Rob Fisher — internationally distinguished artistic director, conductor, and pianist — is a leading figure in American music and musical theater. He was founding music director and conductor of Encores! at New York City Center until 2005, a series that earned a 2000 Tony Award. Mr. Fisher was awarded the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Special Achievement in 1997 for his work on Encores!, and he conducted the series’ Grammy Award–winning Chicago cast album. Last season, Fisher served as music supervisor of the Tony-winning Broadway revival of Anything Goes, and in April of 2012, he conducted a one-night gala performance of The Sound of Music at Carnegie Hall. Mr. Fisher has been producer/music director of Lincoln Center’s American Songbook Series’ tributes to Gershwin, Porter, and Bernstein.  Recent collaborations have included performances with such artists as Kristin Chenoweth, Kelli O’Hara, Idina Menzel, and David Hyde Pierce. Within the past decade Mr. Fisher has been a guest conductor or pianist of virtually every major orchestra in the U.S. In 2007 he led My Fair Lady with the New York Philharmonic, and he most recently appeared with the Philharmonic in October 2012, conducting Mr. Keillor at 70 with Garrison Keillor. Mr. Fisher was music director and conductor for “Ira at 100,” a gala concert at Carnegie Hall broadcast on PBS’s Great Performances, and he appeared twice on the PBS series In Performance at the White House for President and Mrs. Clinton. For four seasons Mr. Fisher was music director for Garrison Keillor’s American Radio Company and remains a frequent guest on A Prairie Home Companion.

John Rando is the Tony and Outer Critic’s Circle Award–winning director of Urinetown: The Musical. Mr. Rando’s other Broadway credits include A Christmas Story: The Musical, The Wedding Singer, A Thousand Clowns, and Neil Simon’s The Dinner Party. With City Center

Encores!, he has directed Bernstein’s On The Town, Damn Yankees, Face the Music, Of Thee I Sing, The Pajama Game, Do Re Mi, and Strike up the Band.  Last winter his production of A Christmas Story: The Musical garnered terrific success in Chicago at the Chicago Theater. His Off-Broadway credits include the 2009 Outer Critic’s Circle Award–winner for Best Musical: The Toxic Avenger, as well as productions at the Roundabout Theatre Company, Manhattan Class Company, Manhattan Theatre Club, Primary Stages, the Promenade, the Acting Company, and the Pearl Theatre, among others. Mr. Rando’s recent regional credits include his highly acclaimed production of Guys and Dolls at Barrington Stage Company and a revised version of The Toxic Avenger at the Alley theatre. His other extensive regional credits include productions at The Old Globe Theater, Mark Taper Forum, Geffen Playhouse, American Conservatory Theatre, The Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Philadelphia Theatre Company, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Cleveland Playhouse, Syracuse Stage, and many others. John Rando was a Drama League Directing Fellow and in 2010 was the recipient of the UCLA Department of Theater, Film, and Television Alumni Achievement Award.

Choreographer Warren Carlyle most recently directed and choreographed Chaplin at the Barrymore Theater and the hit show Hugh Jackman: Back on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theater. He also choreographed The Mystery of Edwin Drood (presented at Studio 54), A Christmas Story (Lunt Fontanne), and the recent Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Follies at the Marriot Marquis Theater. Mr. Carlyle directed and choreographed the critically acclaimed, Tony-nominated Broadway revival of Finian’s Rainbow at the St. James Theater, A Tale of Two Cities on Broadway at the Al Hirschfeld Theater, and the Broadway-bound Cotton Club Parade (Jazz at Lincoln Center and City Center). Also in New York, he choreographed Girl Crazy, On the Town, Finian’s Rainbow, Juno, and Stairway to Paradise (all for City Center’s Encores! series); 101 Dalmatians (Madison Square Garden/Tour); You Again (New York Fringe Festival); Working (Zipper Theater); Slut! (ATA); Roundabout 40th Anniversary Gala (The Public Theater); and The 24-Hour Musicals (The Public Theater). Mr. Carlyle produced, directed, and choreographed the tour of Hugh Jackman in Performance (Curran Theater San Francisco, Toronto’s Princess of Wales Theater); created the musical staging for the new Randy Newman revue Harps & Angels (Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles); directed and choreographed the award-winning Limelight (La Jolla Playhouse), Buddy’s Tavern (O’Neill Theater Center; Richard Rodgers Award Winner), and Lucky Guy (Goodspeed); and choreographed Follies (Kennedy Center and Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles), Camelot (Stratford Shakespeare Festival Canada), A Christmas Story (U.S. tour), Mame (Kennedy Center), Dancing in the Dark (Old Globe Theater, San Diego), The Pirates of Penzance (Paper Mill Playhouse, Goodspeed; CT Critics Circle Award for Best Choreography), The Bakers Wife (Goodspeed), and Pageant (Second City Chicago). Warren Carlyle is represented on film and television by Deception starring Hugh Jackman, Hope and Faith, An Evening at the Boston Pops, and Elton John’s Made in England music video.

Kelli O’Hara has established herself as one of Broadway’s great leading ladies. She currently stars in the ten-time Tony-nominated Broadway musical Nice Work If You Can Get It opposite Matthew Broderick, for which she received her fourth Tony nomination for Lead Actress in a Musical. Ms. O’Hara garnered rave reviews for her recent role as Cathy Whitaker in the musical adaptation of Far From Heaven at Williamstown Theater Festival. She earned her first Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations for her role in The Light in the Piazza in 2005. In 2006 she joined Harry Connick, Jr. on Broadway in the Tony-winning production of The Pajama Game and received Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Award nominations. Ms. O’Hara starred in the Tony-winning revival of South Pacific at Lincoln Center, garnering Tony and Drama Desk nominations. In 2011 Ms. O’Hara made her Public Theater debut in King Lear and in 2010 starred as Ella Peterson in City Center Encores!’ production of Bells Are Ringing. In addition to her critically acclaimed performance as Eliza Doolittle in the New York Philharmonic production of My Fair Lady, Ms. O’Hara has performed at Carnegie Hall with the New York Pops, at the Kennedy Center and the National Symphony Orchestra with Marvin Hamlisch, and with the Boston Pops under Keith Lockhart. She has performed three times at the Kennedy Center Honors, in tributes for Barbara Cook, Jerry Herman, and Barbra Streisand. Her film and television credits include Sex and the City 2, Blue Bloods, The Key to Reserva, The Dying Gaul, Alexander Hamilton, NUMB3RS, All My Children, and the animated series Car Talk. Ms. O’Hara’s voice can be heard on numerous cast recordings, and her two solo albums, Always and Wonder in the World, are currently available on Ghostlight Records.

Nathan Gunn has sung leading lyric baritone roles at The Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Paris Opéra, Theatre an der Wien, and Bavarian Staatsoper. He created the roles of Clyde Griffiths in Tobias Picker’s An American Tragedy, Father Delura in Peter Eötvös’s Love and Other Demons, Alec Harvey in André Previn’s Brief Encounter, and Paul in Daron Hagen’s Amelia.

Mr. Gunn has appeared regularly with The Cleveland Orchestra and the Boston, Chicago, and London symphony orchestras. He has appeared with the New York Philharmonic in Camelot (broadcast live on PBS’s Great Performances) in 2008, Sondheim: The Birthday Concert in 2010, and Broadway’s Classic Hits alongside Kelli O’Hara in 2011. Other engagements have included Showboat at Carnegie Hall and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, appearances with Mandy Patinkin at the Ravinia Festival, cabaret shows at New York City’s famed Café Carlyle, and a performance of Sting and Trudie Styler’s Twin Spirits in the Allen Room at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Mr. Gunn’s recording of Britten’s Billy Budd with Daniel Harding and the London Symphony Orchestra won a 2010 Grammy Award. Other recordings include Just Before Sunrise, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Allegro, Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, and American Anthem.

This season, Mr. Gunn returns to The Met for Rossini’s Le Comte d’Ory, Dallas Opera for Dominick Argento’s The Aspern Papers, and the San Francisco Opera for the world premiere of Mark Adamo’s The Gospel of Mary Magdalene. He also appears in recital in Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall and Boston’s Jordan Hall, among others.

Nathan Gunn received the first-annual Beverly Sills Artist Award and the Pittsburgh Opera Renaissance Award. He is an alumnus of the Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artists Program and won the 1994 Metropolitan Opera National Council Competition. He was recently named director of the American Repertoire Council at the Opera Company of Philadelphia and is a professor of voice at his alma mater, the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

Mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe has appeared at The Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and Paris Opéra. She has performed the title roles in Bizet’s Carmen, Saint-Saëns’s Samson and Dalilah, Offenbach’s La Grande Duchesse, Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice, and Handel’s Julius Caesar in Egypt. Her other roles have included Isabella in Rossini’s The Italian Girl in Algiers; Frugola, Principessa, and Zita in Puccini’s The Triptych; Fricka in Wagner’s Das Rheingold and Die Walküre; and the Verdi roles of Amneris in Aida, Azucena in Il Trovatore, Ulrica in Un ballo in maschera, and Mistress Quickly in Falstaff.

An accomplished concert singer, Ms. Blythe has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Met Orchestra, Halle Orchestra, and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, as well as at the Tanglewood, Mostly Mozart, and Ravinia festivals and the BBC Proms. She has been presented in recital at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall, Alice Tully Hall, 92nd Street Y, Town Hall, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Vocal Arts Society in Washington, D.C., Cleveland Art Song Festival, University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and Shriver Hall in Baltimore. Ms. Blythe starred in The Metropolitan Opera’s live HD broadcasts of Orpheus and Eurydice, The Triptych, Handel’s Rodelinda, and Wagner’s complete Ring Cycle. Her recordings of works by Mahler, Brahms, and Wagner and of arias by Handel and Bach are available on the Virgin Classics label.

This season, Ms. Blythe returns to The Metropolitan Opera for the new production of Un ballo in maschera, Il Trovatore, and the complete Ring Cycle, and she tours the U.S. with two of her highly acclaimed programs — We’ll Meet Again: The Songs of Kate Smith and an all-American song program — culminating in a recital in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium.

Shuler Hensley has appeared on Broadway as The Monster in Young Frankenstein (which he reprised on the U.S. national tour); Kerchak in Tarzan; Jud Fry in Oklahoma! (also at The National Theatre and London’s West End), earning him Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Olivier awards; and Javert in Les Misérables. He has been seen Off-Broadway in Fiorello!, The Whale, Silence! The Musical, Sweet and Sad, That Hopey Changey Thing, and The Great American Trailer Park Musical. Mr. Hensley’s other credits include Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, All About Us, The Phantom of the Opera (as The Phantom), and The Most Happy Fella at Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series. His opera appearances have included Berg’s Wozzeck and Blitzstein’s Regina. Mr. Hensley has performed with the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and the New World Symphony orchestras. His television credits include Ed, Deadline, Gary Powers, Law & Order: SVU, Criminal Intent, and The Jury. Mr. Hensley has appeared in the films After.Life; The Legend of Zorro; Van Helsing; Monday Night Mayhem; Someone Like You; The Bread, My Sweet; and Opa! This past year, he was awarded “Stage Performance of the Year” by New York magazine in recognition for his work in The Whale.

Jason Danieley most recently appeared as George in Sunday in the Park with George at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre. He has starred on Broadway in Next to Normal, co-starring his wife, Marin Mazzie; Curtains, garnering him an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination; The Full Monty, which he also performed at London’s West End; and in the title role in Candide, which earned him a Theatre World Award and Drama Desk Award nomination. Mr. Danieley also had leading roles in City Center Encores! productions of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Strike Up the Band. Off-Broadway, he has appeared in Dream True, The Trojan Women: A Love Story, and Floyd Collins. His regional theater credits include Some Lovers; The Highest Yellow, earning him a Helen Hayes Award; Beauty; Brigadoon; and 110 in the Shade. The last two also both co-starred Ms. Mazzie, and he received a Garland Award for the latter. As a concert artist, Jason Danieley has had lead roles in Carnegie Hall performances of The Mikado, Carousel, and South Pacific, broadcast on PBS’s Great Performances, and in April 2013, he will star in Song of Norway. Recently he was a part of the 92nd Street Y’s Lyrics & Lyricists’s “The Very Model of a Major Modern Lyricist: W.S. Gilbert and the Broadway He Inspired.” Mr. Danieley has performed with most of the nation’s leading orchestras and is a frequent guest artist of the Boston Pops, having toured extensively and appeared on several of their PBS broadcasts. Special theatrical concerts with Marin Mazzie include Opposite You, He Said/She Said, and numerous orchestral concerts. Their upcoming special collaboration in February 2013, Ring Them Bells, celebrates the music of Kander and Ebb and is part of Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series. Mr. Danieley also leads a rural jazz band, The Frontier Heroes. He made his New York Philharmonic debut in SONDHEIM: The Birthday Concert! in May 2010, and his most recent appearance with the Orchestra was in the staged production of Sondheim’s Company in April 2011, available on DVD.

Jessie Mueller can currently be seen in the role of Helena Landless in Roundabout Theatre Company’s production of The Mystery of Edwin Drood at Studio 54.  She spent this past summer as Cinderella in Shakespeare in the Park’s production of Into the Woods at the Delacorte Theatre, and appeared last spring in Sweet and Low Down with Michael Feinstein at Jazz at Lincoln Center. She made her Broadway debut in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever opposite Harry Connick, Jr. Originally from Chicago, Ms. Mueller has appeared in productions at the Goodman Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Writers Theatre, Marriott Lincolnshire Theatre, Drury Lane Oakbrook, and Court Theatre. She has appeared at the Long Wharf Theatre in Carousel, as well as at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Henry IV, Parts I & II. Ms. Mueller is a recipient of the 2012 Theatre World Award and has been nominated for a Drama Desk Award, Drama League Award, and a Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical.

Kate Burton has amassed a wide range of credits in theater, film, and television. Her recent film roles include Josh Radnor’s Liberal Arts; 2 Days in New York from writer/director Julie Delpy; Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours with James Franco; and Puncture with Chris Evans. Past film roles include Remember Me (directed by Alan Coulter), Max Payne (John Moore), What Just Happened (Barry Levinson), Celebrity (Woody Allen), The Ice Storm (Ang Lee), The First Wives Club (Hugh Wilson), August (Anthony Hopkins), Big Trouble in Little China (John Carpenter), Unfaithful (Adrian Lynne), Swimfan (John Polson), Stay (Marc Forester), Sherrybaby (Laurie Collyer), and Quid Pro Quo (Carlos Brooks). Ms. Burton’s upcoming roles include Consent, Barefoot with Evan Rachel Wood, and Mariachi Gringo. On television Ms. Burton has recurring roles in ABC’s Scandal, CBS’s The Good Wife, NBC’s Grimm, and HBO’s Veep with Julia Louis Dreyfus. Past recurring roles include Grey’s Anatomy (two Emmy Nominations) and Rescue Me. Onstage Kate Burton starred as Katherine Cornell in the new A.R. Gurney play The Grand Manner at Lincoln Center Theater. Past theater credits include the Tony Award–winning musical Spring Awakening; the Williamston production of The Corn is Green, starring opposite her son, Morgan Ritchie; and the City Center Encores! revival of Applause with Christine Ebersole. Ms. Burton was nominated for a Tony Award for her performance as the title character in The Constant Wife at the Roundabout Theatre Company; appeared in The Water’s Edge opposite Tony Goldwyn at the Second Stage Theatre; and was Olga in the critically acclaimed West End production of Three Sisters with Kristen Scott Thomas. Ms. Burton received two Tony nominations in 2002, for the title role in Hedda Gabler and for the role of Mrs. Kendall in The Elephant Man. She has also starred on Broadway in The Beauty Queen of Leenane (also on the U.K./Ireland tour), An American Daughter, Jake’s Women, Some Americans Abroad (Drama Desk nomination), and Present Laughter (Theater World Award). She has appeared at Williamstown Theatre Festival for 13 seasons.

A 2007 inductee into the Theatre Hall of Fame, John Cullum first appeared on Broadway in Camelot, and earned his first Tony Award nomination for On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. He has won the Tony for Best Actor in a Musical twice, for Shenandoah and On the Twentieth Century, and earned two more nominations for Urinetown and 110 in the Shade. His other leading roles in musicals on Broadway include 1776, Man of La Mancha, Aspects of Love, and Show Boat. Equally successful as a dramatic actor, Mr. Cullum played Laertes opposite Richard Burton’s Hamlet in 1964. His Broadway dramatic credits include Deathtrap, Doubles, You Never Can Tell, Private Lives, the title role in Cymbaline, and August: Osage County. In Shakespeare in the Park’s 2011 productions, Mr. Cullum portrayed the King in All’s Well That Ends Well and Escalus in Measure for Measure. He has appeared Off-Broadway in Whistler (Drama Desk Award), All My Sons (Gala 50th Anniversary), and Old Money. He has earned Drama Desk nominations for Conscientious Objector and Sin (A Cardinal Deposed). Mr. Cullum’s film credits include The Night Listener, The Notorious Bettie Page, All the Way Home, The Secret Life of Algernon, Hawaii, 1776, and Richard Burton’s Hamlet. His extensive television credits include appearing as Holling the bartender in Northern Exposure (Emmy nomination); recurring roles on ER, Law & Order: SVU, Mad Men, and The Middle; and television movies including Inherit the Wind and The Day After. Married to acclaimed dancer and writer Emily Frankel, he directed and acted in several of her plays on and Off-Broadway. His many regional appearances include The Dresser at the Clarence Brown Theater in Knoxville, co-starring his son J.D. Cullum. This past year he has completed many readings for possible upcoming productions; appeared in the star-studded reading of Romeo and Juliet for the Delacorte Theater; made guest appearances on the television shows 30 Rock, Royal Pains, and Nurse Jackie; appeared in the upcoming feature film Kill Your Darling; and most recently performed in Detroit at Playwrights Horizons. 

Robert Fairchild was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and began his dance training at Dance Concepts at the age of four with Rebecca Bateman and Kaelynne Oliphant. His formal ballet training began at the age of ten at the Ballet West Conservatory with Sharee Lane. Mr. Fairchild’s other teachers have included Laura King-Spinning, Trey Barber, Brooke Healy, and Jacqueline and Heather Colledge of Utah Regional Ballet. Mr. Fairchild attended the 2002 and 2003 summer courses at the School of American Ballet (SAB), the official school of New York City Ballet, and then enrolled as a full-time student in the fall of 2003. In June 2005 Robert Fairchild became an apprentice with New York City Ballet, and the following June he joined the company as a member of the corps de ballet. Robert Fairchild was promoted to soloist in May 2007 and in October 2009 was promoted to principal dancer. 

Tiler Peck began her dance training at age seven, studying privately with former Bolshoi Ballet principal dancer Alla Khaniashvili in Hollywood. At age 11 she began studying with former New York City Ballet dancers Colleen and Patricia Neary and former principal dancer Yvonne Mounsey. Ms. Peck entered the School of American Ballet, the official school of New York City Ballet, full time in the fall of 2003. She became an apprentice with New York City Ballet in 2004, joined the company as a member of the corps de ballet in 2005, became a soloist the following year, and was promoted to principal in 2009. Since joining the company, Ms. Peck has danced featured roles in George Balanchine’s choreography for The Nutcracker, Coppelia, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Symphony in Three Movements, and Theme and Variations; Jerome Robbins’s Fancy Free, Mother Goose, and Other Dances; Peter Martins’s The Sleeping Beauty, Romeo † Juliet, and Swan Lake; Christopher Wheeldon’s An American in Paris, Carousel (a dance), and Estancia; and Susan Stroman’s Double Feature. Ms. Peck originated featured roles in Peter Martins’s Friandises and The Red Violin; Mauro Bigonzetti’s In Vento and Luce Nascosta; Wayne McGregor’s Outlier; and the New York City Ballet premieres of Christopher d’Amboise’s Tribute and Jerome Robbins’s N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz. Tiler Peck is a 2004 recipient of the Princess Grace Foundation–USA Dance Fellowship, a 2004 Mae L. Wien Award recipient, and Janice Levin Honoree for 2006–07. She performed in The Music Man on Broadway and was Clara from The Nutcracker in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. She has appeared twice on Dancing with the Stars as a guest performer, and she most recently performed for President Obama at the 2012 Kennedy Honors in a tribute for Honoree Natalia Makarova. Tiler Peck’s film credits include A Time for Dancing, Geppetto, and Donnie Darko.