Writer / Tony Kushner
Creative Team
Director / Ellie Heyman
Ellie Heyman is a director of theater, film, and mixed media projects. She is Director in Residence at Joe's Pub at The Public Theater. Her recent credits include Adrienne Truscott’s (Still) Asking For It, A$AP Rocky's Lab Rat, ThisTree, Jason Craig and Dave Malloy’s Drama Desk Award-nominated Beardo, Erin Markey’s Boner Killer, Becca Blackwell's They, Themself and Schmerm, Bessie Award-nominated THIS, Jupiter's Lifeless Moons, and The Traveling Imaginary with Julian Koster of Neutral Milk Hotel, which NPR rated one of its "top five shows of the year."
Heyman developed and directed music-fiction podcasts The Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air), rated No. 1 on Apple Podcasts and downloaded more than 5 million times, and the "cult classic" Dreamboy. She is currently developing several film projects and an immersive piece for Virgin Voyages. She is a graduate of Northwestern University and Boston University, and a Drama League and WP Theater Time Warner Directing Fellow Alumna.
Creative Director /
Paul DePoo
Paul Tate dePoo III is a Cuban-American scenic, projection, and production designer. A fifth generation island native of Key West, Florida, dePoo has worked internationally in Seoul, South Korea; Bogotá, Colombia; Toronto, Canada; and Vienna, Austria. He recently won the 2020 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Scenic Design for his production of Grand Hotel at Signature Theatre. dePoo has worked extensively with director Ellie Heyman and has most recently designed with directors and choreographers Marc Bruni, Savion Glover, Michael Greif, JoAnn Hunter, Denis Jones, Lorin Latarro, Kathleen Marshall, Josh Rhodes, and Eric Schaefer. dePoo serves as the resident scenic and projection designer for The Kennedy Center’s Broadway Centerstage Series, whose productions include The Music Man, The Who’s Tommy, Footloose, and Next to Normal. He has designed the scenic elements for the Broadway-aimed productions of Titanic, Bruce Vilanch’s A Sign of the Times, Josephine, and War of the Roses. He has also designed the opening ceremonies for the MUNY's centennial celebration in St. Louis, the nation’s oldest and largest outdoor musical theater. In 2021, dePoo will open Turandot on the world’s largest outdoor opera stage in Vienna, Austria for Oper im Steinbruch directed by Thaddeus Strassberger.
Composer /
Ellis Ludwig-Leone
Ellis Ludwig-Leone is a New York-based composer and songwriter best known as the bandleader for San Fermin, which has toured extensively and has released four studio albums on Sony Masterworks and Downtown/Interscope Records. He has written for a wide variety of orchestras, ensembles, and soloists, and his works have been recorded for Sony Classical and New Amsterdam Records. Ludwig-Leone has worked extensively with choreographer Troy Schumacher, and their ballet Common Ground premiered at the New York City Ballet in 2015. Current theatrical projects include a new musical commissioned by American Repertory Theater, and a dance-opera with Schumacher and author Karen Russell, in association with the American Opera Project. He is a recipient of residencies from MacDowell Colony and Banff Centre for the Arts.
Director of Photography /
Justin Zweifach
Justin Zweifach is an award-winning cinematographer whose work has been featured at Sundance Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, South by Southwest, Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, Slamdance Film Festival, and BAM, and on outlets such as Netflix Original, Amazon Original, HBO, PBS, and The New York Times. Cited on Fandor as a "true breakout star" and "exhilaratingly talented," he won Best Cinematography Award at the New Orleans Film Festival 2017, and worked the camera for the winner of the 2017 Adam Yauch Hörnblowér Award at South by Southwest. Recently he was behind the camera for Garrett Bradley's Time, which took home the U.S. Documentary Directing Award at Sundance 2020.
Production Designer /
Olivia Peebles
Olivia Peebles is a New York City-based production designer, though her work takes her across the United States. Since graduating from Sarah Lawrence College in 2010 with a focus on the arts, Peebles has worked as a set decorator and production designer on feature films and for television. She has worked on films that have premiered at Sundance Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, South by Southwest, and Tribeca Film Festival. Just this past year she had three films premiere at Sundance Film Festival, including Channing Godfrey Peoples' Miss Juneteenth, which she designed. She recently wrapped Catch The Fair One, a feature film by Narcos director Josef Wladyka.
Producer / Eleanor Regan
Eleanor Regan is a New York-based producer of theater and events. Her work includes James & Jerome's The Conversationalists at The Bushwick Starr, an immersive piece celebrating the work of Edward Albee at Sotheby's, Jules Feiffer's Little Murders in an abandoned burger restaurant with the Neon Coven, and Dan Giles' How You Kiss Me Is Not How I Like To Be Kissed at the New York Fringe Festival.
Casting Director / Taylor Williams
Composite Editors/VFX Gabe Aronson, Christopher Ash, Kevan Loney, Kylee Loera, Jess Medenbach Final Production TBD Studios
Video Producer / Tyler Newhouse
Narrative Editor / Daniel Hubbard
Sound Editor / Ed Zisk
Creative Consultant / Muneera Batool
Additional Cinematography / Samuel Ellison, Aashish Gandhi
Stage Manager / Joanna Muhlfelder
Production Manager / Aoife Hough
Associate Director / Ashlin Hatch
Assistant Director / Morgan Reilly
Additional Sound Editing / Ryan Gamblin
Additional Vocals / Jack Henry, Madison Shaheen
Special Thanks / Mariana Anell, Gabi Bazinet, Serah Bennet, Bethany Caputo, AJ Cedeno, Michael Cicetti, Decoda, Lancelot Douglas, Alan Dronek, Downtown Records, James Fluhr, Lily Ganser, Kacey Gritters, Alex Hare, HBO, Jack Henry, Sean Higgins, Namoi Honig, Mikeah Jennings, Joyce Ketay, Robert Kilner, Lauren Ludwig, Gabriel Marin, Gianna Masi, Josh McTaggart, Mary Nittolo, Hayes Peebles, Michael Roche, Aaron Roitman, Heath Saunders, Kevin Sebastian, Brooke Sebold, Corey Schutzer, Madison Shaheen, Sony Classical, Sony Masterworks, Mary Eleanor Stebbins, The STUDIO NYC, Kristen VanDerlyn, Max Vernon, Thomas Winkler, Paul Wontorek
amfAR’s Fight Against COVID-19
With 35 years of experience as a leader in infectious disease research, amfAR is uniquely positioned to identify gaps in current COVID-19 research efforts and quickly mobilize resources to fill them. Already, many amfAR-funded HIV scientists have pivoted their work to focus on the immediate crisis of COVID-19.
amfAR plans to support them, along with other scientists with a variety of expertise, by doing what we’ve done for 35 years: fund research with the greatest potential to achieve breakthroughs and get results. That’s why we launched the amfAR Fund to Fight COVID-19. The first research grants from the Fund were announced in July.