HERSHEY FELDER (Frédéric Chopin/Playwright) Broadway, London’s West End: George Gershwin Alone (Helen Hayes Theatre, Duchess Theatre); Regional and international appearances include Monsieur Chopin, world premiere at Chicago’s Royal George Theatre; George Gershwin Alone 2004-2005 Chicago; 1999-2004 at Ford’s Theatre, Washington, DC; The American Repertory Theatre, Cambridge, MA; Hartford Stage; as well as Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Florida, etc. Varied stage, film and television roles as well as writing and composing include: Fairytale, an operatic musical, NY 1995; Noah’s Ark, an opera, Los Angeles 1997, Toronto 2001; Back from Broadway, Los Angeles, Florida, New York, Boston, 2001-2002; Aliyah, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra,  (Canada) 2000, Hollywood Sweet for Piano and Orchestra, 2004. Recordings include Love Songs of the Yiddish Theatre, Back from Broadway, and George Gershwin Alone and Monsieur Chopin for the WFMT Radio Network Recordings label. Felder has been featured in network television specials and has appeared in concert in Europe, the U.K., the United States, and Canada.  President of Eighty-Eight Entertainment, current projects include the completion of the “Composer Trilogy” with Beethoven, as well as a new musical currently in development. Mr. Felder is on the Board of Directors of Chicago College of Performing Arts, and the Board of Directors of America’s historic Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC. He has also been a Scholar in Residence at Harvard University’s Department of Music, and he is married to Kim Campbell, former Prime Minister of Canada.

JOEL ZWICK (Director, George Gershwin Alone and Monsieur Chopin) Joel Zwick directed My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the highest-grossing romantic comedy of all time, produced by Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson and Gary Goetzman. Recent films include Fat Albert (with Bill Cosby) and Elvis Has Left the Building, starring John Corbett and Kim Basinger. Mr. Zwick directed the Broadway production of George Gershwin Alone at the Helen Hayes Theatre, as well as all other productions. Mr. Zwick began his theatrical career at La Mama E.T.C., as director of the La Mama Plexus. He has directed on Broadway, off-Broadway and Broadway touring companies. Currently, Mr. Zwick is recognized as Hollywood’s most prolific director of episodic television, having the direction of five hundred and twenty-five episodes to his credit. These include having directed twenty-one pilots, which have gone on to become regular series. Television shows include: Laverne & Shirley, Mork & Mindy, Bosom Buddies, Webster, Perfect Strangers, Full House, Step By Step, Family Matters, It’s a Living, Bros. Wayans, Joanie Loves Chachi, Jamie Fox, Kirk, Parent’ Hood, Angie, On Our Own, Two Of A Kind, Love Boat, and Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper, among others. Previous New York productions have included Dance With Me (Tony nomination), Shenandoah (Broadway national tour), Oklahoma(national tour) and Cold Storage (American Place Theater). Mr. Zwick acted in the original New York production of MacBird. He directed Esther (Promenade Theater, NY), Merry-Go-Round (Chicago and Las Vegas), Last Chance Saloon and Woycek (West End, London). Mr. Zwick has taught drama at Yale University, Brooklyn College, Queens College, Wheaton College, and the University of Southern California. He is a graduate (B.A., M.A.) of Brooklyn College.

YAEL PARDESS (Scenic Designer) first collaborated with Hershey Felder on George Gershwin Alone in Los Angeles, followed by productions on Broadway, London, and throughout the U.S. Prior projects with Mr. Felder include Romantique, Sing, and Back from Broadway. Her work has been seen on Broadway and many major regional theatres including the Mark Taper Forum, the Guthrie Theater, American Conservatory Theater, American Repertory Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Hartford Stage. Ms. Pardess began her theatre career designing sets and costumes in Israel. Since moving to the United States eighteen years ago, she has designed more than 150 sets, many of which were award winners such as: Blade to the Heat, Scenes from an Execution, Richard II, Much Ado About Nothing, Burn This, Stand-Up Tragedy, The Cherry Orchard and Death and the Maiden, to name a few. She has collaborated with leading directors such as Joel Zwick, Tom Moore, Assad Kelada, David Lee, Kristofer Tabori, Robert Egan, Jo Bonney, Peggy Shannon, Seret Scott and Ron Link. In addition, Ms. Pardess is art directing for commercials and multimedia venues. While working at a Los Angeles-based design company, she art directed theatre shows with multiple stages and sets, multimedia and special effects for “Movie Magic” (in collaboration with Steven Spielberg), for Universal Studios in Japan; The Star of Destiny, at the Bob Bullock History Museum in Austin, Texas (Theo Award-winning production); Lincoln Eyes, which is on display at Springfield Lincoln Library, IL. Ms. Pardess currently works as a visual director for Disney Entertainment.

RICHARD NORWOOD (Lighting Designer) )is the resident designer for Trapdoor Theatre and Zephyr Dance. He was a founding member of The Defiant Theatre and designed over twenty shows for them including A Clockwork Orange, Titus Andronicus, Dope!, Cleansed, Godbaby, Action Movie: The Play and Red Dragon. Mr. Norwood has designed over 50 shows for Trapdoor Theatre, including The Fourth Sister, Old Clown Wanted, Amerikafka, Katzelmacher, Quills, Lebensraum, Polaroid Stories and Squat! His latest designs include Tartuffe and Power for Remy Bumppo. Mr. Norwood holds the position of Lighting Supervisor at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Performances Programs.

JOHN BOESCHE (Projection Designer) has designed scenery and projections for several theatres in Chicago, including Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Goodman Theatre, Lookingglass Theatre Company, Marriott Lincolnshire Theatre and Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Broadway credits include The Glass Menagerie at Roundabout Theatre,. Regionally, his work has been seen at Arizona Theatre Company, Asolo Theatre, Denver Center Theatre Company, McCarter Theatre Center, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, New York Shakespeare Festival, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Shakespeare at the Folger, South Coast Repertory and Theatre on the Square, among others. Mr. Boesche received a Joseph Jefferson Special Award for projection design in 2005. Projection design accompanying the performance of music includes The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Eos Orchestra and The Ravinia Festival Chicago. His designs for opera have been seen at Austin Lyric Opera, Barbican Theatre Centre, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Canadian Opera Company, Dallas Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Opera Lyon, Opera Pacifica, Portland Opera, Salt Lake Opera, San Francisco Opera, Theatre de la Monnaie, Washington Opera and Vancouver Opera, among others. In addition to his work in theater, Mr. Boesche designs media for his own gallery installations, history museums, and outdoor events.

BOGUSLAW (Original Costume Design) Polish-born Boguslaw Sankowski is known to Chicagoans for his expertise with a needle and for dressing in black leather. From his origins as a fashion designer to difficult restorations of historic clothing, he excels at projects involving leather, cashmere, or double-faced fabrics. Boguslaw’s atelier is located on Chicago’s fashionable Oak Street, and he continues to cater to the very best of Chicago’s fashion clientele.

JEFFREY KALLBERG, Ph.D. (Musical History Production Consultant)is a specialist in music of the 19th and 20th centuries, editorial theory, critical theory, and gender studies. Dr. Kallberg has published widely on the music and cultural contexts of Chopin, most notably in his book, Chopin at the Boundaries: Sex, History, and Musical Genre. His critical edition of Luisa Miller, for The Works of Giuseppe Verdi, has been performed throughout the U.S. and internationally. His current projects include a book on Chopin and the culture of the nocturne, an examination of the convergences of sex and music around 1800, and a study of Scandinavian song in the first half of the twentieth century. Dr. Kallberg was elected Vice President of the American Musicological Society for the term 2004-2006. He served as Review Editor of the Journal of American Musicological Society and is presently general editor of New Perspectives in Music History and Criticism (Cambridge University Press). He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He has also twice been guest of honor at the International Fryderyk Chopin Competition in Warsaw, Poland.

EIGHTY-EIGHT ENTERTAINMENT, LLC (Producer) Eighty-Eight Entertainment was created in 2001 by Hershey Felder, and is devoted to the creation of new works of music theatre. Eighty-Eight’s projects include the “Composer Trilogy” featuring the lives and work of George Gershwin: George Gershwin Alone, Frédéric Chopin: Monsieur Chopin, and Ludwig Van Beethoven: Beethoven, As I Knew Him. Other projects include artist promotion, as well as musical and film works in development. All members of Eighty-Eight LLC productions are creative artists in their own right, and all members are requested to advise and contribute on all aspects of production.