Brendan Burke^ (Artistic Director/Director) has been Artistic Director of SHADOWLAND STAGES since 2005, and has directed and/or produced over 100 productions, including THE 39 STEPS, CHRISTMAS AT PEMBERLEY, LIFESPAN OF A FACT, THE JAG, ELEMENO PEA, RIPCORD, THE FOREIGNER, THE SEAFARER, BOEING-BOEING, LAST GAS, THE LADIES MAN, YANKEE TAVERN, RED HERRING, THE CRIPPLE OF INISHMAAN, LEND ME A TENOR, THE DRAWER BOY, STONES IN HIS POCKETS, PROOF, AMERICAN BUFFALO, A WALK IN THE WOODS, and A COUPLE OF BLAGUARDS, among others. Mr. Burke is also an instructor in the Department of Theatre Arts at SUNY New Paltz.

Lauren Gunderson (Playwright) is one of the most produced playwrights in America since 2015 topping the list thrice including 2022/23. She is a two-time winner of the Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award for I and You and The Book of Will, the winner of the Lanford Wilson Award and the Otis Guernsey New Voices Award, a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize and John Gassner Award for Playwriting, and a recipient of the Mellon Foundation’s Residency with Marin Theatre Company. She studied Southern Literature and Drama at Emory University, and Dramatic Writing at NYU’s Tisch School where she was a Reynolds Fellow in Social Entrepreneurship. Her play The Catastrophist, about her husband virologist Nathan Wolfe, premiered digitally in January 2021. She co-authored the Miss Bennet plays with Margot Melcon, and The Half-Life of Marie Curie premiered off-Broadway and at Audible.com. Her work is published at Playscripts (I and You; Exit Pursued By A Bear; The Taming and Toil And Trouble), Dramatists Play Service (The Revolutionists; The Book of Will; Silent Sky; Bauer, Natural Shocks, The Wickhams and Miss Bennet) and Samuel French (Emilie). Her picture book Dr Wonderful: Blast Off to the Moon is available from Two Lions/Amazon. She is the book writer for musicals with Ari Afsar (Jeannette), Dave Stewart and Joss Stone (The Time Traveller’s Wife), Joriah Kwamé (Sinister), Kait Kerrigan and Bree Lowdermilk (Justice and Earthrise), and Kira Stone (Built for This). She is a board member of The Playwrights Foundation. LaurenGunderson.com

Margot Melcon (Playwright) is a theatre artist, administrator, and writer.  She was the Director of New Play Development at Marin Theatre Company for seven years, where she dramaturged over 30 productions (including seven world premieres) and administered the company’s two annual new play prizes and commissioning program.  She has developed plays with TheatreWorks, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Crowded Fire Theater, Shotgun Players, Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor, the Kennedy Center, the New Harmony Project, and the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis.  She is currently the Program Executive for Promoting Culture at the Zellerbach Family Foundation.  Margot is a graduate of California State University, Chico.