About the Artists

CLIFFORD ODETS (playwright) was born to a working-class family in 1906. Raised in the Bronx, New York, Odets left school at the age of fourteen and pursued an artistic career, much to the chagrin of his father who wanted his son to continue in the family printing business. Young Odets worked as an actor and writer in vaudeville, radio and stage. With the Group Theatre, a socialist and leftist ensemble of artists, Odets first achieved fame as a playwright with his 1935 short play, Waiting for Lefty. Arguably based on the forty-day Taxi strike of 40,000 employees, Waiting for Lefty was bold in its simplicity – it was banned in seven cities and circulated under the radar in the Communist party, of which Odets had been a member. He continued writing until his death with varying success for New York and Hollywood with plays like Awake and Sing, Till the Day I Die, Paradise Lost, and the screenplay The General Died at Dawn. Odets’ plays are notable for their Depression-era, working-class characters in search of a dream, working to fight against the oppressive injustices existing in their world. His characters are raw and strong, and his language, theatrically biting.  Odets stated that his plays are concerned with “the struggle not to have life nullified by circumstances, false values, anything.” In his own way, as a proletariat playwright, he was looking to inspire hope in a desperate time.

KIMBERLY SENIOR (director) is a Chicago-based director. Recent directing credits include The Busy World is Hushed, J.T. Rogers’ The Overwhelming and Madagascar at Next Theatre Company; The North Plan at Steppenwolf Theatre Company; Thieves Like Us at The House Theatre of Chicago; Mauritius at TheaterSquared (Fayetteville, Arkansas); Uncle Vanya, Cherry Orchard, and Three Sisters at Strawdog Theatre Company; The Pillowman at RedTwist Theatre; and All My Sons at TimeLine Theatre Company. Ms. Senior is the founder of Collaboraction, where she has directed and/or produced more than 30 plays, including the company’s lauded Sketchbook festival for seven years. She is adjunct faculty member at DePaul University, Columbia College Chicago, and the University of Chicago, and serves as an artistic associate with Strawdog Theatre Company, Next Theatre Company, and Chicago Dramatists. Ms. Senior is the recipient of the 2010 Excellence in Teaching Award.

MARTY HIGGINBOTHAM (director) joined the American Blues family in 1991, appearing in Desire Under the Elms, monsters, On the Waterfront, Tom and Jerry, The Homage that Follows, Stalag 17, Bus Stop, The Three Penny Opera, Working, The Trip to Bountiful, American Dead, and Oklahoma.  His sound design / original score credits with ABT include Monsters, Monsters II, and Monsters III, Food from Trash, The Homage That Follows, The Million Bells of Ocean and A Lie of the Mind.  Marty has also worked on and off stage at The Old Globe, The Prince Music Theatre, The Goodman, Northlight, Oak Park Festival Theater, Circle Theatre, and the Organic. Marty directed the original full production of It’s a Wonderful: A Live Radio Play in 2004 and continued to helm the production up to 2008, moving with the ensemble in 2009 to the Biograph.  Marty is also Founder and President of The Stage Channel, a video production company serving the Arts in Chicago and across the country since 2001. The Stage Channel, to date, has produced over 900 promotional videos for music, theater and dance.

JAMES STILL (playwright) His award-winning plays have been produced at theaters throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, and Australia. He is the playwright-in-residence at the Indiana Repertory Theatre, an elected member of the National Theatre Conference, and a Fellow in the College of Fellows of the American Theatre. He is also a winner of the William Inge Festival’s Otis Gurnsey New Voices in American Theatre award, the Medallion for Sustained Achievement from the Children’s Theatre Foundation of America, and the Charlotte B. Chorpenning Playwright Award for Distinguished Body of Work. Three of Still’s plays have received the Distinguished Play Award from the American Alliance for Theatre and Education, and his work has twice been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. His plays have been developed and workshopped at Sundance, the New Harmony Project, the O’Neill, The Lark, and the Telluride Playwright’s Festival. Still’s plays include The Heavens are Hung in Black, Iron Kisses, The Velvet Rut, A Long Bridge Over Deep Waters, Looking Over the President’s Shoulder, Searching for Eden: the diaries of adam and eve, He Held Me Grand, And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank, A Village Fable, Hush: An Interview With America, and The Velocity of Gary (Not His Real Name). New plays include Illegal Use of Hands, The House That Jack Built, and The Mary Todd Lincoln Project. In addition to his work in the theater, Still also works in television and film and has been nominated for five Emmys, twice a finalist for the Humanitas Prize and a Television Critics Association Award. Still grew up in a small town in Kansas and lives in Los Angeles.  After attending the University of Kansas, he began his theater career in Chicago.