Frank D. Gilroy (Playwright) was born on October 13, 1925 in New York City, the son of Bettina (née Vasti) and Frank B. Gilroy, a coffee broker. His father was Irish-American and his mother was of Italian and German descent. Gilroy lived in the Bronx for most of his childhood and attended DeWitt Clinton High School. He then enlisted in the army after graduation. He served two and a half years in the 89th Division of which eighteen months were in the European Theatre. After the war, he attended Dartmouth College and received his B.A. with magna cum laude. Later in 1966, he would receive an honorary Doctor of Letters. He also received a grant from Dartmouth that allowed him to attend the Yale School of Drama.
Gilroy wrote in the Golden Age of Television for such shows as Playhouse 90, Westinghouse Studio One, The United States Steel Hour, Omnibus, Kraft Television Theatre, and Lux Video Theatre. His entrance to theatre was marked with his 1962 play Who’ll Save the Plowboy? at the Phoenix Theatre in New York which won the OBIE Award. May of 1964 saw the opening of The Subject Was Roses, which has been compared to Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night. That Summer, That Fall (1967) is a version of the Hippolytus-Phaedra story. Gilroy’s works include screenplays for the films Desperate Characters (starring Shirley MacLaine) and The Gallant Hours (starring James Cagney). He has also adapted his own plays for film, including The Subject Was Roses (starring Patricia Neal, Martin Sheen and Jack Albertson) and The Only Game in Town (starring Elizabeth Taylor and Warren Beatty). His 1985 screenplay for The Gig (starring Cleavon Little and Wayne Rogers) has been adapted as a musical, with book, music, and lyrics by Douglas J. Cohen. A 2006 off-Broadway presentation and recording by the York Theatre Company starred Karen Ziemba, Stephen Berger, Michele Pawk, and Michael McCormick. Gilroy has also written fiction, including the novel From Noon Till Three, which was adapted into a film starring Charles Bronson. In addition to writing the screenplay, Gilroy also directed the film. Gilroy also contributed to several TV westerns in the late 1950s, including Have Gun - Will Travel and Wanted: Dead or Alive. His later credits include a 1977 adaptation of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novel The Doorbell Rang as a television movie featuring Thayer David.

Michael Mastro (Director) Michael is honored to be directing for the first time at GSP, where as an actor he has had the great pleasure of appearing in such plays as The Sunshine Boys, The Pillowman and Inspecting Carol. In 2010, Michael helmed a NYC benefit production of the comedy Hate Mail, starring Cynthia Nixon and John Slattery, and he assisted David Saint in the mounting of the first national tour of West Side Story. Past directorial assignments include Love Letters, starring Bernadette Peters and John Dossett, as well as many one-acts by such playwrights as Warren Leight, Geoffrey Nauffts, Dena Douglas, Jeanne Dorsey and Sally Nemith at several NYC theatre companies including Naked Angels, of which he is a member. He has appeared on Broadway in: West Side Story, Twelve Angry Men, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Ashley Judd/Jason Patric), Mamma Mia!, Judgment at Nuremberg, Side Man, Barrymore (with Christopher Plummer) and Love! Valour! Compassion! Off-Broadway: The Water Children (Playwrights Horizons) and Escape from Happiness (Naked Angels). Regional: Paper Mill, Old Globe, Coconut Grove, Williamstown and Penguin Rep. Film: Kissing Jessica Stein, The Night We Never Met, Jungle 2 Jungle, Borough of Kings. TV: Alias, Hack, Deadline, Cosby, lots of Law and Order.

Michael Schweikardt (Scenic Design) designed the world premiere of the new Duncan Sheik/Kyle Jarrow musical Whisper House at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre. He has created sets for several musicals by Joe Iconis, including Bloodsong Of Love at Ars Nova, ReWrite at Urban Stages, The Black Suits at The Public Theater, The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks for TheatreworksUSA and Things To Ruin at both The Zipper Factory and Second Stage Theatre. Recent credits include Jeffrey Hatcher’s Ella, appearing in cities all across the country; the critically acclaimed productions of Annie Get Your Gun, 1776, Big River and Camelot for Goodspeed Musicals; Barnum for Asolo Repertory Theatre’s 50th anniversary season; Oklahoma! starring Kelli O’Hara and Will Chase celebrating the Oklahoma State Centennial; the American premieres of Frank McGuinness’ Gates of Gold and The Bird Sanctuary and national and international tours of James Taylor’s One Man Band. Mr. Schweikardt’s online portfolio can be seen at www.msportfolio.com.

Esther Arroyo (Costume Design) is delighted to be designing for George Street Playhouse once again. Her mainstage show credits at the Playhouse include Come Back, Come Back, Wherever You Are by Arthur Laurents and The Sunshine Boys with Jack Klugman. Ms. Arroyo also designs for the educational touring company at George Street Playhouse, for whom she is also the resident Costume Manager and Costumer. This is her seventh season with the Playhouse and her fifth as Costume Manager where she oversees wardrobe crew and the costume production of shows during the season. At the Playhouse she has costumed for designersTheoni Aldredge for Attacks on the Heart, 2 Lives and Hallelujah Baby by Arthur Laurents and also for David Murin for Celadine, Gunmetal Blues and Wilderness of Mirrors. Other works as Costumer, include Broadway & off-Broadway shows, Dance of the Vampires by Ann Hould Ward at the Minskoff Theatre, Boys From Syracuse by Marty Pakladinaz at the American Airlines Theatre, off-Broadway’s Ghosts by Kaye Voyce, Boston Marriage by Paul Tazwell at the Public Theatre, Taming of the Shrew, Extreme, and The Master Builder at the Duke Theatre by Amy Ritchings. In the past she also costumed for Walt Disney World in Florida, and has done previous costuming for Playwrights Horizon, The Hamptons & Colorado Shakespeare Festivals and Tulane University in New Orleans. She is a graduate of Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of the Arts.

Christopher J. Bailey (Lighting Design) This season marks Mr. Bailey’s thirteenth George Street Playhouse, and sixth as Production Manager, having previously served the Playhouse as Technical Coordinator and Sound and Lighting Manager. He was the Sound Designer for the off-Broadway productions of The Fourth Wall at Primary Stages, Down The Garden Paths at the Minetta Lane Theatre, and numerous productions at the Pearl Theatre. His designs at GSP include lighting design for past seasons’ Solo Performance Festivals, scenic and sound design for the touring productions Wasted, Tomato Plant Girl, Tomboy, The Last Bridge, and the sound design for And Then They Came For Me, Hip-Hop Shakespeare. Mainstage designs include the sound design for Circle Mirror Transformation, Creating Claire, Come Back, Come Back, Wherever You Are, New Year’s Eve, The Devil’s Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith, The Seafarer and Doubt, lighting and sound design for Sight Unseen, The Sunshine Boys, The Things You Least Expect, Inspecting Carol and Lend Me a Tenor. Previous seasons’ designs include sound design for The Value of Names, Souvenir, The Pillowman, 2 Lives, Wilderness of Mirrors, Attacks on the Heart, A Walk in the Woods, Agnes of God, The Seagull, Down The Garden Paths, Master Class, Loot, Ancestral Voices, Wit, Human Events, Venecia, Harold Pinter’s Old Times, Arthur Laurents’ Claudia Lazlo, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, Talley’s Folly, A Night in Tunisia, Double Play and The Last Bridge as well as the lighting design for Oscar and the Pink Lady, Falsettos, Gunmetal Blues, The Last Five Years, tick, tick…BOOM!, Proof, Lips Together, Teeth Apart, The Sisters Rosensweig and Public Ghosts – Private Stories. Mr. Bailey is a member of United Scenic Artists.

Thomas Clewell (Production Stage Manager) Off-Broadway, Mr. Clewell has stage managed The Spitfire Grill, The Last Session, Smoke On the Mountain, The Film Society, De La Guarda Villa Villa and Anne Meara’s Down the Garden Paths with Anne Jackson and Eli Wallach. For Westport Country Playhouse, he stagemanaged Don’t Make Me Laugh with Gene Wilder and Carol Kane. His regional credits include productions for the Kennedy Center, Huntington Theatre Company, Long Wharf Theatre, and Arena Stage. This year is Mr. Clewell’s nineteenth year as resident Stage Manager for George Street Playhouse.