Carl Sternheim (1878 – 1942) was a German playwright and short story writer. Sternheim found success in the 1910s poking fun at the burgeoning German middle class in a series of plays he called "Scenes from the Heroic Life of the Middle Class," of which DIE HOSE (THE UNDERPANTS) (1911) was one. His other plays include THE BOX (1912), BURGHER SCHIPPEL (1913), THE SNOB (1914), 1913 (1915), and TABULA RASA (1916).

Eric Bentley was born in England in 1916, became an American citizen in 1948, in 1998 was inducted into the (American) Theatre Hall of Fame, and in 2011 won a gold medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Scholar, critic, teacher, performer, translator, and, finally, playwright , he has had many books published and many plays and adaptations performed. Several of his critical works have become classics, notably The Playwright as Thinker, Thinking about the Playwright, and The Life of the Drama. Today, nine of his plays are published by Northwestern University Press in three volumes entitled RALLYING CRIES, MONSTROUS MARTYRDOMS, and THE KLEIST VARIATIONS. Four more Bentley titles have recently been published by Broadway Play Publishing Inc: ROUND ONE, ROUND TWO, A TIME TO DIE AND A TIME TO LIVE, and THE STERNHEIM TRILOGY.