Peas in a Pod

Mia Dillon is a Tony-nominated stage actress whose Broadway credits include Our Town, The Miser, The Corn Is Green, Hay Fever, Agnes of God, Crimes of the Heart, and Da. She has worked extensively off-Broadway and regionally from San Diego to Dublin, and her work has been honored with the Connecticut Critics Circle Award, a Drama Desk nomination, the Clarence Derwent Award, and a Dramalogue Award, among others. Her film and television appearances include all three Law & Orders, Brain Dead, The Jury, Mary, Rhoda, Gods and Generals, The Money Pit, Ordinary World, All Good Things, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, and Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.

Philip Graham is the author of two story collections, The Art of the Knock and Interior Design; a novel, How to Read an Unwritten Language; and The Moon, Come to Earth, an expanded version of his series of McSweeney's dispatches from Lisbon. He is also the co-author, with his wife, anthropologist Alma Gottlieb, of two memoirs of Africa, Parallel Worlds, which was awarded the Victor Turner Prize, and Braided Worlds. Graham's fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, the Washington Post Magazine, North American Review, Fiction, Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere, and his non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Poets & Writers Magazine, the Washington Post, and Brevity. The recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, two Illinois Arts Council awards, and the William Peden Prize in Fiction, Graham is a Professor Emeritus of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is a founding editor and the current Editor-at Large of the literary/arts journal Ninth Letter.

Dorothy Parker (1893 – 1967) sold her first poem to Vanity Fair in 1914 and began working as an editor at Vogue in 1916. She eventually became the theater critic at Vanity Fair, where she met the writers with whom she would form the Algonquin Round Table. Her first book of poems, Enough Rope, was published in 1926 and was a bestseller. She was on the founding editorial board of The New Yorker for its 1925 debut and she wrote for the magazine until 1957. She is the author of several other collections of poems and stories, including Sunset Gun, Death and Taxes, and Laments for the Living.

Maulik Pancholy is an award-winning actor, author, and activist. He is best known for his comedic turns on television playing Jonathan on the Emmy, Golden Globe, and SAG award–winning NBC comedy 30 Rock. He played Sanjay on Showtime’s hit series Weeds, and starred as Neal on the NBC comedy Whitney. He is the voice of Baljeet on Disney’s Emmy Award–winning Phineas and Ferb and the title voice of Sanjay on Nickelodeon’s Sanjay and Craig. For his work on television, he has been nominated for and won the Screen Actors Guild award on multiple occasions. On Broadway, Pancholy has starred in Grand Horizons and It’s Only A Play. Pancholy’s debut novel, The Best at It, was named a 2020 Stonewall Honor Book, a 2019 Junior Library Guild Selection, and a Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Books. His second novel, Nikhil Out Loud, was named a 2023 Lambda Literary Award Winner and a Kirkus Best Book of 2022. Pancholy is currently creating, executive producing, and writing a fiction, scripted podcast for Broadway Video, and his third novel, Will They, Won't They, is slated for a Summer 2026 release. A longtime advocate for the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) and LGBTQIA+ communities, Pancholy was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the President’s Advisory Commission on AAPIs. He is also a co-founder of the AAPI anti-bullying nonprofit ActToChange.org, which envisions a world where all young people can celebrate their identities.

Touré is a journalist and writer whose works include The Portable Promised Land, Soul City, Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness?: What It Means to be Black Now, which was named a New York Times and Washington Post Notable Book, and I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon. From 2007 – 2015, he served on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominating Committee. Touré has worked as a co-host on MSNBC’s The Cycle and contributor to The Daily Beast and on The Dylan Ratigan Show. He is the host of the popular podcast Touré Show.

Michael Tucker is best known for his role as Stuart Markowitz in L.A. Law, for which he received three Emmy nominations and two Golden Globe nominations. He has appeared on and off-Broadway and at most of the non-profit theaters in New York. His film credits include Woody Allen’s Radio Days and The Purple Rose of Cairo, and Barry Levinson’s Diner and Tin Men. Tucker wrote and starred in the play The M Spot, which was produced at the New Jersey Repertory Company. The NJ Rep also produced his play Fern Hill, which moved to 59E59 the following year. He is the author of four books: I Never Forget a Meal, Living in a Foreign Language, Family Meals, and the novel After Annie. Onstage, Tucker appeared with his wife, Jill Eikenberry, in Evening at the Talk House by Wallace Shawn. They also produced the PBS documentary Emile Norman:By His Own Design. His latest play, A Tailor Near Me, was produced at New Jersey Rep in 2023.

Rita Wolf has been featured in Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance with the Transport Group and Out of Time at The Public Theater, both co-productions with The National Asian American Theatre Company; and The Michaels and What Happened? The Michaels Abroad, written and directed by Richard Nelson, at The Public Theater and Hunter College. Additional theater credits include An Ordinary Muslim at New York Theatre Workshop, The American Pilot at Manhattan Theatre Club, for which she was nominated for a Drama Desk Award, and the premiere of Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul at New York Theatre Workshop and BAM. Last spring, Wolf was a Beinecke Fellow at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University while appearing in Caryl Churchill's play Escaped Alone.

Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times bestselling author of The Female Persuasion, The Interestings, The Ten-Year Nap, The Position, and The Wife. She is a faculty member in the Creative Writing and Literature Program at The Lichtenstein Center at Stony Brook University, where she co-founded and co-directs BookEnds, a one-year, non-credit intensive for emerging novelists. Wolitzer, who was the guest editor of The Best American Short Stories 2017, is the radio and podcast host of Symphony Space’s Selected Shorts.

CREDITS

“Mrs. Carrington and Mrs. Crane,” by Dorothy Parker, from The New Yorker (July 15, 1933). Copyright © 1933 by Dorothy Parker. The producers wish to thank the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for authorizing this use of Dorothy Parker's work.

“The Breakup Ceremony” by Touré, from The Portable Promised Land (Little, Brown, 2002). Copyright © 2002 by Touré. Used by permission of the author.

“Twins,” by Philip Graham, from The Art of the Knock (William Morrow & Co., 1984). First published in The Washington Post Magazine (August 5, 1984). Copyright © 1984 by Philip Graham. Used by permission of the author.