Professor Emerita Maria Shevtsova (Goldsmiths University of London) is renowned internationally for her research and scholarship on Russian theatre, past and present, contemporary European theatre directors and companies, and the interdisciplinary theories and methodologies of the sociology of theatre, which she has founded and which underpins her entire work. Her more recent books notably include Rediscovering Stanislavsky (2020), (Robert Wilson second, updated edition 2019), The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Directing (2013, co-authored), Directors/Directing: Conversations on Theatre (2009), Sociology of Theatre and Performance (2009), Fifty Key Theatre Directors (2005, co-ed), and Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre: Process to Performance (2004). She is the author of over 150 chapters in collected volumes and articles in refereed journals. Her books and prominent chapters and journal articles have been translated into fifteen languages. Apart from keynote and other contributions to university conferences, acting schools and conservatoires (in English, Russian, French and Italian), Shevtsova gives public lectures at major international theatre festivals across the world, leads post-performance public discussions as well as conversations with theatre actors and directors, serves on the juries of festivals (also as president of the jury of the Belgrade International Festival of Theatre, BITEF) and undertakes other outreach and multimedia activities that include radio and television broadcasts (the UK and abroad), and online talks. She is the editor of New Theatre Quarterly and on the editorial boards of Stanislavsky Studies and Critical Stages, and on the Board of the Stanislavsky Research Centre.

Professor Sharon Marie Carnicke is internationally known for her groundbreaking research in "Stanislavsky in Focus." He next book, "Dynamic Acting Through Active Analysis" is forthcoming in January 2023 with Methuen. She is currently Professor of Theatre and Russian at the University of Southern California (Los Angeles) and founder of the Stanislavsky Institute for the 21st Century. Her books also include "Anton Chekhov: 4 Plays and 3 Jokes," "Checking out Chekhov," "The Theatrical Instinct: The Work of Nikolai Evreinov," and "Reframing Screen Performance" (co-authored). Her honors include a Kennedy Center Award for translation, fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies, and research grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation. As a theatre artist, she is internationally known as a master teacher of Active Analysis, which was created by Stanislavsky and developed by Maria Knebel. She has conducted intensives in the United States and globally at such institutions as the National Association of Acting Teachers (USA), the National Academy of the Arts (Norway), MetodiFestival (Italy), NIDA (Australia), and The Moscow Art Theatre School (Russia). Her work with scientists has applied Active Analysis to the study of emotional expression through motion capture and interactive digital storytelling.

Professor Bella Merlin is a practice-based researcher into the processes of acting. Books include Beyond Stanislavsky (which introduced the process of Active Analysis into British actor training in 2001), and The Complete Stanislavsky Toolkit. Bella has been acting on stage, screen and radio for nearly thirty years, most recently in Shakespeare & Company's 2022 season (Lenox, Massachusetts), including her solo play Tilly No-Body: Catastrophes of Love (a fact-based, musical drama featuring the lives and love of Tilly and Frank Wedekind). With a Ph.D. from the University of Birmingham, UK, and as a graduate of Moscow's State Institute of Cinematography, she is currently Professor of Acting and Directing at the University of California, Riverside. Her approach to Stanislavsky and Knebel's legacy can be seen in Active Analysis in Rehearsal: A Documentary Learning Resource on Digital Theatre +.

Professor Rhonda Blair is Professor Emerita of theatre in the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University. Her expertise includes applications of cognitive science to acting, directing, and text; Anton Chekhov; and politics and feminism related to theatre and performance. In addition to directing and performing in more than 70 productions, she has presented keynote talks and papers at more than 100 conferences and symposia worldwide. She is the author of The Actor, Image, and Action: Acting and Cognitive Neuroscience; editor of an edition of Richard Boleslavsky's Acting: The First Six Lessons; co-editor, with Amy Cook, of Theatre, Performance and Cognition: Languages, Bodies and Ecologies. She has published numerous articles and reviews. She is a past president of the American Society for Theatre Research and received ASTR's 2019 Distinguished Scholar Award. She has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities, among others.