George Ault Tad Mosel was born to George Ault and Margaret (Norman) Mosel in Steubenville, Ohio on May 1, 1922. The family moved to New Rochelle, New York during the Great Depression. At the age of 14, Mosel saw Katharine Cornell in the Broadway production of St. Joan which convinced him to pursue a career in theater. Mosel attended Amherst College until 1941 when he dropped out to join the Army. After his discharge, he completed his studies at Amherst and went on to attend Yale Drama School and Columbia University. After graduation, he wrote for and acted on stage before becoming a television screenwriter in the late 1950s. During his career, Mosel wrote more than two dozen original scripts for such live television programs as Studio One and Playhouse 90. He also adapted James Agee's A Death in the Family for the stage and the resulting play, All the Way Home, earned him the Pulitzer Prize in 1961. Tad Mosel died in Concord, New Hampshire on August 24, 2008 and is buried in Wildwood Cemetery in Amherst, Massachusetts.

James Frederick Fields was born to Robert and Margaret Fields in Greeneville, Tennessee on July 31, 1919. He earned his BA at the University of Tennessee (1942) before joining the military. During World War II, he served with the 8th Air Force and eventually rose to the rank of Major. After the war ended, Fields returned to UT, where he taught in the Theatre Department from 1946 until his retirement in 1979. He also completed an MA at Ohio State University (1948), where he was introduced to the concept of the theater-in-the-round. He used the idea when he founded the Carousel Theatre in 1951. Fields was also involved with the Clarence Brown Theatre and served as Director of the Hunter Hills Theatre (which became affiliated with UT in 1966) during the mid-1960s. In addition to his academic work, Fields was involved with the Tennessee Theatre Association, the Greeneville Community Theater, and St. John's Episcopal Church. Fields died in Knoxville, Tennessee on August 31, 1991.