Gillian Eaton was born in Wales and is an award-winning actress, writer and director with credits on both sides of the Atlantic. Her previous theatre work includes London’s West End, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Mark Taper Forum and Ahmanson Theatres in Los Angeles and many regional theatres. She has appeared in numerous stage plays, TV shows and films in the US and the UK and has written for the cinema and the stage. Gillian was vice-president of arts and humanities for the Detroit YMCA group, has also been the guest theatre artist for numerous Michigan organizations including the Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP), Flint Youth Theatre, the Detroit Zoo, EMU and the Detroit Historical Museum. She taught in the School of Music Theatre and Dance at the University of Michigan for 10 years.

Andy Kirshner uses film, theatre, music, and scholarship to explore complex social, political, and historical questions. A composer, writer, director, singer, and actor, his interdisciplinary body of work ranges from film, to opera, to experimental music-theatre, to performance art. Andy’s unique, hybrid creations have been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Michigan Council on the Arts and Cultural Affairs, and the U.S. Department of Education. His recently completed docu-fiction film, 10 Questions for Henry Ford, premiered at the Ojai Film Festival in November, 2021. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan, the first faculty member ever to be jointly appointed by the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, and the Stamps School of Art and Design.

The late JAMES LEAF, a New York director, actor, and writer, graduated from Harvard College. He founded New Haven’s Young Mechanics Theatre Ensemble, dedicated to bringing politically relevant theatre to a small, stratified city; there he directed productions by Samuel Beckett, Edward Albee, and Clifford Odets alongside new work by local playwrights. He staged the world-premiere of COCKPIT (formerly The Specials) by Steve Bellwood, acted at Long Wharf Theatre, and directed Wedding of the Waters and Albright at Buffalo’s Albright-Knox. He guest lectured for five years at Barnard College and taught theatre at University of Michigan, Amherst, Harvard, and Elm Shakespeare.

James Leaf Information: https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mqr/author/james-leaf/

Elizabeth Goodenough, Lecturer IV, received a MAT and PhD from Harvard University and has taught at Harvard, Claremont McKenna, Sarah Lawrence College, and the University of Michigan’s Residential College, School of Education, and School of Information. Her edited volumes include Infant Tongues: The Voice of the Child in Literature (1994), The Lion & the Unicorn on Children's Literature and Violence (2000), Secret Spaces of Childhood (2003) and Under Fire: Childhood in the Shadow of War (2008). For the award-winning PBS documentary, Where Do the Children Play? she produced A Study Guide to the Film (2007) and A Place for Play (2008).