ALAN HOPGOOD was one of the first Australian playwrights promoted by the Union Theatre Repertory Company. He began professional acting in the company in 1956. He wrote and starred in And the Big Men Fly, in 1963. It was an immediate popular success and was later performed in other states. The Melbourne Theatre Company revived the play in 1988. The company also staged two more of Hopgood's plays: The Golden Legion of Cleaning Women and Private Yuk Objects. In the 1970s Hopgood turned to film and television writing. He returned to the stage in the 1990s with libretti for musicals.

JAMES SEARLE graduated in Architecture from Sydney University in 1960. He initially became involved in amateur theatre as a designer, and then wrote revue sketches and collaborated on a pantomime. He began writing The Lucky Streak in 1964 and it was first produced in 1966 at the Jane Street Theatre in Sydney. His other plays include Change, The First Theatre of Pollution Play, The Married Man and Puss Puss Puss.

KATHARINE BRISBANE AM, Hon.Ph.D (UNSW, UWA) was co-founder in 1971 of Currency Press Pty Ltd, the performing arts publishers and its publisher for 30 years. In 2001 she founded Currency House Inc. as a non-profit association to assert the value of the performing arts in public life. She was a theatre critic for 21 years, notably national critic of the Australian 1967–74 during a time of radical change; and has published extensively on the history of Australian theatre, including Not Wrong, Just Different: Observations on the Rise of Contemporary Australian Theatre (2005) and on drama in The Cambridge History of Australian Literature (ed Peter Pierce, 2009). Over 40 years she has received many awards for service to the performing arts.

DOROTHY HEWETT achieved distinction as a playwright, poet and novelist. Her stage works include The Chapel Perilous, Mrs Porter and the Angels, Bon-Bons and Roses for Dolly, The Golden Oldies, Pandora's Cross, The Man from Mukinupin, Golden Valley, The Fields of Heaven and Nowhere. The plays range in style but all exploit the imaginative possibilities of language, music and theatrical effects. Many of her early plays in particular shocked audiences with their explicit female sexuality, and she retained a maverick image and an ability to polarise audiences and critics through her life. Hewett also published eleven volumes of poetry, with three novels, a collection of short stories and an autobiography.

ALEX BUZO was born in Sydney. He was educated at the Armidale School, the International School in Geneva and the University of New South Wales from which he graduated with a BA in 1965. In 2005 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of New South Wales for his contribution to Australian literature. In 1968, Buzo’s first play Norm and Ahmed was among the first to find a truly Australian voice and gained national attention primarily through a prosecution for obscenity. The exploration of alienation in this play remained a common theme in his work, often delivered with clever and stylish use of the Australian idiom and a tireless commitment to reflecting the true nature of Australian society. In 1972, Buzo was awarded the Australian Literature Society's Gold Medal for his play Macquarie. His plays include Rooted, The Front Room Boys, Coralie Lansdowne Says No, Martello Towers, Makassar Reef, Big River, The Marginal Farm, Shellcove Road and Pacific Union. His work has been produced around the world including the USA, the UK and South East Asia. He was also writer-in-residence at many theatre companies, schools and universities. Following Buzo’s death in 2006, his daughter Emma founded the Alex Buzo Company in 2007.