Georg Büchner was born in Germany in 1813. He studied medicine, campaigned for social change, and wrote two plays, DANTON'S DEATH and LEONE AND LENA, before starting work on WOYZECK, which was based on a real criminal case. Büchner died of typhus at aged twenty-three.

Kenneth Tigar graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in German Literature. He then studied in Göttingen for a year as a Fulbright scholar. Shortly after earning a Harvard Ph.D. in German as well, he was offered an acting job with the Viennese theatre group Die Komödianten. The experience began his transition from the world of academia to the world of the theatre. Since then he has become a familiar face in films and on television. His credits span the distance from Barney Miller and the Lethal Weapon movies to The Good Wife and The Avengers. He has acted extensively in New York and regional theatres, performing Salieri in AMADEUS, Willy Loman in DEATH OF A SALESMAN, and Joe Keller in ALL MY SONS, amongst others. He has won a Los Angeles Drama Critics' Circle Award, two Dramalogue Awards, and South Florida's Carbonell Award; and he has appeared across the country in his one-man show I MUST BE MR. BOSWELL about the biographer of Dr. Johnson. He directed the national tour of THE GIN GAME with Academy Award–winner Kim Hunter and is also an accomplished opera director. A few years ago he returned to Austria to star in OLD WICKED SONGS at the Vienna English Theatre. Most recently he was seen on Broadway in Larry David's comedy FISH IN THE DARK.