, NYU, and both of her alma maters, University of Illinois and Seton Hall. Currently, Dickinson is working on Lessons in Survival, an online theatrical event where theater artists reinvestigate the words of trailblazing artists and activists who survived and created in times of revolution in our country. Visit VinyardTheater.org.
Maulik Pancholy is an actor, author, and activist. He is best known for his television roles on 30 Rock, Weeds, Whitney, The Good Fight, and for lending his voice to the long-running animated series Phineas & Ferb and Sanjay & Craig. He starred on Broadway in Terrence McNally’s It's Only a Play and in The New Group’s production of Good for Otto. He recently returned to Broadway in Bess Wohl’s Grand Horizons at the Helen Hayes Theatre. Pancholy’s debut novel, The Best at It, was named a Stonewall Honor Book and received starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, and American Library Association’s Booklist. Pancholy is the co-founder of the anti-bullying organization ActToChange.org.
David Strathairn was nominated for an Academy Award for portraying Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, And Good Luck. In addition to appearing in several films written and directed by John Sayles, his film work includes Howl, The Bourne Ultimatum, Dolores Claiborne, American Pastoral, The Spiderwick Chronicles, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and Lincoln. On television, he starred in HBO’s Temple Grandin, for which he received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor. Additional television appearances include the role of Dr. Lee Rosen in Alphas, Klaus Ashford in The Expanse, and recurring roles on The Blacklist, Billions, McMafia, and Interrogation. Strathairn’s most recent films include Fast Color, UFO, November Criminals, Walkaway Joe, and Nomadland.
Alice Walker won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for her novel The Color Purple, which was adapted into a film and Tony Award-winning Broadway musical. Additional best-selling novels include By the Light of My Father’s Smile, Possessing the Secret of Joy, Meridian, and The Temple of My Familiar. Walker is the author of numerous collections of short stories, essays, poetry, and children’s books, including The Cushion in the Road and The World Will Follow Joy Turning Madness into Flowers. Walker is the subject of the 2013 documentary film Beauty in Truth.
