ERIC IDLE (Book, Lyrics and Music) has hyphenated his way through life as a writer-actor in the movies and TV shows of Monty Python, as creator-actor-director of The Rutles, and as singer-songwriter on stage at Carnegie Hall, the Hollywood Bowl and two highly successful tours of the US with John Du Prez: Eric Idle Exploits Monty Python (2000) and The Greedy Bastard Tour (2003), where they journeyed 15,000 miles across North America in a Rock and Roll bus (see The Greedy Bastard Diary). Spamalot won the Tony for Best Musical of 2005, and a Grammy for Best Soundtrack and is currently on Broadway, on Tour in the US, in The West End of London, in Las Vegas at The Wynn Hotel and somewhere in Australia. Not The Messiah (He’s A Very Naughty Boy) a comic Oratorio based on The Life of Brian, written with John Du Prez, received its world premiere in Toronto in June 2007, its US premiere in July, and in December they toured Australia and New Zealand. It will play the Hollywood Bowl this summer. His latest play What About Dick? had a short try out in LA and Rutlemania! The Tribute Concert a celebration of 30 years of The Rutles opened in March.

JOHN DU PREZ (Composer). A Trevelyan Scholar at Christ Church, Oxford, and Associate of the Royal College of Music, he entered the film industry in 1978 composing additional music for Monty Python’s Life of Brian. This began a long association with Eric Idle, leading eventually to their current writing partnership. He has scored more than 20 feature films including The Meaning of Life, A Private Function, A Fish Called Wanda, Once Bitten, UHF and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I, II and III. Other Python projects include the Contractual Obligation Album, Monty Python at the Hollywood Bowl and The Fairly Incomplete & Rather Badly Illustrated Monty Python Song Book. He was musical director for Eric Idle’s two North American stage tours, Eric Idle Exploits Monty Python (2000) and The Greedy Bastard Tour (2003). This is his Broadway debut.

MONTY PYTHON Is he God or Godot, an agent of the devil or an agent of the William Morris Agency, or is he, as some have argued, a fictitious character invented in 1969 by Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin in a desperate attempt to find a title for their rather silly TV show? Whatever the truth, he is the eponymous impresario who fronts “The Flying Circus,” The Holy Grail, The Life of Brian, The Meaning of Life, And Now for Something Completely Different and who appeared Live at Drury Lane, City Center and the Hollywood Bowl. He has fronted numerous books including The Big Red Book and The Papperbok as well as many CDs, DVDs and matching ties and handkerchiefs. He is currently in retirement in an old jokes home near Dover, anxiously awaiting Nighthood and a Knightnurse. This is his first Broadway show. www.PythOnline.com

MIKE NICHOLS (Director), formerly half of the legendary comedy team of Nichols and May, has been one of the leading directors of stage and screen for more than 30 years. Nichols won his first of eight Tony Awards for Barefoot in the Park. He then directed an unprecedented string of hits that included The Knack, Luv (Tony, Best. Dir.), The Odd Couple (Tony, Best Dir.), The Apple Tree, Plaza Suite (Tony, Best Dir.), Prisoner of Second Avenue (Tony, Best Dir.), The Gin Game (winner of the 1978 Pulitzer Prize) and Streamers (winner of the New York Drama Critics Award). He directed highly successful revivals of The Little Foxes and Uncle Vanya, the U.S. productions of Comedians as well as The Real Thing (Tony, Best Dir.), Hurlyburly and Waiting for Godot. As a theatrical producer, he presented Whoopi Goldberg on Broadway and won the Tony for his blockbuster show, Annie. Film credits include Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Graduate (Academy Award for Best Direction), Catch-22, Carnal Knowledge, Silkwood, Working Girl, Postcards From the Edge, Regarding Henry, The Birdcage, Primary Colors and Closer, and for HBO: “Wit” and “Angels in America.” Mr. Nichols has received the George Abbott Award, the National Medal of Arts and the Kennedy Center Honor, and has been honored by the Museum of Television and Radio, the American Museum of the Moving Image for his contribution to the film industry and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

CASEY NICHOLAW (Choreographer) made his Broadway debut as a choreographer with Spamalot (Tony, Drama Desk, OCC nominations). This season he is making his Broadway directorial debut with The Drowsy Chaperone at the Minskoff Theatre. Other NY credits: Sinatra: His Voice. His World. His Way. featuring the Rockettes (Radio City Music Hall); Bye Bye Birdie (City Center Encores!); Can-Can (musical staging, City Center Encores!); and Candide (NY Philharmonic, soon to be on PBS’ “Great Performances”). Regionally he’s choreographed many original musicals, including The Road to Hollywood (Goodspeed), Lucky Duck (Old Globe) and The Prince and the Pauper (5th Avenue Theatre, the Ordway).

TIM HATLEY (Set & Costume Design). Winner of the 2005 Drama Desk Award for Spamalot. Winner of 2002 Tony and Drama Desk Awards for Private Lives on Broadway. Winner of the 2002 Olivier Award for Humble Boy and Private Lives in the West End and a 1997 Olivier Award for Stanley at the Royal National Theatre. Broadway credits: Private Lives, Vincent in Brixton, The Crucible, Stanley. Film credits: Stage Beauty, Closer, & Notes on a Scandal. Previous theatre work includes working with Theatre de Complicite, Royal National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, English National Opera and London’s West End. Graduated from Central Saint Martins School of Art, London. www.TimHatley.com

HUGH VANSTONE (Lighting Design) has designed lighting for plays, musicals and operas in London, New York and around the world. He has received three Olivier Awards for his work, most recently for Pacific Overtures (Donmar). New York credits: Boeing, Boeing (Longacre); Bombay Dreams (Broadway); Life(x) 3 (Circle in the Square); Uncle Vanya, Twelfth Night and Hamlet (BAM); The Graduate (Plymouth); Follies (Belasco); Blast! (Broadway); The Unexpected Man (Promenade); The Blue Room (Cort); Closer (Music Box); Art (Royale).

ACME SOUND PARTNERS (Sound Design) Broadway includes: The Country Girl, In The Heights, Legally Blonde, High Fidelity, A Chorus Line(2006), The Drowsy Chaperone, Hot Feet, The Light in the Piazza, Spamalot, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Dracula the Musical, Twentieth Century, Fiddler on the Roof, Never Gonna Dance, The Boy From Oz, Avenue Q, Gypsy, La Bohème (Drama Desk Award), Flower Drum Song, Elaine Stritch At Liberty. National: Irving Berlin’s White Christmas. The partners are: Tom Clark, Mark Menard and Nevin Steinberg.

DAVID BRIAN BROWN (Wig & Hair Design) Broadway: Little Mermaid, Legally Blonde, Tarzan, Butley, Wedding Singer, Chita, The Woman In White, The Odd Couple, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Fiddler on the Roof, Nine, Gypsy, Flower Drum Song, Sweet Smell of Success, The Invention Of Love, Aida, The Rainmaker, The Iceman Cometh, Annie Get Your Gun, Little Me, Chicago, Sideshow, 1776, Steel Pier, King David, Big, Sunset Boulevard. Film credits include: “Angels In America” (Emmy Nomination ), Too Wong Foo…

GREGORY MEEH (Special Effects Design) designs, builds and supplies special effects for theatre, opera, dance, industrials, television, film and print. Some recent credits include Ka for Cirque du Soleil; the Broadway productions of Nine, Into the Woods, Aida, Twelfth Night at Lincoln Center (Eddy Award), Ragtime, Show Boat, An Inspector Calls (Drama Desk Award), Damn Yankees, Angels in America, Tommy, Phantom of the Opera and Les Misérables; and the television productions of “Fool’s Fire” for American Playhouse, “Late Show,” “SNL” and “One Life to Live.”

ELAINE J. MCCARTHY (Projection Design). Broadway: Thurgood, Good Vibrations, After the Fall, Assassins, Wicked, Man of La Mancha, Into the Woods, Judgment at Nuremberg, The Green Bird. Off-Broadway: Frequency Hopping (Sets & Projections), Distracted (Sets & Projections), Embedded, The Stendhal Syndrome, Suitcase, The Thing About Men, Speaking In Tongues. Regional: Limonade tous les Jours, Fran’s Bed, Once in a Lifetime, Hair, Blue Man Group: Tubes (Chicago). Opera: Dead Man Walking (NYC Opera), War and Peace (Kirov and Metropolitan Opera), Tan Dun’s The Gate, Peter Sellar’s The Peony Pavilion. Awards: 2003 Eddy Award.

JOSEPH A. CAMPAYNO (Makeup Design). Theatre: M. Butterfly, Into the Woods. Film/TV: The Pink Panther, “Angels in America” (Emmy Award), Unfaithful, Behind Enemy Lines, The Siege, Bullets Over Broadway, A League of Their Own, Regarding Henry, When Harry Met Sally, “Lonesome Dove,” and Working Girl.

TODD ELLISON (Musical Director/Vocal Arranger). conducted the Grammy Award winning cast album of Spamalot. Also, 42nd Street, Amour, Wild Party. Other Broadway credits: Lestat, On the Town, Once Upon a Mattress, How to Succeed…, She Loves Me.
Incidental music: A Class Act, Taller…Dwarf. International: Jubilee at Carnegie Hall. Vienna Konzerthaus: Jerry Hadley, Dawn Upshaw, Radio City. Accompanied: Nicole Kidman, Barry Manilow.

LARRY HOCHMAN (Orchestrations). Tony nominations: Fiddler…, A Class Act, Spamalot (also Drama Desk nomination). Broadway: Jane Eyre, four others. Regional: 23 shows including Señor Discretion (Loesser premiere). Film: Cinderella, Lady & Tramp II, “Geppetto,” “Annie,” “…Mattress,” A Christmas Carol, 12 others. Composer: “Wonder Pets” (Nickelodeon), Little Mermaid II (add’l music), “Amazing Stories,” documentaries, In Memoriam (publ. E.B. Marks). Contributing orchestrator: 6 Broadway shows, Mandy Patinkin, Audra McDonald, Betty Buckley, Michael Feinstein, Barry Manilow, Boston Pops, San Francisco Symphony. www.LarryHochman.net

GLEN KELLY (Music Arrangements) is music supervisor and arranger of The Producers. Other Broadway: The Frogs, Beauty and the Beast, Steel Pier, A Christmas Carol, High Society and Dance a Little Closer. For New York City Ballet: Double Feature (music arrangements and libretto, w/Susan Stroman) and Thou Swell. Future projects: Young Frankenstein.

MICHAEL KELLER (Music Coordinator) is currently Conductor/Drummer for Marvin Hamlisch. Music Coordinator for Wicked, La Cage Aux Folles, Bombay Dreams, Fiddler on the Roof, The Boy From Oz, Avenue Q, Mamma Mia, Aida, The Lion King, Barbra Streisand Concerts (1994 & 2001). Life is complete with wife Pamela Sousa and children Zach and Alexis.

PETER LAWRENCE (Associate Director) has worked with Mike Nichols on seven original stage productions and one television series. He directed the national tours of The Graduate, Sunset Boulevard, Social Security, Lost in Yonkers, Broadway Bound and Rumors. He was executive producer for both Miss Saigon and Les Misérables and originated 17 Broadway productions as production stage manager. Mr. Lawrence taught in the drama departments of the University of Hawaii and Transylvania College and was the drama critic for the Honolulu Advertiser.

DARLENE WILSON (Associate Choreographer). Broadway assoc. choreography credits: Side Show, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Flower Drum Song (revival), The Christmas Spectacular and Sinatra at Radio City and the film Exit. Broadway performing credits: Spamalot, Chicago, Side Show, Sunset Blvd., Cats, No Strings for Encores!