Multi-award-winning director and playwright Emily Mann is in her 22nd season as Artistic Director of McCarter Theatre. Under Ms. Mann's leadership, McCarter was honored with the 1994 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theater. McCarter directing credits include Nilo Cruz's Pulitzer Prize–winning ANNA IN THE TROPICS (also on Broadway), the world premiere of Christopher Durang's MISS WITHERSPOON (also Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons), UNCLE VANYA (also adapted), ALL OVER (also Off-Broadway at The Roundabout; 2003 Obie Award for Directing), THE CHERRY ORCHARD (also adapted), THREE SISTERS, A DOLL HOUSE, THE GLASS MENAGERIE, A SEAGULL IN THE HAMPTONS (an adaptation of Chekhov's THE SEAGULL), and MRS. WARREN'S PROFESSION. Her plays include EXECUTION OF JUSTICE (supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship; winner of Helen Hayes and Joseph Jefferson Awards; nominated for Drama Desk and Outer Circle Awards); STILL LIFE (six Obie Awards); GREENSBORO (A REQUIEM); and ANNULLA, AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. Ms. Mann wrote and directed HAVING OUR SAY, adapted from the book by Sarah L. Delany and A. Elizabeth Delany with Amy Hill Hearth (Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle nominations; winner of NAACP and Joseph Jefferson Awards). For the Having Our Say screenplay, Ms. Mann won Peabody and Christopher Awards. A winner of the Dramatists Guild Hull-Warriner Award and the Edward Albee Last Frontier Directing Award, she is a member of the Dramatists Guild and serves on its council. A collection of her plays, Testimonies: Four Plays, has been published by TCG. Her latest play, MRS. PACKARD, was the recipient of the 2007 Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays Award and was published by TCG in spring 2009. Most recently at McCarter, Ms. Mann directed the world premieres of THE CONVERT by Danai Gurira (also at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago and CTG in Los Angeles), PHAEDRA BACKWARDS by Marina Carr, Sarah Treem's THE HOW AND THE WHY, and Edward Albee's ME, MYSELF & I (also at Playwrights Horizons). Emily directed A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE on Broadway with Blair Underwood, Wood Harris, Nicole Ari Parker, and Daphne Rubin-Vega. Emily's adaptation of THE HOUSE OF BERNARD ALBA, which premiered at McCarter, was produced at The Almeida Theater in London. She is the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from Princeton University and was named the 2011 Person of the Year from the National Theatre Conference.

Widely considered one of the world's greatest writers, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born on January 29, 1860, in Taganrog, Russia. In 1879 he entered the University of Moscow to study medicine and graduated in 1884. He kept a strict writing schedule and continued to practice medicine for the rest of his life. In addition to his numerous short stories, many considered masterpieces of the form, Chekhov wrote over a dozen plays, among them the classics of Western dramatic literature UNCLE VANYA, THE CHERRY ORCHARD, THE THREE SISTERS, and THE SEAGULL.