Gary Griffin (Director/CST Associate Artistic Director) in his tenure at Chicago Shakespeare Theater has directed A Midsummer Night's Dream, Follies, As You Like It, Private Lives, Amadeus, 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 and The Apple Tree. Off Broadway credits include: Saved (Playwrights Horizons); Lost in the Stars, The Apple Tree, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Pardon My English, The New Moon (Encores); and Beautiful Thing (Cherry Lane Theatre). 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 nomination for Best Director). Regional credits include work with: The Old Globe, McCarter Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Signature Theatre and Hartford Stage. His Chicago credits with Court Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Apple Tree Theatre, Writers’ Theatre, The Marriott Theatre, Drury Lane Oakbrook, Famous Door Theatre and Pegasus Players, where he directed the 1999 American premiere of Sondheim’s Saturday Night, have earned him eight Joseph Jefferson Awards for directing. Mr. Griffin’s directing credits include productions: of West Side Story, Evita and Camelot at Stratford Shakespeare Festival,and The Merry Widow and Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Mr. Griffin will direct Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music at Carnegie Hall in April 2012.

Stephen Sondheim (Music and Lyrics) one of the most influential and accomplished composer/lyricists in Broadway history, was born in New York City and raised in New York and Pennsylvania. As a teenager he met Oscar Hammerstein II, who became Sondheim's mentor. Sondheim graduated from Williams College, where he received the Hutchinson Prize for Music Composition. After graduation he studied music theory and composition with Milton Babbitt. He worked for a short time in the 1950s as a writer for the television show Topper. His first professional musical theatre job was as the songwriter for the unproduced musical Saturday Night. He wrote the lyrics for West Side Story (1957), Gypsy (1959) and Do I Hear A Waltz? (1965), as well as additional lyrics for Candide (1973). Musicals for which he has written both music and lyrics include: A Funny Thing Happened On The Way to the Forum (1962), Anyone Can Whistle (1964), Company (1970–71 Tony Award Music and Best Lyrics), Follies (1971–72 Tony Award Score and New York Drama Critics Circle Award; revised in London, 1987), A Little Night Music (1973 Tony Award Score), The Frogs (1974), Pacific Overtures (1976 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award), Sweeney Todd (1979 Tony Award Score), Merrily We Roll Along (1981), Sunday in the Park with George (1984 New York Drama Critics Circle Award; 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama), Into the Woods (1987 Tony Award Score), Assassins (1991) and Passion (1994 Tony Award Score). He composed the songs for the television production Evening Primrose (1966), co-authored the film The Last of Sheila (1973) and provided incidental music for The Girls of Summer (1956), Invitation to a March (1961) and Twigs (1971). Anthologies of his work include: Side by Side by Sondheim (1976), Marry Me A Little (1981), You're Gonna Love Tomorrow (1983; originally presented as A Stephen Sondheim Evening) and Putting It Together (1993). He has written scores for the films Stavisky (1974) and Reds (1981), and composed songs for the film Dick Tracy (1990 Academy Award for Best Song). He is on the Council of the Dramatist Guild, the national association of playwrights, composers and lyricists, having served as its president from 1973 until 1981, and in 1983 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1990 he was appointed the first Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Oxford University. He was also recipient of a Kennedy Center Honor in 1993.

James Lapine (Book) also collaborated with Stephen Sondheim on Sunday in the Park with George, a revised version of Merrily We Roll Along and, most recently, Passion. Mr. Lapine collaborated with William Finn on the musicals March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland, which were later presented on Broadway as Falsettos. He has written and directed the plays Luck, Pluck and Virtue, Twelve Dreams, Table Settings, and adapted Gertrude Stein’s poem/play Photograph. He has also directed The Winter’s Tale and A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the New York Shakespeare Festival and directed the films Impromptu and Life with Mikey. His work has been recognized with Tony, Drama Desk Obie and NY Drama Critics Circle awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Sunday in the Park with George.

Brad Haak (Music Director) returns to Chicago Shakespeare Theater, where he served as music director for Follies (Jeff Award nomination). Recent Chicago credits include Les Misérables (Marriott Theatre) and music supervision and orchestrations for Daddy Long Legs (Northlight Theatre). Broadway credits include over 1,700 performances in six years as music director for Disney's Mary Poppins; music direction and arrangements for Elton John’s Lestat; conductor for Chance and Chemistry, A Centennial Celebration of Frank Loesser; and orchestrations for Children and Art: A 75th Birthday Sondheim Celebration. Mr. Haak recently conducted The King and I for The Muny in St. Louis. As music supervisor and orchestrator for composer and lyricist Paul Gordon, Mr. Haak’s credits include: Jane Eyre (Tokyo); Daddy Long Legs (more than a dozen US productions, Tokyo and this fall in London's Off-West End); the Broadway-aimed Jane Austen’s Emma (The Old Globe and upcoming at Arizona Theater Company); and Little Miss Scrooge (premiering at The Rubicon Theatre this December) Mr. Haak has been three times nominated for Joseph Jefferson Awards for music direction. Native to Park Ridge, he is a graduate of Northwestern University.

Kevin Depinet (Scenic Designer) returns to Chicago Shakespeare Theater, where his credits include: Timon of Athens, Follies, As You Like It, Short Shakespeare! The Taming of the Shrew, The Adventures of Pinocchio and The Emperor's New Clothes. Other Chicago credits include productions with: Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Court Theatre, Writers' Theatre, Drury Lane Oakbrook and Chicago Children's Theatre. Broadway credits include associate designer for August: Osage County and The Motherf**ker With the Hat. Regional credits include productions with: American Players Theatre, McCarter Theatre, The Arden Theatre, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Yale Repertory Theatre, Indiana Repertory Theatre and Illinois Shakespeare Festival. Film credits include scenery for Michael Mann's Public Enemies. Upcoming projects include the scenic design for Detroit (National Theatre, London) and the Myth Buster's Touring Museum exhibit for Discovery Channel this fall. Mr. Depinet studied at Ball State University and the Yale School of Drama, and now serves as an adjunct professor of Design at DePaul University.

Mike Tutaj (Projection Design) returns to Chicago Shakespeare Theater, where his credits include: Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Timon of Athens, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Feast: an intimate Tempest, Macbeth and Romeo y Julieta. Other Chicago design credits include: The Detective's Wife (Writers' Theatre); Ask Aunt Susan, The Good Negro (Goodman Theatre); Sweeney Todd (Drury Lane Theatre); The Hot L Baltimore (Steppenwolf Theatre Company); The Year of Magical Thinking (Court Theatre); A Walk in the Woods, The Pitmen Painters, In Darfur (Jeff Award), Frost/Nixon, The Farnsworth Invention, Martin Furey's Shot (non-Equity Jeff Award), History Boys (TimeLine Theatre Company); Tomorrow Morning (Jeff Award, Hillary A. Williams LLC); Love Person, I Sailed with Magellan (Victory Gardens Theater); Distracted, Kid Simple, I Do! I Do!, Hedwig and the Angry Inch (American Theater Company); Scorched, Pangs of the Messiah and Our Enemies (Silk Road Rising). Mr. Tutaj is an artistic associate with TimeLine Theatre Company and a company member of Barrel of Monkeys Productions.

Melissa Veal (Wig and Make-up Design) has designed wigs and make-up for many productions at CST including: Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Timon of Athens, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Elizabeth Rex, Follies, The Madness of George III (Jeff Award), As You Like It, Private Live, Twelfth Night, Macbeth, Amadeus, Funk It Up About Nothin', The Comedy of Errors, Othello, Passion, Troilus and Cressida, The Three Musketeers, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 (at CST and The Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon), Much Ado About Nothing, The Molière Comedies, A Little Night Music, Rose Rage: Henry VI Parts 1, 2 and 3 (at CST and The Duke on 42nd Street), and all six CPS Shakespeare! productions. She worked for ten seasons with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, where she received four Tyrone Guthrie Awards, including the Jack Hutt Humanitarian Award. Other Canadian credits include work with: The Shaw Festival, Mirvish Productions and The Grand Theatre in London, Ontario. Ms. Veal received the 2007 Hurckes Award for Artisans and Technicians.