PETER ROTHSTEIN works extensively as a director of theater, musical theater, opera and new work development. He is the Founding Artistic Director of Theater Latté Da, a Twin Cities-based company dedicated to adventurous music-theater. Peter frequently directs workshops of new plays, musicals and operas with Theater Latté Da, the Playwrights’ Center, Philadelphia’s PlayPenn and the Illusion Theatre, where he is an artistic associate. He is the creator of All Is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914, which premiered in a live broadcast on Minnesota Public Radio and has since been broadcast around the globe. In 2018, All is Calm received its Off-Broadway debut at the Sheen Center for Thought & Culture, for which it won a 2019 Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience. Peter has been named three times as one of Minnesota’s Artists of the Year by the Star Tribune, Theater Artist of the Year by Lavender Magazine, Best Director of the Year by City Pages and Artist of the Year by City Pages. He has received nine Ivey Awards for Overall Excellence, and has been awarded grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Theater Communications Group, the Minnesota State Arts Board and the McKnight Foundation. Peter has served on the board of directors for the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, Alive and Kickin’ and the Twin Cities’ Ivey Awards. He also served on the steering committee for the creation of the Minnesota Theater Alliance. He has been as a panelist and evaluator for the Playwrights’ Center, the McKnight Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board and the National Alliance for Musical Theatre’s Festival of New Musicals. Peter has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music and Theater from St. John’s University and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Directing from University of Wisconsin--Madison. 

JOHN MCCUTCHEON is a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He wrote the song “Christmas in the Trenches", based on the historical Christmas Truce of 1914. He has been at the forefront of American folk music since the late '70s, covering a wide variety of traditions including Appalachian dulcimer and fiddle music, topical protest songs, and children's albums for respected folk labels like June Appal, Red House, and Rounder Records. Establishing himself as a master of the hammered dulcimer on the groundbreaking 1977 release The Wind That Shakes the Barley, the Wisconsin native moved into making children's music in the early '80s with albums like Howjadoo and Mail Myself to You. McCutcheon has also performed widely as a storyteller, written several books, worked as a social and labor activist, and produced albums for other artists. He has remained prolific, both on-stage and in the studio, releasing thoughtful, finely crafted albums like the 2006 literary project Mightier Than the Sword and 2013's diverse 22 Days, a collaboration with Bosnian cellist Vedran Smailovic.