Paul Gemignani (conductor) has been the musical director for more than 40 Broadway and West End shows, including Follies, Pacific Overtures; Candide, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Evita, Dreamgirls, Merrily We Roll Along, Into the Woods, On the Twentieth Century, Sunday in the Park with George, Jerome Robbins’s Broadway, Crazy for You, Passion, High Society, and Kiss Me, Kate. In 2004 he was the musical director for Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins, The Frogs, and the Japan National Theatre Company’s Pacific Overtures. Mr. Gemignani has made recordings with the American Theatre Orchestra in addition to many cast albums; appeared as guest conductor with numerous orchestras; and is a regular guest conductor at the New York City Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Royal Opera Company, and the New York City Ballet. His film work includes Sweeney Todd starring Johnny Depp, Kramer vs. Kramer, Reds, and Eyewitness. Mr. Gemignani received the 2001 Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theater, and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award (1994), as well as a special Drama Desk Award (1989) for “consistently outstanding musical direction and commitment to the theater.” In 2003 he was awarded an honorary doctorate of musical arts from the Manhattan School of Music, and in 2006 he received a Prime Time Emmy Award for Best Musical Direction for a Great Performances presentation of South Pacific. The Drama League of New York honored him for Outstanding Achievement in the Musical Theatre in 2008. Mr. Gemignani served as the musical director of the New York Philharmonic’s concert performance of Stephen Sondheim’s Follies in September 1985, and in May 2008, as conductor and music supervisor of the Orchestra’s semi-staged performance of Camelot.

Lonny Price (director and co-producer) just finished shooting his first feature film, Master Harold…and the Boys, starring Freddie Highmore and Ving Rhames. He is returning to the New York Philharmonic, where he previously directed the semi-staged production and Live From Lincoln Center broadcast of Camelot, starring Gabriel Byrne in May 2008. Previously, at the Philharmonic, he directed Sweeney Todd, starring Patti LuPone and George Hearn, the recording of which received a Grammy nomination, and later directed the musical again with the San Francisco Symphony (broadcast on Great Performances; Emmy Award). Also at the New York Philharmonic, he directed Candide, starring Kristin Chenowith and Ms. LuPone (broadcast on Great Performances, Emmy nomination). Mr. Price directed the Emmy Award-winning production of Sondheim’s Passion, starring Ms. LuPone, Audra McDonald, and Michael Cerveris (Live From Lincoln Center), and filmed the acclaimed Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Company, for which he received an Emmy nomination. On Broadway, Mr. Price directed Audra McDonald in 110 in the Shade for the Roundabout Theatre Company; Danny Glover in Athol Fugard’s Master Harold…and the Boys; Joan Rivers in Sally Marr and Her Escorts (which he co-wrote with Ms. Rivers and Erin Sanders); Jenn Colella in Urban Cowboy; and himself in A Class Act, for which he also co-wrote the book (with Linda Kline) and was nominated for a Tony Award. His Off-Broadway directorial work includes Visiting Mr. Green, starring Eli Wallach; Jules Feiffer’s Grown Ups; and Mary Pat Gleason’s Stopping Traffic for the Vineyard Theatre. Mr. Price made his opera directing debut at the Houston Grand Opera directing Audra McDonald in Poulenc’s La Vox Humaine and Michael John LaChiusa’s Send. His first association with Mr. Sondheim goes back to 1975, when he worked afternoons during his days at the High School of Performing Arts for Hal Prince on the Prince/Sondheim musical, Pacific Overtures. Several years later, in 1981, he originated the role of Charley Kringas in the Prince/Sondheim show, Merrily We Roll Along, on Broadway.

Thomas Z. Shepard (producer) is a producer/consultant for live theatrical and classical events, and a composer, arranger, pianist, and educator. As a recording executive, he is the recipient of 12 Grammy Awards for production of a variety of albums, ranging from classical (such as Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra with Pierre Boulez and the New York Philharmonic), to children’s (including Sesame Street Original Cast) — to theatrical, including Follies in Concert, Sunday in the Park with George, Sweeney Todd, and Ain’t Misbehavin. He was the 1984 recipient of the NARAS Governors Award for Lifetime Achievement. Mr. Shepard has written five operas, including collaborating on the comic Love in Two Countries with Sheldon Harnick; the score for the film, Such Good Friends, directed by Otto Preminger; and, most recently, the music for the lost Gilbert and Sullivan opera, Thespis. He has also authored works for children, including a cantata and The Children’s Symphony (the latter on commission from The Carnegie Hall Explorers Program), and he is a composer-lyricist for the PBS show, Between the Lions, for which he has received an Emmy nomination. His music has been recorded or performed by artists as varied as William Bolcom, Lena Horne, Joan Morris, and Richard Tucker. Mr. Shepard produced the New York Philharmonic’s semi-staged production of Lerner & Loewe’s My Fair Lady in May 2007, and the New York Philharmonic’s 1985 semi-staged production of Stephen Sondheim’s Follies, as well as a recording of the live performances. He has served as producer and director of CBS Masterworks, and vice president — classical and theatrical — for both RCA Red Seal and MCA Records.

Gabriel Byrne (King Arthur) started his acting career with Ireland’s world renowned Abbey Theatre, later joining London’s Royal Court Theatre and the Royal National Theatre, where he played leading roles before moving to the United States. On Broadway, he received a Tony nomination for his performance in Eugene O'Neill's Moon for the Misbegotten and won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Actor for his performance in another O’Neill play, A Touch of the Poet. He has worked with some of cinema’s leading directors, including the Coen brothers, Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch, Ken Loach, John Boorman, David Cronenberg, and Bryan Singer. He has starred in more than 35 feature films, including Excalibur, Miller's Crossing, Into the West, The Point of No Return, Little Women, The Usual Suspects, Dead Man, The End of Violence, The Man in the Iron Mask, Vanity Fair, Jindabyne, and Wah-Wah. Mr. Byrne’s television credits include Weapons of Mass Distraction and In Treatment, both for HBO. His producing credits include the Academy Award-nominated In the Name of the Father and Into the West.

Marin Mazzie performed with the New York Philharmonic in May 2008 in the role of Guenevere in Camelot, a performance broadcast on Live at Lincoln Center on PBS. She most recently played Blanch DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire at Barrington Stage. A three-time Tony Award nominee for her performances in Passion, the original Broadway cast of Ragtime, and Kiss Me, Kate, she also received an Olivier Award nomination in her West End debut. She returned to the West End in Monty Python’s Spamalot following her Broadway appearances in that show. Ms. Mazzie’s other Broadway credits include Man of La Mancha, Into the Woods, Big River, and Kismet, as well as the Encores! presentation of Out of This World. Off-Broadway she has appeared in The Vagina Monologues, The Trojan Women: A Love Story, and The World Goes Round. She has performed at The Goodman Theatre, Arena Stage, The Denver Center, La Jolla Playhouse, Pasadena Playhouse, and Pittsburgh CLO, among other regional theaters. On television, Ms. Mazzie has appeared in Still Standing, Without a Trace, Numb3rs, Jake in Progress, Stacked, Pryor Offenses, and One Life to Live. Her many performances on PBS’s Great Performances series include Passion, My Favorite Broadway: The Leading Ladies, My Favorite Broadway: The Love Songs, and An Evening with the Pops and Pops Goes the Fourth with the Boston Pops. In concert, Marin Mazzie has performed with numerous conductors, including Michael Tilson Thomas, Marvin Hamlisch, Skitch Henderson, Keith Lockhart, Paul Gemignani, Peter Nero, Patrick Summers, John Mauceri, and Doc Severinsen. With her husband, Jason Danieley, she has performed their concert Opposite You nationally, including at Feinstein’s at the Loews Regency, Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series, Joe’s Pub, the Cinegrill. The album of Opposite You was heralded by NPR as “the album of the year.”

Baritone Nathan Gunn has appeared in internationally renowned opera houses such as The Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Paris Opéra, Bayerische Staatsoper, and the Aix-en-Provence Festival. His many appearances include the title roles in Britten’s Billy Budd and Thomas’s Hamlet, Figaro in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, and Mozart roles such as Papageno in The Magic Flute, Guglielmo in Cosí fan tutte, and the Count in Le nozze di Figaro. A supporter of new works, he created the roles of Clyde Griffiths in Tobias Picker’s An American Tragedy at The Met, Father Delura in Peter Eötvös’s Love and Other Demons at the Glyndebourne Festival, and Alec Harvey in André Previn’s Brief Encounter at the Houston Grand Opera. Mr. Gunn has appeared in concert with many of the leading American and European orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, and the Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and London symphony orchestras. Recently, he has ventured outside the standard opera repertoire with appearances in semi-staged performances of Camelot with the New York Philharmonic (May 2008, broadcast live on PBS’s Great Performances) and Showboat at Carnegie Hall. In recital, he has been presented at New York’s Zankel Hall and Alice Tully Hall, Cal Performances, Schubert Club, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, University of Chicago, Krannert Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, and Brussels’s Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie. Nathan Gunn’s first solo album, Just Before Sunrise, was released on the Sony/BMG Masterworks label. His other recordings include Billy Budd (Virgin Classics), Allegro (Sony Masterworks Broadway), Peter Grimes (LSO Live!), Il Barbiere di Siviglia (SONY Classics), and Kullervo (Telarc). This season’s engagements include returns to The Met, Dallas Opera, and Los Angeles Opera; his debut at the Bilbao Opera in Billy Budd; and the world premiere of Daron Hagen’s Amelia at the Seattle Opera.

Christopher Lloyd (Pellinore) began his career in the theater, and has since appeared in more than 200 plays, including Broadway and Off-Broadway, regional, and summer stock productions. Recently, he was seen in the Tony Award-winning Broadway production of Mornings At Seven, directed by Dan Sullivan; Twelfth Night at the New York Shakespeare Festival; Center Stage’s Waiting for Godot; and as Dalton Trumbo in the Off-Broadway production of Trumbo. Mr. Lloyd began his film career in 1975 in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, followed by a two-year run as Jim Ignatowski on the television series, Taxi, for which he won two of his three Emmys. In 1992 he made Emmy history when he won Best Dramatic Actor for a guest appearance on Disney’s Road to Avonlea. Mr. Lloyd has appeared in more than 90 film and television productions, including the Back to the Future trilogy; Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead; Eight Men Out; The Addams Family and The Addams Family Values; BBC’s Dead Ahead: Exxon Valdez Disaster; The Pagemaster; Dennis the Menace; Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai; Track 29; Clue; The Dream Team; Angels in the Outfield; Star Trek III; Goin’ South; Who Framed Roger Rabbit; My Favorite Martian; and Mike Nichols’s HBO adaptation of Wit, starring Emma Thompson. Mr.Lloyd won an Independent Spirit Award for his depiction of a soulless murderer in Twenty Bucks.

Fran Drescher (Morgan le Fey) received two Emmy and two Golden Globe nominations for her portrayal of the lovable Miss Fine in the hit CBS series, The Nanny, a show she also created, wrote and directed, and on which she served as executive producer. An accomplished film actress, Ms. Drescher won Esquire’s Five Minute Oscar for her memorable performance in the mockumentary, This Is Spinal Tap. She has co-starred in numerous films throughout her career with actors such as Robin Williams, Dan Aykroyd, Tim Robbins, and Billy Crystal, working with directors such as Rob Reiner, Milos Forman, and Francis Ford Coppola. She is most proud of Beautician and the Beast, a film in which she starred with Timothy Dalton, and on which she also served as executive producer. On stage Ms. Drescher has performed in Ron Ribman’s Rug Merchants of Chaos (at the Pasadena Playhouse in Los Angeles); and, in New York, in The Exonerated (directed by Bob Balaban) and Neil LaBute’s Some Girls (directed by Jo Bonney). Fran Drescher is the author of Enter Whining, her first book, and, most recently, Cancer Schmancer, both New York Times best-sellers. She is the recipient of the City of Hope Woman of the Year Award, the Hebrew University Humanitarian Award, and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Spirit of Achievement Award, among others.

Stacy Keach (Merlyn) is well known for his portrayals of detective Mike Hammer in a series of made-for-television films based on the Mickey Spillane mysteries, Ken Titus in the Fox sitcom Titus, and Warden Henry Pope in the television series Prison Break. Following his recent title role in director Robert Falls’s modern adaptation of King Lear at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, he joined the cast of John Sayles’s film Honeydripper, and filmed Deathmatch for the Spike channel and The Boxer for Zeitsprung Productions in Berlin. Mr. Keach’s film career began with 1968’s The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, followed by The New Centurions with George C. Scott; Doc with Faye Dunaway; Judge Roy Bean with Paul Newman; Fat City; Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke and Nice Dreams; and Robert Altman’s Brewster McCloud, among others. He also appeared in The Long Riders, which he co-produced and co-wrote with his brother, James. His television credits include Mistral’s Daughter, The Blue and the Gray, and Blackbeard, and he won a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy nomination for his portrayal of Ernest Hemingway. Mr. Keach directed Arthur Miller’s Incident at Vichy for PBS, as well as the dramatic documentary The Repeater. In 1964 Stacy Keach began his professional career with the New York Shakespeare Festival production of Hamlet, directed by Joseph Papp. He received the first of his three Obie Awards for his work, in 1967, in the Off-Broadway political satire MacBird. Mr. Keach has played the title roles in Henry V, Hamlet, Richard III, and Macbeth, as well as King Lear. He will return to King Lear in May 2009, at Washington’s Harmon Center for the Performing Arts. Mr. Keach’s Broadway credits include Indians (Tony Award nomination); Deathtrap; the Pulitzer Prize–winning Kentucky Cycle (Helen Hayes Award for Best Actor); and Rupert Holmes’s Solitary Confinement.

Bobby Steggert, who appeared as Mordred in the New York Philharmonic’s semi-staged production of Camelot in March 2008, has performed on Broadway in Ragtime, 110 in the Shade (Outer Critics Circle nomination), and Master Harold…and the Boys. His Off-Broadway credits include The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island (Drama Desk and Drama League nominations, The Vineyard Theatre); Columbinus (New York Theater Workshop); The Music Teacher (New Group); and Yank! (Gallery Players). His regional appearances include Broadway 3 Generations and Ragtime at the Kennedy Center; Romeo and Juliet and St. Joan at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, The Cripple of Inishmaan at Milwaukee Repertory Theater; Brighton Beach Memoirs and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde at the Pioneer Theater in New York; The Great Game at Theater Previews at Duke University; and The Sound of Music at Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia. His film and television credits include The Namesake, Game Six, Nightswimming, Kinsey, For Richer or Poorer, and a year as Sam Grey on All My Children. Mr. Steggert is a graduate of New York University, and studied Shakespeare at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.