HONOREE & DIRECTOR

Theresa Rebeck is an award-winning and widely-produced playwright whose work has been staged across the globe. Her Broadway plays include the record-breaking Roundabout Theatre-produced hit I Need That (starring Danny DeVito), along with Bernhardt/Hamlet, Dead Accounts, Seminar andMauritius. Other notable plays include the New York Times Critic’s Pick Dig (which she also directed) at Primary Stages/59E59 Theaters; Mad House, which premiered on London’s West End starring David Harbour and Bill Pullman; Seared (MCC); Downstairs (Primary Stages); The Scene; The Water’s Edge; Loose Knit; The Family of Mann; Spike Heels (Second Stage); Bad Dates; The Butterfly Collection; Our House (Playwrights Horizons); The Understudy (Roundabout); View of the Dome (NYTW); What We’re Up Against(Women’s Project); Omnium Gatherum (Pulitzer Prize finalist). As a director, her work has been seen at The Alley Theatre (Houston), the REP Company (Delaware), Dorset Theatre Festival, the Orchard Project and the Folger Theatre. Major film and TV projects include Trouble, with Anjelica Huston, Bill Pullman and David Morse (writer and director), NYPD Blue, the NBC series Smash (creator), the female spy thriller 355 (for Jessica Chastain’s production company) and Glimpse. As a novelist, Rebeck’s books include Three Girls and Their Brother and I'm Glad About You. Rebeck is the recipient of the William Inge New Voices Playwriting Award, the PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Award, and a Lilly Award. She’s currently working on a musical adaptation of Working Girl, with music and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper, which will premiere at La Jolla Playhouse in fall 2025. theresarebeck.com

PLAYWRIGHT

Neena Beber’s current work includes A Mother, co-conceived with Jessica Hecht (Baryshnikov Arts); Kate Suspended (The O’Neill National Playwrights Conference); book for the musical Rutka (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park); lyrics for a musical about Frida Kahlo (composer Jaime Lozano). Other plays include Jump/Cut, The Dew Point, Hard Feelings, Tomorrowland, A Common Vision, published by Concord/Samuel French; libretto for Ulysses, Home;Kassandra; Iphigenia, a trilogy of operas by composer Anthony Brandt (Rice University; Opera in the Heights); Jade Alaska, a YA musical commissioned by TheaterWorks USA (composer Benjamin Diskant).Recipient of an Obie Grant, Lilly Award, the L. Arnold Weissberger New Play Award, Sloan and Amblin Commissions, Paulette Goddard Fellow, finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. A two-time Emmy nominee, she has written extensively for film and television. A member of the BMI Lehman Engel Advanced Musical Theatre Workshop and an alumna of New Dramatists, Neena is a writing mentor at The Campfire Project and adjunct faculty at Columbia School of the Arts.

SPECIAL VIDEO GUEST

Cyndi Lauper is a Grammy, Emmy, and Tony Award-winning songwriter and performing artist known for her iconic voice, influential punk glamor, and infectious live shows. Lauper won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist with her first album, “She's So Unusual. ” She became the first woman in history to have four top-five singles from a debut album, and went out to release nine additional studio albums. In 2006, she made her Broadway debut as a performer in Threepenny Opera, and made her Broadway debut as a composer in 2013 with Kinky Boots and became the first solo woman to win a Tony Award for Best Original Score. She also won a 2014 Grammy Award for the show’s Cast Album. Let the Canary Sing, the acclaimed feature documentary film on her remarkable life and career, is now streaming on Paramount+, and Lauper just wrapped her international Farewell Tour. She has been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and is a NY Times best-selling author. Lauper is also a tireless advocate for the LGBTQ+ community, co-founding True Colors Fund in 2008. cyndilauper.com

HOST

John Clinton Eisner is a stage director and producer of classic and contemporary work as well as a story consultant for theater and media. For 27 years he served as Artistic Director of The Lark, a new play development center and think-tank for the theater based in New York City. Currently, he is Creative Producer in Residence at En Garde Arts, a national innovator in site-specific, community-based theater, and President of Peacedale Global Arts, supporting writers in their creative process through international and intercultural exchange. He has worked closely with hundreds of award-winning writers, dedicating his career to reducing structural barriers to the arts and encouraging inclusive pathways into theater and media careers.

PERFORMER, Lazlo

Alfred Molina is an accomplished London-born actor whose diverse and distinguished gallery of performances has led to a lengthy and triumphant career. Effortlessly moving between film, TV and theatre, Molina is an authentic artist who is able to morph into a diverse mix of nationalities and personalities.

Alfred is currently shooting as a lead in the Duffer Brothers’ upcoming series THE BOROUGHS for Netflix. Alfred starred as the leading role ‘Chief Inspector Armand Gamache’ in THREE PINES, a Canadian mystery streaming television series for Amazon Prime Video, produced by Left Bank Pictures who had optioned the novel series STILL LIFE by Louise Penny. Alfred was recently seen reprising his role as ‘Dr. Otto Octavius’ in SPIDERMAN: NO WAY HOME, starring alongside Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Marisa Tomei. 

Recently, Molina completed a run of “Inherit the Wind” at the historic Pasadena Playhouse and played Serebryakov in “Uncle Vanya” at the Vivian Beaumont Theater on Broadway. Some of Alfred’s most unforgettable performances include portraying hedonistic Mexican muralist Diego Rivera in the rave reviewed multi-award nominated film “Frida” (2002) opposite Salma Hayek and directed by Julie Taymor (SAG Awards nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role), Jewish milkman Teyve in the 2004 Broadway revival of the musical “Fiddler on the Roof” (Tony nominated for Best Actor), deranged drug dealer Rahad Jackson in the critically acclaimed film “Boogie Nights” (1997) for director Paul Thomas Anderson and comic book villain Doc Ock in the blockbuster hit sequel “Spider-Man 2” (2004) opposite Tobey Maguire for director Sam Raimi.

PERFORMER, Vivian

Marin Ireland’s Broadway credits: Reasons to be Pretty (Theatre World Award, Tony nom), The Big Knife, After Miss Julie. Selected Off-Broadway: Spain (2nd Stage), Uncle Vanya (OHenry Productions, Callaway Award, Drama Deak nom), Blue Ridge (Atlantic), Morning Sun (MTC), Summer and Smoke (Transport Group/CSC), Ironbound (Rattlestick, Drama Desk nom), Three Sisters (CSC), Cyclone (Studio Dante, Obie Award), Blasted, Marie Antoinette (Soho Rep), In the Wake (The Public Theater), 4.48 Psychosis (Royal Court tour). TV/film includes “Materialists,” “Dope Thief,” “Justified: City Primeval,” “Eileen” (Independent Spirit Award nom), “The Umbrella Academy,” “Y: The Last Man,” “Sneaky Pete,” “Girls,” “Homeland,” “Glass Chin” (Independent Spirit Award nom), “Birth/Rebirth,” “The Boogeyman,” “The Dark and The Wicked,” “The Irishman,” and “Hell or High Water”. Upcoming TV: “Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy”, “His & Hers”.

PERFORMER, Young Vivian

Delilah Napier’s Theater Credite: A Mother (Baryshnikov Arts Center) Our Class (BAM Fisher & Classic Stage Company), The Merchant Of Venice (Classic Stage Company), The Member of the Wedding (Williamstown Theatre Festival), Taming of the Shrew (Powerhouse/NYSAF) TV: Criminal Minds, Billions, The Sinner, Gossip Girl. Indie Film: Floating Carousel (premiered Woodstock Film Festival 2025)  Voyeur -  starred, co-writer/ director - winner “Best Actor” Yale in Hollywood Film Festival, “Best US Feature Film” at the SoHo Int. Film Festival, and other awards. (Now streaming on Amazon Prime.) Currently in development with writing partner, Lucy Powers, on a new screenplay with production company, Star Thrower.

SPECIAL PERFORMER

MUSICAL GUEST