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Leadership Bios

FOUNDERS:

Granville Wyche Burgess
Granville Wyche Burgess is the produced author of numerous plays, musicals, and teleplays, including several specifically developed for children and family audiences. His televised work, including an episode for "Tales From The Darkside" and a stint as staff writer for the soap opera "Capitol," has appeared on CBS, NBC, PBS, and NJN-TV, and in syndication. He was Director of the Walnut Street Theatre School for seven years, teaching writing, acting, and directing. Mr. Burgess has written, directed or acted in over 70 plays and musicals in New York and regionally, and is the recipient of numerous awards, including an EMMY nomination, a CBS/Foundation for the Dramatist Guild production award, and several grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

A graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy, Mr. Burgess majored in History at Princeton University, graduating magna cum laude. Access his professional website at granvilleburgess.com.

Stephen Lawrence
Stephen Lawrence has composed numerous award-winning songs and scores, including over 250 songs for "Sesame Street," for which he received three Emmy Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Music Direction and Composition. His scores for film include Bang The Drum Slowly (starring Robert DiNiro) and One Summer Love (starring Susan Sarandon). He composed and co-produced the title song and others for the Gold Album "Free To Be… You and Me". In addition, he composed and produced the Gold Single "You Take My Breath Away." For HBO he composed the score for the animated “Tale Of Peter Rabbit” with lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, starring Carol Burnett). For Nickelodeon he composed the score for “The Wubbulous World Of Dr. Seuss.” Mr. Lawrence creates the music and songs for Quill's Mr. History Musicals.

He graduated from Hofstra University with a B.A. degree in Music. Access his professional website at stephenlawrencemusic.com.

ADVISORS:

Professor James McPherson
George Henry Davis Professor of American History at Princeton University since 1962, was born in North Dakota, raised in Minnesota, and graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College in 1958, with a Ph.D. in History from Johns Hopkins University in 1963. He is the author of some dozen books on the era of the Civil War and editor of a half-dozen more. His books have won several prizes, most notably the Pulitzer Prize in History for Battle Cry Of Freedom: The Civil War Era (1989) and the Lincoln Prize for For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (1998).

Jolley Christman
Principal at Research for Action - research in K-12 education. Associate Faculty - University of Pennsylvania, Graduate School of Education, and Associate at the Center for Urban Ethnography. Received the Ethnographic Evaluation Award for excellence in the application of ethnographic procedures to policy decision-making from the Council on Anthropology and Education of the American Anthropological Association.

Jane Startz - CEO of Jane Startz Productions, original producer of "The Magic Schoolbus"; creative advisor