Gary Griffin (Director/Associate Artistic Director) in his tenure at Chicago Shakespeare Theater has directed Passion, A Flea in Her Ear, A Little Night Music, Sunday in the Park with George, Pacific Overtures, The Herbal Bed, Short Shakespeare! A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Short Shakespeare! Romeo and Juliet. Broadway directing credits include The Color Purple (11 Tony Nominations including Best Musical) and The Apple Tree (Tony Nomination for Best Musical Revival). Off Broadway credits include: Saved (Playwrights Horizons); The Apple Tree, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Pardon My English, The New Moon (Encores) and Beautiful Thing. Tour credits include the national tour of The Color Purple. London credits include Pacific Overtures at the Donmar Warehouse (Olivier Award for Outstanding Musical Production and Olivier Award nomination for Best Director). His regional credits include work with the Old Globe, McCarter Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Signature Theatre and Hartford Stage. Chicago credits include work with Court Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Apple Tree Theatre, Writers’ Theatre, The Marriott Theatre, Drury Lane Oakbrook, Pegasus Players and Famous Door Theatre. He has received eight Joseph Jefferson Awards for directing.

Peter Shaffer (Playwright) was born in 1926 in Liverpool, England. His first play for the stage, Five Finger Exercise (1954), was directed by John Gielgud and won the Evening Standard Drama Award and the Drama Critics Award for the New York production. In addition to Amadeus (1079), his other major works are Royal Hunt of the Sun (1964), Equus (1973), and Lettice and Lovage (1987). He is known for writing well-crafted, strongly theatrical and visual work, in contrast with the more experimental work of many playwrights of his generation. His plays have been awarded multiple Evening Standard, London Drama Critics and Tony awards, including Best Play for both Equus and Amadeus. The 1984 film of Amadeus was scripted by Shaffer working closely with director Milos Forman, and was awarded eight Oscars, including Best Screenplay Adaptation.

Daniel Ostling (Scenic Designer) returns to Chicago Shakespeare Theater, where his design credits include: A Flea in Her Ear, The Merchant of Venice, A Little Night Music and Pacific Overtures. Other Chicago design credits include: Argonautika (Lookingglass Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, McCarter Theatre and Shakespeare Theatre Company); Lookingglass Alice (Lookingglass Theatre, The New Victory and McCarter Theatre); and Mirror of the Invisible World (Goodman Theatre). New York Credits include: Lucia Di Lammermoor (Metropolitan Opera); Glorious Ones (Lincoln Center); Durango (Public Theatre); and The Pain and the Itch (Playwrights Horizons). He has designed for the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York Shakespeare Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, Mark Taper Forum, Long Wharf Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre and Portland Center Stage. His extensive work with director Mary Zimmerman includes Metamorphoses (2002 Tony Award nomination). Upcoming projects include: Sonnambula (Metropolitan Opera); Brothers Karamazov (Lookingglass); Arabian Nights (Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Lookingglass); Eurydice (Victory Gardens Theater); War Music (ACT); and The Merry Widow (Lyric Opera of Chicago). He is a Lookingglass ensemble member and an associate professor at Northwestern University.

Virgil C. Johnson (Costume Designer) returns to Chicago Shakespeare Theater, where his design credits include: Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 (1999, Jeff Award; and 2006), Love's Labor's Lost and Measure for Measure. Other Chicago design credits include: A Little Night Music and The Government Inspector (Jeff Awards, Goodman Theatre); The Devil's Disciple, The Libertine (Steppenwolf Theatre Company); The Voyage of Edgar Allan Poe (Lyric Opera of Chicago); The Last Night of Ballyhoo (Mercury Theatre); and Dangerous Beauty which recently opened at Northwestern University with America Music Theatre Project. Regional credits include work with Indiana Repertory Theatre, Dallas Opera, The Guthrie Theater, Missouri Repertory Theatre and Skylight Opera. Mr. Johnson designed costumes for the original American Girl Revue in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. He received the Merritt Award for Excellence in Design and Collaboration in 2001 and is professor emeritus at Northwestern University.

Philip S. Rosenberg (Lighting Designer) returns to Chicago Shakespeare Theater, where he designed lighting for Cymbeline. This past season, regional theater credits include: She Loves Me (Huntington Theatre); Shanghai Moon, The Lady in Question (Bay Street Theatre) and Bury the Dead (Illinois State University). Philip has spent much of the last 10 years as an associate lighting designer on Broadway, with credits including: Shrek, November, The Pirate Queen, The Caine Mutiny Court-Marshall, The Odd Couple, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Spamalot, Bombay Dreams, The Graduate, Man of La Mancha, Hairspray, The Crucible, 42nd Street, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Music Man, The Civil War, On the Town and Triumph of Love.

Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen (Sound Designers) return to Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. Their joint Broadway credits include: music composition and sound for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Speed of Darkness; music for My Thing of Love; and sound for A Year with Frog and Toad, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Hollywood Arms, King Hedley II, Buried Child, The Song of Jacob Zulu and The Grapes of Wrath. Off Broadway credits include: music and sound for Reasons to Be Pretty, After Ashley, Boy Gets Girl, Red, Space, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci and Marvin's Room. They have created music and sound for theaters throughout America including Goodman Theatre and Steppenwolf Theatre Company, as well as internationally with The Comedy Theatre (London's West End), The Barbican Center, National Theatre (Great Britain), The Cameri Theatre (Tel Aviv), The Subaru Acting Company (Japan) and festivals in Toronto, Dublin, Galway, Perth and Sydney. Recently they composed and designed sound for the opening ceremonies of the Amateur International Boxing Association at the Chicago Theatre.

Melissa Veal (Wigs and Makeup) has designed wigs and makeup at Chicago Shakespeare Theater for 28 productions, including: The Comedy of Errors, Othello, Passion, Troilus and Cressida, The Three Musketeers, Hamlet, Hecuba, A Flea in Her Ear, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 (at CST and at the Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon), Much Ado About Nothing, Measure for Measure, The Merry Wives of Windsor, King John, The Molière Comedies, A Little Night Music, Rose Rage: Henry VI, Parts 1, 2 and 3 (at CST and The Duke on 42nd Street), The Taming of the Shrew, Julius Caesar and wig supervisor for The School for Scandal. She worked with the Stratford Festival for 10 seasons, where she was the recipient of four Tyrone Guthrie Awards, including the Jack Hutt Humanitarian Award. Other Canadian credits include work with Canadian Stage Company, Canadian Opera Company, Tarragon Theatre, Mirvish Productions, The Citadel Theatre and longtime association with The Grand Theatre in London, Ontario.

Bob Mason (Casting Director) is in his ninth season as casting director at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, where his classical credits cover more than two-thirds of Shakespeare’s canon, including 13 productions with Artistic Director Barbara Gaines. Other CST productions of note include a quartet of Stephen Sondheim musicals (Pacific Overtures, Sunday in the Park with George, A Little Night Music, and Passion) directed by Gary Griffin, as well as Rose Rage: Henry VI Parts 1, 2 & 3 (director Edward Hall) and The Molière Comedies (director Brian Bedford). Additional Chicago casting credits include: the Sondheim/ Hal Prince premiere of Bounce (Goodman Theatre and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts); The Good War, The Immigrant (Northlight Theatre); The Boys Are Comin’ Home, Asphalt Beach (Northwestern University’s American Music Theatre Project); and I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change (Royal George Cabaret). Prior to casting, Bob enjoyed a 15-year career as a Jeff Award-winning Chicago actor and singer and has been a visiting educator for the School at Steppenwolf and Northwestern University.