I Did It My Way

Joan Crawford (1904 - 1977) was a renowned leading lady during Hollywood’s Golden Age, best known for her roles in Mildred Pierce, for which she won an Academy Award, Possessed, Dancing Lady, The Women, Sudden Fear, and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, among dozens of credits over her five-decade career. Her autobiography, A Portrait of Joan, was published in 1962, followed by the memoir My Way of Life, published in 1971.

Will Eno made his Broadway debut with his critically acclaimed play The Realistic Joneses. His additional plays include The Open House; Title and Deed; The Flu Season; Middletown; Thom Pain (based on nothing), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama, Gnit; Wakey, Wakey; Life Is a Radio Play in the Dark, which was broadcast on BBC Radio this November. His plays have appeared in Harper's, The Antioch Review, The Quarterly, and Best Ten-Minute Plays for Two Actors.

Cole Escola is a comedian, actor, writer, and cabaret performer, best known for his original comedy shorts. His notable theater appearances include Rock Bottom and Help! I’m Stuck at Joe’s Pub. He is the co-creator of the Jeffrey & Cole Casserole sketch comedy series. Escola has been featured on television in Man Seeking Woman, Girlboss, Difficult People, At Home with Amy Sedaris, Nurse Jackie, Mozart in the Jungle, and The Characters. His solo sketch shows have had sold-out runs at Joe's Pub and have garnered praise from the likes of The New York Times, Vice News, and PAPER Magazine. Escola has been named one of Time Out New York's Top Ten Downtown Cabaret Performers.

Bebe Neuwirth has been dancing and singing and working in theater, television, and film for the last 40 years. Some of her credits are Broadway: A Chorus Line, Little Me, Dancin’, Sweet Charity (Tony Award), Damn Yankees, Addams Family, Chicago (Tony, Drama Desk, Astaire Award, etc.), and Fosse. Off-Broadway: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Here Lies Jenny, and more. Regional: West Side Story and The Taming of the Shrew, among others. London’s West End: Kiss of the Spiderwoman. Television: Cheers (2 Emmy Awards), Frasier, Blue Bloods, Bored to Death, etc. Film: Green Card, Liberty Heights, Summer of Sam, Jumanji: The Next Level, etc. Albums: Porcelain and Stories in NYC (live at 54Below). Honors and awards: Career Transition for Dancers Rolex Dance Award, Dance Magazine Award, Honorary doctorate from Manhattan School of Music, Honorary Ziegfeld Girl, Honorary member of Local 1 (Stagehands’ Union). Current and upcoming projects include the Audible adaptation of Neil Gaimin’s series The Sandman, Broadway on Demand’s A Marvelous Party, and the film Modern Persuasion.

Elizabeth Olmstead wrote "I Am Narcissus" for The New Yorker in 1942. The Literary Staff at Symphony Space was unable to find additional information on this author.

Karen Pittman is an accomplished actress in American theater, television, and cinema. She has originated many theater roles, including Jory in Ayad Akhtar’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Tony-nominated play, Disgraced, of which she received the 2015 Theatre World Award. Her most recent cinematic release, the award-winning Pipeline, was adapted from a play in which she starred in at Lincoln Center; she was nominated for both an Outstanding Lead Actress’ Lucille Lortel Award and Broadway League’s Distinguished Performance Award. She originated the role of Charlotte in Claudia Rankine’s The White Card in its debut production in collaboration with ArtsEmerson and American Repertory Theatre, at The Paramount Theatre. She has worked in numerous Broadway and off-Broadway plays in New York City, and in regional theatres across the country. Pittman is best known for her role as Mia Jordan on Apple TV’s Golden Globe-nominated show The Morning Show, for her role as Lisa on FX’s award-winning series The Americans, and as Priscilla Ridley on Marvel’s Luke Cage on Netflix. She has starred in numerous television shows, including The Blacklist, Girlfriends Guide, Horace and Pete, Madam Secretary, Blindspot, Elementary, House of Cards, Law & Order, and more. She has also starred in the films Detroit, Custody, The Rewrite, and Begin Again. In the Summer of 2019, she recurred in AMC’s NOS4A2 with Zachary Quinto and starred alongside Paul Rudd in the Netflix television series Living with Yourself. In 2020, she appeared on the final season of Showtime’s Homeland, and portrays Willa Hays on Paramount TV’s most watched television series, Yellowstone.

Zadie Smith’s first novel, White Teeth, was the winner of The Whitbread First Novel Award, The Guardian First Book Award, The James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction, and The Commonwealth Writers’ First Book Award. Her second, The Autograph Man, won The Jewish Quarterly Wingate Literary Prize. Smith’s third novel, On Beauty, won the Orange Prize for Fiction, A Commonwealth Writers’ Best Book Award and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Her fourth novel, NW, was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her most recent novel, Swing Time, was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and longlisted for the Man Booker 2017. Her first essay collection, Changing My Mind, was published in 2009 and her second, Feel Free, in 2018. Smith is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has twice been listed as one of Granta’s 20 Best Young British Novelists. She writes regularly for The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books and is a tenured professor of creative writing at New York University. Her latest collection of essays, Intimations, was published in July 2020.

Kirsten Vangsness is best known as Penelope Garcia on the CBS drama Criminal Minds; however, she can be found in other places, including a few podcasts (Selected Shorts and Voyage to the Stars), the film noir spoof Kill Me Deadly, and Curtains, the animated short she created, which was released in 2020. She was nominated for Playwright of the Year by LA Weekly and is a company member of Hollywood's Theater of NOTE. Vangsness recently returned from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where two of her plays, Mess and Cleo, Theo and Wu, were performed at Assembly Rooms. In her spare time, Vangsness buses tables at the Blinking Owl Distillery, which she co-owns, in Santa Ana.