2024 ANNUAL BENEFIT

Jesse Eisenberg is an Academy Award nominated actor and playwright. His new movie, A Real Pain, which he wrote, directed, and acted in follows Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin as estranged cousins who join a Holocaust tour in Poland. 

OSKAR EUSTIS has served as the artistic director of The Public Theater since 2005, after serving as the artistic director at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, RI from 1994 to 2005. Throughout his career, Eustis has been dedicated to the development of new work that speaks to the great issues of our time and has worked with countless artists in pursuit of that aim, including Tony Kushner, Suzan-Lori Parks, David Henry Hwang, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Richard Nelson, Rinne Groff, Tarell Alvin McCraney, and Lisa Kron. He has produced three Tony Award-winning Best Musicals (The 2009 revival of Hair, Fun Home and Hamilton). Eustis was also inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 2017. He is currently a professor at New York University and has held professorships at UCLA, Middlebury College, and Brown University.

Kate Ferber is a singer, songwriter, piano player, and a teacher of all three, based in Los Angeles and New York. Throughout her 17-year career, she has released and performed original music, written and performed her tribute show to the late-great Laura Nyro, and toured/recorded in collaboration with or in support of Lorde, Shawn Colvin, Zara Larsson, Max Frost, Shaina Taub, Grace McLean, and many others. She also starred in Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, a southern gothic musical by John Mellencamp, Stephen King, and T Bone Burnette for three touring and regional productions. Her album, The Great Thaw is available on all platforms now! Kate currently works at MusiCares, an affiliate of the Recording Academy/GRAMMYs, the leading health and human services non-profit supporting everyone working in music.

Danyel Fulton is a Brooklyn born and bred actor/singer. She was last seen starring as Shayla in PAC NYC's inaugural performance of Watch Night. Some of her favorite credits include: Ruby, (Broadbend, Arkansas, Transport Group), Actor 3, (Plays for the Plague Year, The Public), Dorothy (The Wiz, The Muny '18 & Harlem Rep '09), Dionne, (Hair, 2nd National Tour), Nettie, (The Color Purple, PCLO), Charlayne (Ain't Misbehavin', Harlem Rep), Aisha (A Time to Love, National Black Theater), and Sarah (Ragtime, The 5th, Asolo Rep, and TUTS). Danyel received Drama League, Antonyo, and Audelco nominations for Ruby in Broadbend, Arkansas. She has received four additional Audelco nominations for her roles as Shayla, Dorothy (HRT), Charlayne, and Aisha. You can catch her as the Birthday Fairy on PBS' Pinkalicious, and on the Broadbend, Arkansas cast album. www.danyelfulton.com

Jill Furman seeks to produce groundbreaking commercial work that surprises audiences. On Broadway, Jill has produced Suffs (Tony nom.), Freestyle Love Supreme (Special Tony Award), Hamilton (Tony Award), In the Heights (Tony Award), Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella, The Heiress, Seminar, West Side Story, The Drowsy Chaperone, Sly Fox and Fortune’s Fool. On Film and TV, she executive produced Hamilton for Disney+(Emmy Award) and In The Heights. She also produced Hulu's We Are Freestyle Supreme which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020. In 2011, Furman received the Robert Whitehead Award for Outstanding Achievement in Commercial Theatre Producing. In 2024, Jill was selected to be a part of Forbes' 50 Over 50 List.

Pete Ganbarg is a 2X Grammy Award winning record producer and A&R executive who has spent the past 35 years as a senior A&R executive in the record industry.  Most recently President of A&R for Atlantic Records, Pete also operates two music publishing companies, currently in partnership with Warner Chappell Music.  Some of the artists that Pete has worked with in his career include Santana (the 9X Grammy winning album “Supernatural”),  Lin-Manuel Miranda (the Diamond certified “Hamilton” cast album),  as well as contemporary stars (Twenty One Pilots, Christina Perri, Melanie Martinez), all time classic artists (Chaka Khan, Donna Summer, America) and hit Broadway cast recordings and film soundtracks (Dear Evan Hansen, Mean Girls, The Greatest Showman).  Pete also produces and hosts the podcast “Rock & Roll High School,” candid conversations with legends of contemporary music.

Matt Gehring is a director, educator, and comedy creator. Noteworthy productions include Harry Clarke featuring Billy Crudup, written by David Cale (Berkeley Rep, assistant director to Leigh Silverman), and Pop Roulette’s Amazing Earth featuring SNL’s Bowen Yang at Amy Pohler’s Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theater. Matt has garnered recognition for his character comedy at the New Faces showcase, part of the Montreal Just For Laughs festival, and featured in Amazon’s The Tick, Netflix’s Set It Up,and more. He is also the co-creator and leader of the Comedy Artist Makers Program (CAMP), a groundbreaking residency program for comedians at the Obie-winning theater company Ars Nova.

Host committee member.

ANDREA GRODY is an Olivier and Drama Desk Award-nominated music director, arranger, and composer with a focus on developing new work. She is currently the Music Director & Music Supervisor of the Broadway musical SUFFS, for which she also wrote vocal and incidental arrangements.

Andrea was the Music Director, Music Supervisor, and Additional Arranger for the 10-time Tony Award-winning musical THE BAND’S VISIT (Broadway, National Tour). Andrea was also the Music Director, Music Supervisor, and Vocal & Incidental Arranger for the Broadway musical TOOTSIE, which was nominated for 11 Tony Awards including Best Musical. Other favorite projects include the Public Works musical adaptations of AS YOU LIKE IT (music by Shaina Taub) and THE TEMPEST (music by Benjamin Velez) at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, AN AMERICAN TAIL at Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis, CAKE OFF at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA and the Bucks County Playhouse, THE GREAT IMMENSITY at the Public Theater, and ROBIN HOOD at the Williamstown Theatre Festival (as Composer/Music Director).

Andrea was Music Supervisor and Producer of the original Broadway cast recording of SUFFS and Music Director and Co-Producer of the world premiere recordings of Michael Friedman’s THE GREAT IMMENSITY and MR. BURNS: A POST-ELECTRIC PLAY. She was Music Supervisor of the original Public Works cast recording of AS YOU LIKE IT and Music Director and Supervisor of the original Broadway cast recordings of THE BAND’S VISIT (Grammy Award winner, Best Musical Theater Album) and TOOTSIE.

Andrea’s writing credits include the full-length musical STRANGE FACES, a commission from the PRISM Saxophone Quartet, and several songs for The Civilians’ Let Me Ascertain You series, which have been performed at Joe’s Pub, Le Poisson Rouge, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Andrea graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton University, where she majored in Music and minored in Theater. She holds a Master’s degree with Highest Honors in Musical Theatre Music Directing from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Andrea is Associate Director and Resident Music Director at New York Vocal Coaching and the creator of WordWaves.

Jessica Hecht is an accomplished stage actress and appeared most recently in Summer, 1976 opposite Laura Linney (Tony Nomination). Hecht's Broadway credits include The Price opposite Mark Ruffalo, Fiddler on the Roof opposite Danny Burstein, The Assembled Parties opposite Judith Light, Harvey opposite Jim Parsons, After the Fall opposite Carla Gugino, The Last Night at Ballyhoo opposite Dana Ivey and Paul Rudd, Brighton Beach Memoirs opposite Laurie Metcalf, Julius Caesar opposite Denzel Washington, A View from the Bridge opposite Liev Schreiber and Scarlett Johansson (Tony Nomination) Off-Broadway, she has appeared in King Lear opposite Annette Bening, Stage Kiss opposite Sandra Oh, Three Sisters opposite Maggie Gyllenhaal and at Lincoln Center Theater in Admissions for which she received an Obie Award.

She received an Emmy Award nomination for her performance in the Netflix series SPECIAL. She is known to TV audiences for THE SINNER, DICKINSON, THE BOYS, and TOKYO VICE She is also recognizable to television audiences from FRIENDS and BREAKING BAD.

She has just completed filming Eleanor The Great opposite June Squibb (Scarlett Johnasson's directorial debut !)

In 2017, she founded The Campfire Project, an arts-based wellness program that engages refugees in shelters worldwide. July marked their first NYC in collaboration with Project Rousseau and The Worker's Circle. It was a great success and that collaboration continues.

Nikki M. James was recently nominated for her performance as Ida B. Wells in Suffs, currently running at the Music Box Theater. She originated the role of Nabalungi in The Book of Mormon, for which she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.

Her favorite theater credits include Tony Kushner’s A Bright Room Called Day (Public Theater), the Broadway productions of Les Misérables, All Shook Up, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, as well as Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin(Encores!), Romeo & Juliet, Caesar & Cleopatra alongside Christopher Plummer (Stratford Festival), The Wiz (La Jolla Playhouse), Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night (Shakespeare in the Park), Bernarda Alba (Lincoln Center), and Preludes (LCT3).

Her recent notable television work includes Severance (Apple TV+), as well as starring roles in Proven Innocent (FOX) and CBS’s quirky series Braindead. She will also be appearing in the upcoming Disney+ series Daredevil.

As a director, Nikki has helmed episodes of The Bite and The Good Fight. She served as an assistant director to Michael Arden for the Broadway revival of Once on This Island and the live capture of A Christmas Carol starring Jefferson Mays.

She resides in New York City with her family and holds a BFA in Drama from NYU. Nikki is a proud voter and a sustaining member of her local public radio station. You can follow her @nikkimjames.

Selected Off-Broadway: Open Throat (Little Island), The Tempest (Shakespeare in the Park), Hundred Days (NYTW), Joan in Joan of Arc: Into the Fire (Public Theater, Lucille Lortel Award nom), Rimbaud in NY (BAM), New York Animals (New Ohio), Iphigenia in Aulis (Classic Stage Company), and Dance, Dance Revolution (Ohio Theater). Regional: Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Superstar (Lyric Opera of Chicago), Marie Antoinette (American Repertory Theatre/Yale REP), Prometheus Bound (A.R.T.), and The Last Goodbye (Williamstown Theater Festival). TV: HBO’s BETTY, Amazon’s Transparent (Musical Finale), Netflix’s Orange is the New Black, Hulu’s The Path. https://linktr.ee/jo_equality_lampert

STEVEN LEVENSON is a Tony Award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and television writer and producer, whose plays include If I Forget, Core Values, Seven Minutes in Heaven, and The Language of Trees. He wrote the book for the musical, Dear Evan Hansen, which won six Tony Awards, including Best Book and Best Musical, as well as the Olivier Award for Best New Musical. He received nominations for the Writers Guild Award and the Humanitas Prize for his screenplay of tick, tick…BOOM!, which won an AFI Award as one of the top ten Movies of the Year, and was nominated for Critics Choice Association and Producers Guild Awards. He co-created and executive produced the FX series Fosse/Verdon, which was nominated for seventeen Emmy Awards, including Best Limited Series and Best Writing for a Limited Series, in addition to winning the WGA Award and an AFI Award for Outstanding Series. Other honors include the OBIE Award, two Outer Critics Circle Awards, and the John Gassner Memorial Playwriting Award. He is a graduate of Brown University.

Roz Lichter is a lawyer in New York who fell in love with Elizabeth Swados. They married in 2014. While Roz is recognized for her excellence in the practice of law and as a Fulbright recipient, Roz' most treasured experience is watching artists like Shaina Taub grow into the best of themselves under the mentoring from Elizabeth. 

Catherine Markowitz is a TONY award-winning producer and the director of Broadway Votes. Broadway producing credits include: Suffs (Tony Nomination), Just for Us, Parade (Tony Award), What the Constitution Mean to Me (Tony Nomination). In 2024, she co-founded Broadway Votes, a nonpartisan initiative dedicated to promoting voter engagement and participation within the Broadway community and its national audiences. 

Leigh Silverman is a two time Tony nominee and has directed over 60 world premiere new plays and musicals. Broadway: Yellow Face (Roundabout); Suffs (Tony nom); Grand Horizons; The Lifespan of a Fact; Violet (Tony nom), Chinglish; Well. Recent Off-Broadway credits include: We Are Your Robots (TFANA/Rattlestick); Harry Clarke (West End, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Vineyard/Audible). She received a 2011 Obie Award and 2019 Obie for Sustained Excellence.

Liana Stampur is teacher/singer/activist/songwriter/mother and self appointed chair of the Shaina Taub Fan Club (founded in 1998). She is the proud founding performer of ACLU’s Sing Out For Freedom concert. She holds a BFA from NYU and an MS in Early Childhood Education from Bank Street School of Education. Liana is a lead PreK teacher at the City and Country School. She released a children's album in 2020 called A Soft Place To Land which can be found at all of the music places on the internet. 

Nelini Stamp is the Director of Strategy of the Working Families Party. She's spent over a decade in electoral politics and has dedicated her career to the intersection of activism, organizing and culture. She is a founder of the Resistance Revival Chorus, Broadway Votes and the social media manager at SUFFS. She is an award winning organizer and sci-fi nerd.

Michael Starobin is a well-known orchestrator and arranger working on Broadway and in Hollywood. His orchestrations can currently be heard on Broadway in Shaina Taub's SUFFS. He has been the orchestrator for some of Broadway's most innovative musicals such as Falsettos, Sunday in the Park with George, Assassins (2004 Tony Award for Best Orchestrations) and Next to Normal (2009 Tony Award for Best Orchestrations). He was the conductor and orchestrator for Disney's animated film The Hunchback of Notre Dame, orchestrated the songs for Tangled and contributed orchestrations to the film versions of Chicago, Nine, Beauty and the Beast (2017), Mary Poppins Returns, Tick, Tick… Boom! and the upcoming Kiss of the Spider Woman.

RACHEL SUSSMAN is a Tony Award-winning creative producer, educator, and entrepreneur who believes deeply in elevating human stories that challenge existing systems and create more space for inquiry, empathy, and action. She is a co-founder of The Business of Broadway and a partner at Soto Productions, overseeing all theatrical development. Broadway producing credits: Suffs (Outer Critics Circle Award, Tony nom); Special Tony Award and Emmy Award winner Alex Edelman's Just for Us (also on HBOMax); Parade (Tony Award); Prima Facie; and What the Constitution Means to Me (Tony nom, Pulitzer Prize finalist). Select Off-Broadway credits: The Woodsman (Obie Award), The Appointment. A former WP Theater Lab Time Warner Foundation Fellow, Rachel received the 2018 Prince Fellowship in Creative Producing and was named one of Variety’s “2023 10 to Watch on Broadway.” She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University's School of the Arts and NYU Tisch. www.rachel-sussman.com 

Stacey Weinstein, the principal artist and founder of Once Upon A Bride was nominated for a Daytime Emmy in 2014 for Outstanding Achievement in Hairstyling on “Bethenny”. Stacey’s work includes celebrity weddings for Robert Downey Jr., New York Jets’ D’Brickashaw Ferguson, and Tony-winning choreographer Kathleen Marshall. Stacey also styled Betsy Aidem, a Tony nominee, for the special events surrounding the production of A Prayer for the French Republic. This included both the opening night and various press events throughout the run. Stacey has appeared on “Entertainment Tonight”, “My Fair Wedding”, “The Knot LIVE”, and “Get Married”. She’s been featured in InStyle Weddings, New York magazine’s Weddings, and styled covers for People, Glamour, and Forbes. She also worked in The View from 1998 to 2004. Once Upon a Bride is based at Stacey’s full-service NYC salon Loft 26.