Wajdi Mouawad spent his childhood in Lebanon, his adolescence in France, his young adult years in Québec, and he lives in France today. Since graduating from the National Theatre School of Canada in 1991, he has directed productions of contemporary and classical plays and of his own acclaimed plays and adaptations, including the quartet Le Sang des Promesses—Tideline, Scorched, Forests, and Heavens—and the cycle Domestique of Soeurs/Sisters, Mère/Mother, and Seuls. From 2000 to 2004, he was the artistic director of Théâtre de Quat’Sous in Montreal, then of the Théâtre français at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, from 2007 to 2012. In 2016 he directed Mozart’s Il Seraglio for the Opéra de Lyon, and Oedipus for the Opéra de Paris in 2021. He was named Artistic Director of La Colline—théâtre national in Paris in 2016, a position he will hold until 2027. He is also the author of the novel Anima, published to great acclaim in 2012.

Shelley Tepperman is a Toronto-born, Montreal-based writer, dramaturg, and translator. Working from French, Spanish, and Italian, she has brought more than twenty-five plays into English, including Serge Boucher's Natures Mortes and Les Bonbons qui sauvent la vie. Her translations have been produced at CBC Radio and on stages from coast to coast, and she was twice nominated for the Governor General's Literary Award in Translation. From 1994–1998 Shelley worked for CBC Radio developing, adapting, and producing radio dramas for broadcast. She also writes, story-edits, and directs for documentary film and television. She is working on a "Jewish" adaptation of 24 Exposures.