Theatre · The Creative Process: Acting, Directing, Writing & Behind the Scenes Conversations

Actor, producer, writer and director, Joe Mantegna began his career on the stage with the 1969 musical Hair. He later earned a Tony Award for portraying Richard Roma in the first American production of David Mamet's play Glengarry Glen Ross, the first of many collaborations with Mamet.Mantegna has appeared in Three Amigos, The Godfather Part III, Forget Paris, and Up Close & Personal and other films. From 2007 to 2020 he starred in the CBS TV series Criminal Minds as FBI Supervisory Special Agent David Rossi. Since 1991, he’s had a recurring role on The Simpsons as mob boss Fat Tony. He earned Emmy Award nominations three miniseries: The Last Don, The Rat Pack, and The Starter Wife. He’s executive produced for various films and TV movies, including Corduroy, Hoods, and Lakeboat, which he also directed.· www.joemantegna.com· www.creativeprocess.info

"My mother had very powerful attitudes that she really gifted to Nora in a very extreme way. We were all talented, we all had ambition, but they were so successful, and then Nora was so successful, so I did not become a writer until I was in my early thirties, and I thought–This is really what I'm meant to do. Well, you know, the thing about your twenties is that you can just throw it away and think that you have all the time in the world, and then you hit 30, and I realized, Oh, I only have one life and I better do what I'm meant to do."Bestselling author and screenwriter Delia Ephron's most recent novel is Siracusa now being adapted into a feature film. Her other novels include The Lion Is In and Hanging Up. She has written humor books for all ages, including How to Eat Like a Child and Do I Have to Say Hello?; and nonfiction, most recently Sister Mother Husband Dog (etc.). Her films include You've Got Mail, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Hanging Up (based on her novel), and Michael. Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times, O: The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, and Vanity Fair. Her hit play Love, Loss, and What I Wore (co-written with Nora Ephron) ran for more than two years off-Broadway and has been performed all over the world. She lives in New York City.· www.deliaephronwriter.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

Bestselling author and screenwriter Delia Ephron's most recent novel is Siracusa now being adapted into a feature film. Her other novels include The Lion Is In and Hanging Up. She has written humor books for all ages, including How to Eat Like a Child and Do I Have to Say Hello?; and nonfiction, most recently Sister Mother Husband Dog (etc.). Her films include You've Got Mail, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Hanging Up (based on her novel), and Michael. Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times, O: The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, and Vanity Fair. Her hit play Love, Loss, and What I Wore (co-written with Nora Ephron) ran for more than two years off-Broadway and has been performed all over the world. She lives in New York City.· www.deliaephronwriter.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

Eimear McBride trained at The Drama Centre in London. Her debut novel A Girl is a Half-formed Thing received a number of awards, including the Bailey Women’s Prize for Fiction, and the Irish Novel of the Year. She occasionally writes interviews for The Guardian, TLS, and The New Statesman. · http://eimearmcbride.com · www.creativeprocess.info

“The difference between stage and screen acting is vast, but it's the same root. It's just some of the techniques are very different. I really know theater because that's where I started. I went at it in a very haphazard way. I had a very haphazard approach. It was not orderly at all. I didn't go to a proper school or anything like that. After fooling around in Europe for almost a couple of years, just because I'd gotten out of the army...and didn't really know what to do or how to do it. And so I just went and while there I did some acting, but nothing very remarkable except doing a nightclub with William Burroughs. That was great fun. I did a little bit of studying here or there...Jeff Corey (and at one class in New York) someone said something that helped me a great deal. And then I just learned by doing it.”Harris Yulin has appeared on Broadway in Hedda Gabler, The Price, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Visit, A Lesson From Aloes, and Watch On The Rhine. His off-Broadway credits include Raindance at Signature Theatre; Don Juan In Hell at Symphony Space; Steve Tesich’s Arts And Leisure at Playwrights Horizons; Tina Howe’s Approaching Zanzibar at Second Stage; Hamlet, King John, Richard III, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at New York Shakespeare Festival; and Mrs. Warren’s Profession and Hedda Gabler at Roundabout. Regional credits include Finishing the Picture at Goodman Theatre; a recent appearance in the title role of King Lear at New Jersey Shakespeare Festival; The Talking Cure at Mark Taper Forum; Tartuffe at the Guthrie and Arena Stage; Henry V at Hartford Stage; and The Tempest at Shakespeare & Co. Mr. Yulin’s directing credits include Horton Foote’s The Prisoner’s Song at Ensemble Studio Theatre; Conor McPherson’s This Lime Tree Bower at Primary Stages; Don Juan In Hell in London (Riverside Studios) and in New York (Symphony Space), Steve Tesich’s Baba Goya (Second Stage), Adele Shank’s Winter Play at Second Stage; Candida at the Shaw Festival; and The Front Page and The Guardsman at Long Wharf. His television credits include “Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight,” “Mister Sterling,” “24,” “Buffy The Vampire Slayer,” “Frasier” (Emmy Nomination), and “La Femme Nikita” (Emmy Nomination). His film credits include Fur, The Place Beyond the Pines, The Emperor’s Club, Training Day, The Million Dollar Hotel, The Hurricane, Looking for Richard, Murder at 1600, Multiplicity, Clear and Present Danger, and Scarface.· www.imdb.com/name/nm0950867/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 · www.creativeprocess.info

Harris Yulin has appeared on Broadway in Hedda Gabler, The Price, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Visit, A Lesson From Aloes, and Watch On The Rhine. His off-Broadway credits include Raindance at Signature Theatre; Don Juan In Hell at Symphony Space; Steve Tesich’s Arts And Leisure at Playwrights Horizons; Tina Howe’s Approaching Zanzibar at Second Stage; Hamlet, King John, Richard III, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream at New York Shakespeare Festival; and Mrs. Warren’s Profession and Hedda Gabler at Roundabout. Regional credits include Finishing the Picture at Goodman Theatre; a recent appearance in the title role of King Lear at New Jersey Shakespeare Festival; The Talking Cure at Mark Taper Forum; Tartuffe at the Guthrie and Arena Stage; Henry V at Hartford Stage; and The Tempest at Shakespeare & Co. Mr. Yulin’s directing credits include Horton Foote’s The Prisoner’s Song at Ensemble Studio Theatre; Conor McPherson’s This Lime Tree Bower at Primary Stages; Don Juan In Hell in London (Riverside Studios) and in New York (Symphony Space), Steve Tesich’s Baba Goya (Second Stage), Adele Shank’s Winter Play at Second Stage; Candida at the Shaw Festival; and The Front Page and The Guardsman at Long Wharf. His television credits include “Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight,” “Mister Sterling,” “24,” “Buffy The Vampire Slayer,” “Frasier” (Emmy Nomination), and “La Femme Nikita” (Emmy Nomination). His film credits include Fur, The Place Beyond the Pines, The Emperor’s Club, Training Day, The Million Dollar Hotel, The Hurricane, Looking for Richard, Murder at 1600, Multiplicity, Clear and Present Danger, and Scarface.· www.imdb.com/name/nm0950867/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 · www.creativeprocess.info

Eimear McBride trained at The Drama Centre in London. Her debut novel A Girl is a Half-formed Thing received a number of awards, including the Bailey Women’s Prize for Fiction, and the Irish Novel of the Year. She occasionally writes interviews for The Guardian, TLS, and The New Statesman. · http://eimearmcbride.com · www.creativeprocess.info

Gregory Jbara is a Tony award winning stage actor with a impressive career spanning over four decades . On Broadway, Gregory has stared in renditions of Chicago, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Billy Elliot, which earned him the 2009 Tony award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. Since departing from the stage, Gregory has spent ten seasons alongside Tom Selick in the CBS drama Blue Bloods.

Gregory Jbara is a Tony award winning stage actor with a impressive career spanning over four decades . On Broadway, Gregory has stared in renditions of Chicago, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and Billy Elliot, which earned him the 2009 Tony award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. Since departing from the stage, Gregory has spent ten seasons alongside Tom Selick in the CBS drama Blue Bloods.

“For a writer of non-fiction or essayist that’s very difficult to work with because we aren’t, or at least some of us don’t consider ourselves journalists. The tools that we are working with aren’t–What your favorite color is. Where you grew up. Or what your favorite number is. If we’re writing a profile of something, the tools that we’re working with are long conversations in which people are sharing anecdotes about themselves. When I do an interview with somebody, I don’t take out a tape recorder. I don’t have a notebook. I invite them on a walk so that we can feel at least that we’re just chatting.”John D’Agata is the author of Halls of Fame, About a Mountain, and The Lifespan of a Fact, as well as the editor of the 3-volume series  A New History of the Essay, which includes the anthologies The Next American Essay, The Making of the American Essay, and The Lost Origins of the Essay. His work has been supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Howard Foundation Fellowship, an NEA Literature Fellowship, and a Lannan Foundation Fellowship. He holds a B.A. from Hobart College and two M.F.A.s from the University of Iowa, and recently his essays have appeared in The Believer, Harper's, Gulf Coast, and Conjunctions. John D’Agata lives in Iowa City where he teaches creative writing at the University of Iowa. The Lifespan of Fact was adapted into a Broadway play starring Daniel Radcliffe, Cherry Jones, and Bobby Cannavale.· www.johndagata.com· www.creativeprocess.info