ERIC SIMONSON
(Playwright) Eric’s plays and adaptations at Steppenwolf Theatre Company include Nomathemba (written with Ntozake Shange and Joseph Shabalala), Carter’s Way and, most recently, Honest (for First Look) and Fake. Other plays include The Last Hurrah, Work Song: Three Views of Frank Lloyd Wright (with Jeffrey Hatcher), Edge of the World, Lombardi: The Only Thing and Speak American. His work has been produced in Japan and throughout the United States at theaters including The Huntington Theatre Company, L.A. Theatre Works, City Theatre of Pittsburgh, The Kennedy Center, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, Arizona Theatre Company, Madison Repertory Theatre, Kansas City Repertory Theatre and Crossroads Theatre Company. His adaptation of Moby Dick at Milwaukee Repertory was chosen as one of Time Magazine’s top ten productions of 2002. His production of Steppenwolf’s The Song of Jacob Zulu received six Tony Award® nominations, including one for Best Direction. Mr. Simonson is also an accomplished theatre, film and opera director. He co-directed (with Campbell Scott) Hamlet for Hallmark Entertainment, as well as three documentaries for HBO, including A Note of Triumph, which won an Academy Award® for documentary short in 2006 and On Tiptoe, which received an Oscar® nomination and the IDA Award for distinguished achievement. In 2005, he received the Princess Grace Statue Award for sustained artistic achievement. His adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five (originally produced at Steppenwolf) received its Off-Broadway premiere in December at New York’s 59E59 Theater. He is currently overseeing the development of three new operas for Minnesota Opera’s OperaWorks. His play Louder, Faster (co-written with Jeff Hatcher) will premiere at City Theatre in May of 2011.
DAVID MARANISS
(Author) is an associate editor at The Washington Post. He won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, shared in the Post's 2008 Pulitzer for coverage of the Virginia Tech tragedy and edited a series on Walter Reed that won the 2008 Pulitzer Gold Medal. He has also been a Pulitzer finalist three other times. He is the author of critically acclaimed books on Bill Clinton, Vince Lombardi, Roberto Clemente, Vietnam, and the Rome 1960 Olympics and is at work on Out of This World, a multigenerational biography of Barack Obama. Visit the author at DavidMaraniss.com
THOMAS KAIL
(Director) was nominated for a 2008 Tony Award® for his direction of In the Heights. Off Broadway: In the Heights (Callaway Award, Drama Desk nomination, Outer Critics nomination) New York City Center: The Wiz (Lincoln Center). Theater: Broke-ology (Mitzi Newhouse). Williamstown: Broke-ology (World Premiere). National Tour: In the Heights. Co-creator and director of the hip-hop improv group Freestyle Love Supreme, which played the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, US Comedy Arts Festival, Montreal Comedy Festival and Melbourne Comedy Festival. Artistic director and co-founder of Back House Productions. TV: Directed Oprah Winfrey’s 2010 Primetime Oscar Special for ABC; directed pilot episode of Storymakers for AMC; Co-Music director and consulting producer of PBS show The Electric Company. Recipient of the 2008 Martin E. Segal Award from Lincoln Center. Graduate of Wesleyan University, CT.
DAVID KORINS
(Scenic Designer) Broadway: The Pee Wee Herman Show; Passing Strange; Bridge and Tunnel. New York: When The Rain Stops Falling (Lortel Award); Stunning (Lincoln Center Theater); The Marriage of Bette and Boo (Roundabout); The Wiz (City Center); The Receptionist; Pumpgirl; Romantic Poetry (MTC); Hamlet (Delacorte); Why Torture is Wrong… (Drama Desk & Hewes Awards); Passing Strange; Yellow Face (Public Theater); Jack Goes Boating (LAByrinth); The Drunken City, Floyd and Clea…, Miss Witherspoon (Playwrights Horizons), Farragut North (Atlantic), Blackbird (Hewes Award), Orange Flower Water (Edge Theater); Swimming in the Shallows (Second Stage). Regional: CTG, The Huntington, Old Globe, ACT, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Geffen Playhouse, Berkeley Rep., Santa Fe Opera, Alliance Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, The Guthrie, and Toho Tokyo. Obie Award For Sustained Excellence in Design. www.davidkorinsdesign.com
PAUL TAZEWELL
(Costume Designer) Broadway: The Miracle Worker, Memphis, Guys & Dolls, In the Heights, The Color Purple, Bring in ’da Noise, Bring in ’da Funk, Caroline, or Change, A Raisin in the Sun, Drowning Crow, On the Town, Def Poetry Jam, Elaine Stritch At Liberty, Fascinating Rhythm. Three Tony Award® nominations. Won Lucille Lortel Award, Ovation Award, NAACP Award, three Helen Hayes Awards, two AUDELCO Awards. Princess Grace Fellowship and Princess Grace Statue Award.
HOWELL BINKLEY
(Lighting Designer) Broadway works include: Million Dollar Quartet, Memphis, West Side Story (2009 Tony® nomination), Guys and Dolls, Gypsy starring Patti LuPone, In The Heights (2008 Tony® nomination), Crybaby, Xanadu, LoveMusik, Bridge & Tunnel, Jersey Boys (Tony Award® Winner), Steel Magnolias, Dracula, Avenue Q, Golda’s Balcony, Hollywood Arms, The Look of Love, Gore Vidal’s The Best Man, Minnelli on Minnelli, The Full Monty, Parade, Kiss Of The Spider Woman (Tony® nomination), Sacrilege, Taking Sides, How To Succeed…, High Society and Grease. Extensive regional and dance works include The Joffrey Ballet's Billboards, the design for more than sixty pieces for Parsons Dance which he co-founded with David Parsons and six musicals in repertory for The Kennedy Center's Sondheim Celebration. Mr. Binkley is a five time Helen Hayes Award recipient and was awarded the 1993 Sir Laurence Olivier Award and Canadian Dora Award for Kiss of The Spider Woman. 2006 Henry Hewes Design Award, Outer Critics Circle Award and Tony Award® winner for Jersey Boys.
ACME SOUND PARTNERS
(Sound Design) Broadway: Fences (Tony® Nomination); The Addams Family; Ragtime; Bye Bye Birdie; Hair (Tony® Nomination); Irving Berlin’s White Christmas; In The Heights (Tony® Nomination); Title of Show; The Country Girl; Legally Blonde; High Fidelity; A Chorus Line (2006); Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas; The Drowsy Chaperone; Hot Feet; The Light in the Piazza; Monty Python’s Spamalot; Dirty Rotten Scoundrels; Dracula the Musical; Twentieth Century; Fiddler on the Roof (2004); Never Gonna Dance; The Boy From Oz; Avenue Q; Gypsy (2003); La Bohème (Drama Desk Award); Flower Drum Song; Elaine Stritch At Liberty; Bells Are Ringing; A Class Act. Numerous international, Off-Broadway and regional productions, plus theatrical concerts and special events with renowned orchestras at world-famous venues indoors and out. Acme is Tom Clark, Mark Menard, Nevin Steinberg and Sten Severson.
ZACHARY BOROVAY
(Projection Design) Recent: Rock of Ages (Broadway, Toronto, National Tour); Let Me down Easy (Off-Broadway); To Be Or Not to Be (Broadway); A Catered Affair (Broadsay, Drama Desk nomination); Xanadu (Broadway, Japan, National Tour); The Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular; Voyage De La Vie (Sentosa, Singapore); Peepshow (Planet Hollywood Casino, Las Vegas); The Creature from the Black Lagoon (Universal Studios Hollywood); Nerds (the Philadelphia Theatre Company). Zak was the first projection designer to join United Scenic Artists local 829.
TONY PONTURO
(Producer) In partnership with producing partners, Fran Kirmser and the NFL, Tony Ponturo is proud to bring LOMBARDI, A NEW AMERICAN PLAY to the theatre experience. Ponturo has been a leader in the business of sports and entertainment for over 30 years, first in the advertising world, then at Anheuser-Busch and now as the founder and CEO of the New York-based sports, entertainment and producing firm, Ponturo Management Group. In addition to LOMBARDI, Ponturo is currently a producer of the 2010 Tony Award®-winning musical Memphis and was a part of the producing team of the 2009 Tony Award®-winning revival of Hair, along with his wife Ruthe. Taught to appreciate theatre and the arts by his wife, Ponturo serves on the executive committee of the American Ballet Theatre, the board of the New York City Center and the Roundabout Theatre Company. A sincere thank you to the entire team of LOMBARDI that set the examples of the legendary coach to work hard, be dedicated, lead by example and to all, ”You are winners.“
FRAN KIRMSER
(Producer) has worked for over fifteen years, producing, promoting and fundraising for theatre and dance. Through Fran Kirmser Productions, she has facilitated the work of hundreds of artists to the stage. A fixture in the arts, she started her professional career at the age of fourteen as a dancer. In 1999, she co-founded “a playground for passion:” Manhattan Theatre Source, a 60 seat theatre and arts service organization still in operation on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village that rarely has a dark night. In 2002, she launched The Biography Project, a series of plays that told the stories of artists in an effort to recognize their voices, better archive their work and explore their influence on culture. In addition to extensive work downtown and Off-Broadway, on Broadway Kirmser produced August Wilson’s award-winning Radio Golf, the last play and final chapter in the epic ten-play cycle by one of our nation's greatest playwrights; and the 2009 Tony Award®-winner for Best Musical Revival, Hair. She is thrilled to continue her passion for bringing unique and important voices to the stage through this production of LOMBARDI.
THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE
(Producer) is America’s most popular sports league, comprised of 32 franchises that compete each year to win the Super Bowl, the world’s biggest annual sporting event. Each Super Bowl-winning team receives the Lombardi Trophy, named for Hall of Fame coach Vince Lombardi. Founded in 1920, the NFL developed the model for the successful modern sports league, including extensive revenue sharing, competitive excellence, strong franchises across the board, and national distribution. The NFL is the industry leader on a wide range of fronts. Business Week magazine calls the NFL “one of America’s best-run businesses.”
JOE FAVORITO
(Associate Producer) has over a quarter century of strategic communications/marketing, business development and public relations expertise in sports, entertainment, brand building, media training, television, athletic administration and business. The Brooklyn native has run communications programs for the New York Knicks, the Philadelphia 76ers, the WTA Tour, and the United States Tennis Association, among others. He now runs a sports and entertainment consulting practice whose clients include Bloomberg LLC, Ketchum Sports, Ponturo Management Group/The Leverage Agency, Wizard Entertainment/Comic-con, Carnegie Sports and Entertainment, Fantasy Sports Ventures, the Global Options Group, Mattioli Racing, Sportime Tennis and RotoHog, and others. Joe is an avid writer and blogger, contributing to the Huffington Post, New Jersey Newsroom and The Record, and maintains his own best practices site, www.joefavorito.com. His event clients include “All Stars Helping Kids,” the International Baseball Federation and the Brian Piccolo Award. He is a frequent lecturer on sports and entertainment marketing, an instructor at Columbia University and the author of Sports Publicity, the most used collegiate text on the industry. Joe is a graduate of Xaverian High School in Brooklyn and Fordham University and resides in River Vale, New Jersey with his wife Laura and two children, Andrew and Christine.
S.D. WAGNER & JOHN JOHNSON
S.D. Wagner: (Associate Producer) With Elizabeth I. McCann & Joey Parnes: Broadway—Equus, Passing Strange, Lisa Kron’s Well, Butley, Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Beckett/Albee, Hair and Waiting for Godot. West End: The Lady From Dubuque; Duet for One; The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia. Other productions include: Seussical; Annie Get Your Gun; Chicago; Roxy Font; Beat. A Play on Words.
John Johnson (Associate Producer) With Elizabeth I. McCann & Joey Parnes: The Play About the Baby, The Goat, or Who is Sylvia, Tuesdays with Morrie, Beckett/Albee, Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Well, Butley, Passing Strange, Equus, Hair, as well as The Tony Awards® (2001–2008). Concerts: Working; Rated RSO; NewMusicaTtheatre.com Launch Concert. Faculty: Northwestern University’s National High School Institute. Graduate: Fordham University at Lincoln Center.
ANDREW FRANK
(Associate Producer) began his career as a writer/director and since 1994 has worked extensively downtown, Off-Broadway and regionally receiving much critical acclaim for his adaptations of classic works. He is the Founding Artistic Director of Manhattan Theatre Source, a non-profit theatre and arts service organization dedicated to independent theatre community where he now sits on the Board of Directors. Currently, Andrew is the Director of the Cultural Institution’s Unit at the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs which oversees 33 institutions that sit on City-owned property including: The Public Theater, Carnegie Hall, The David H. Koch Theatre and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. A Certified Coach, Andrew is represented by Writer’s House Literary Agency and is currently writing a book called Strategies for the Artist. He is thrilled to be making his Broadway producing debut with LOMBARDI and its wonderful team.
JOHN MARA, JR.
(Associate Producer) after working behind the scenes on Broadway with such productions as The Little Mermaid, Ragtime and Billy Elliot, he is thrilled to be making his Broadway debut as a producer with LOMBARDI. As the great-grandson of the founder of the New York Football Giants, Tim Mara, and grandson of Pro Football Hall of Fame member Wellington Mara, he is excited to bring his two worlds of football and theatre together. Special thanks to Andrew and Fran for this incredible opportunity and my parents for always believing in me. For WTM.
LAUREN STEVENS
(Associate Producer) having lived and worked in the Milwaukee-Chicago community for over 25 years, it is a natural that Lauren is a LOMBARDI “team player.” Lauren has come full circle, returning to the New York theatre world from a career in film production that has taken her all over the country. Getting her start as a production coordinator at WNET/PBS Great Performances series, Theater in America, Lauren segued to a position as producer for The Jerry Smith Studio, producing commercials specializing in newscaster and television station promotion. This led to Lauren and two other partners launching a film production company, The Black Swan, in Chicago and Milwaukee, at which she produced award-winning local, regional and national television commercials. A graduate of Boston University’s acting program, Lauren stayed in touch with theatre over the years by acting, directing and producing with several theatres in the Chicago area. In 2007, she founded Wonder City LLC, a New York theatrical production company, and has been a Broadway producer on the Tony®-nominated Ragtime revival and Radio Golf, All My Sons, Burn The Floor, and has had financial involvement in A Steady Rain, Legally Blonde and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels tour. Off Broadway, Lauren was an Associate Producer of the New York premiere of Don Nigro’s My Sweetheart’s the Man in the Moon, with the Hypothetical Theatre Company. Lauren is a proud member of the MCC Theater Board.
ALFRED R. KAHN
(Associate Producer) is Chairman and CEO of 4Kids Entertainment, Inc., a global provider of children's entertainment and merchandise licensing. Mr. Kahn is a leading figure in the licensing industry, responsible for many of its biggest hits, including Cabbage Patch Kids, Pokėmon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Yu-Gi-Oh! In June 2005, Mr. Kahn was inducted into the International Licensing Industry Merchandisers’ Association (LIMA) Murray Altschuler Licensing Hall of Fame. Mr. Kahn is currently represented on Broadway in All My Sons, West Side Story, The Addams Family and the forthcoming Priscilla Queen of the Desert. He is the creator and founder of the National Law Enforcement and Firefighters Children’s Foundation to carry out his dream of helping children who have lost a parent in the line of duty and providing anti-drug and anti-violence programs to benefit all children. Mr. Kahn serves on the Board of Directors of the New York Restoration Project, the Stephen Gaynor School and Long Island University.
MYLA LERNER
(Associate Producer) Myla divides her time between New York City and San Francisco, where she ran an event planning firm. She supports numerous theatre groups and non profit organizations on both coasts. She was born in Milwaukee into a family of loyal Green Bay Packer fans. Last year she was a Broadway producer on the Tony®-nominated revival of Finian's Rainbow and this fall she is a producer on Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, opening in Toronto, October 2010, and in New York in Spring 2011. Myla was represented in the 2009 Tony Award® winner for Best Musical Revival, Hair and in the subsequent production of Hair in the West End in London. An associate member of the Broadway League, Myla currently sits on the Advisory Board of Dreamlight Theatre Company, a New York company dedicated to musical theater.
REBECCA GOLD
(Associate Producer) Rebecca Gold is proud to be part of this production and hopes that sports fans will be thrilled to experience the theater and become theater fans. On Broadway, Rebecca has produced the Tony® Award-winning Hair and the subsequent London West End Production, Speed-the-Plow, Accent on Youth (with MTC), Superior Donuts, and in March, 2011, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. She has been extensively involved with non-for-profit heater, including the American Repertory Theater (Cambridge MA), Robert Woodruff’s Orpheus X (Rinde Eckert), Brittanicus, Ulysses Highway, Oedipus, Sound of a Voice (Philip Glass & David Henry Hwang) and Cardenio (Stephen Greenblatt and Charles Mee). She is particularly excited about the upcoming Opera of the Future, Death and the Powers, premiering in Monaco this autumn. She has also been involved in productions at the Edinburgh Festival and at Shakespeare & Company (Lenox, MA), including Othello and Richard III with John Douglas Thompson. Much love and gratitude to N, S, B and C/G.
RED AWNING
(Executive Producer) a division of Jujamcyn Theaters, provides a full range of executive producing services under the direction of Nicole Kastrinos. Broadway: Finian’s Rainbow; A Bronx Tale; August Wilson’s Radio Golf. Upcoming projects include Randy Newman’s Harps and Angels.
