Michelle Beck is an actor, filmmaker, and teaching artist based in Brooklyn, New York. As an actor, she has had recurring roles on Starz’s Power Book II: Ghost and Marvel’s Luke Cage, as well as appearances in The Good Fight, Fleishman Is in Trouble, Manifest, Homeland, Claws, Madam Secretary, Ovum, Ambition’s Debt, Death of a Prince, and Spinning Into Butter. She has worked on Broadway in A Raisin in the Sun, and her extensive New York and regional theater credits include Hurricane Diane with the New York Theatre Workshop, Richard III and Love’s Labour’s Lost at the Public Theater, A Kid Like Jake with LCT3, Richard and Jane and Dick and Sally with Playwright’s Realm and Baltimore Center Stage, As You Like It and The Tempest at BAM and the Old Vic, Much Ado About Nothing with Theatre for a New Audience, Measure for Measure with Epic Theatre Ensemble, and The Changeling with Red Bull. As a filmmaker, her short film, The Snakes, is currently screening on HBO and HBOMax. As a teaching artist, Beck is the Director of Film at Epic Theatre Ensemble, where students from Title 1 schools generate original theater and film pieces focused on social justice issues.

Ophira Eisenberg is a standup comedian, writer, and the host of the new comedy podcast Parenting Is a Joke with iHeart Radio and Pretty Good Friends. She also hosted NPR’s Ask Me Another, where she interviewed hundreds of celebrities, including Sir Patrick Stewart, Rosie Perez, Yo-Yo Ma, Awkwafina, Roxane Gay, Nick Kroll, Chelsea Handler, and more. She’s appeared multiple times on CBS’s The Late Late Show, Comedy Central, is a regular host and teller on The Moth Radio Hour, and her stories are included in three of The Moth’s best-selling collections, including the most recent: How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The Moth. Her memoir, Screw Everyone: Sleeping My Way to Monogamy, was optioned for a television series, and her new comedy special, Plant-Based Jokes, is streaming on YouTube.

Daniel Gerroll was born in London and studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama. He appeared in Once a Catholic in the West End in 1976. From there, he went on to star in numerous films, television shows, and live productions. His film credits include Chariots of Fire, Big Business, The Namesake, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and Still Alice. On television, Gerroll has had recurring roles on Sisters, Cashmere Mafia, The Starter Wife, Ugly Betty, Madoff, and can be seen currently on Partner Track. His theater work has earned him the Theatre World Award for The Slab Boys and Knuckle, the Outer Critics Circle Award for Translations, and the Village Voice's Obie Award for Sustained Excellence of Performance. His Broadway credits include Plenty, The Homecoming, Enchanted April, and High Society.

Patricia Kalember’s stage credits include The White Card, The Nerd, Losing Louie, Y2k, Don’t Dress for Dinner, Sea of Tranquility, Loose Knit, and From Above. She played the role of Gloria Steinem in Gloria: A Life in New York and Boston. She received an Outer Critics Circle nomination for her role in the original cast of The Foreigner. On television, she's had recurring roles on The Tick, Power, thirtysomething, and starred in Sisters. Other television credits include Law & Order: SVU, Power, Orange Is the New Black, Gossip Girl, Blue Bloods, Allegiance, Madam Secretary, Veep, The Good Wife, and the HBO miniseries Olive Kitteridge. Her numerous films include Jacob’s Ladder, Path to War, A Far Off Place, Signs, Rabbit Hole, The Company Men, Limitless, Girl Most Likely, and Run All Night. She can currently be seen in Power Book IV: Force.

Jack Handey is an American humorist best known for “Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey.” He was a longtime writer on the comedy show Saturday Night Live, where he penned such sketches as “Toonces, the Cat Who Could Drive a Car,” “Happy Fun Ball,” and “Unfrozen Cave Man Lawyer.” His humor pieces have appeared in The New Yorker, Outside, Playboy, Punch, and elsewhere. He is the author of several humor books, including the comic novel The Stench of Honolulu: A Tropical Adventure.

Dame Penelope Lively is a novelist, short story writer, and author of children’s books. Her novels have won several literary awards, including the Booker Prize for Moon Tiger in 1987. The Road to Lichfield and According to Mark were also shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Her children’s book, The Ghost of Thomas Kempe, was awarded the Carnegie Medal, and A Stitch in Time won a Whitbread Award. Family Album was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2010. “The Third Wife” is a story taken from The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories. The collection was published by Viking (US) and Fig Tree (UK) in 2016. Dame Penelope’s most recent short story collection, Metamorphosis, was published in 2021. She was awarded the OBE in 1989, the CBE in 2001 and the DBE in 2012.

Deesha Philyaw’s debut collection of short stories, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award, a winner of The Story Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Philyaw is also the co-author of Co-Parenting 101: Helping Your Kids Thrive in Two Households After Divorce, written in collaboration with her ex-husband. She is a Kimbilio Fiction Fellow and the 2022-2023 John and Renée Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi. In 2021, it was announced that The Secret Lives of Church Ladies would be adapted for television by HBO Max, with Philyaw as an executive producer alongside Tessa Thompson.

Simon Rich is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker. He has written for Saturday Night Live, Pixar, and The Simpsons and is the creator of the TV shows Man Seeking Woman and Miracle Workers, which he based on his books. His other collections include Ant Farm, Spoiled Brats, New Teeth, and Hits and Misses, which won the Thurber Prize for American Humor.