BETTER LATE: DAN BUCATINSKY, DANNY BURSTEIN, DEBRA MONK, DAVID HYDE PIERCE

Emmy-award winning actor, writer and producer, Dan Bucatinsky, stars in and produces the acclaimed third and final season of HBO’s The Comeback. He is set to appear in Netflix’s upcoming reboot of 13 Going on 30, as well as Dig starring Amy Poehler.  Dan played Rob for the entire fourth season of the Emmy-winning HBO comedy Hacks opposite Jean Smart.  Other credits include the Netflix romcom Our Little Secret with Lindsay Lohan and Kristin Chenoweth and the recently released indie thriller Highest Stakes alongside Seth Green and Kevin Dillion for Paramount.  Along with Lisa Kudrow, Dan executive-produced ten seasons of the Emmy-nominated docu-series, Who Do You Think You Are?, four seasons of the Emmy nomincated comedy Web Therapy and the current syndicated game show, 25 Words or Less, which just wrapped it’s eighth season. 

On television, Bucatinsky has appeared in The Baker and the Beauty, 24 Legacy, among dozens of other credits from Friends and Will & Grace to Curb Your Enthusiasm and Chicago Med.  But  he probably best known for his Emmy-winning role as James Novak on Shonda Rhimes’ Scandal and as the writer, producer and star of his first indie romcom All Over the Guy.

Bucatinsky is the author of the best-selling, autobiographical journey of parenthood: "Does This Baby Make Me Look Straight?"  And he resides in Los Angeles with his husband, filmmaker Don Roos, and their two kids.

Photo: Johnny Marlow

Danny Burstein's  22 Broadway shows, including: Marjorie Prime;Gypsy; Pictures From Home; Moulin Rouge; Fiddler on the Roof; Cabaret; Follies; Golden Boy; South Pacific; Drowsy Chaperone; etc.  Off-Broadway: Describe the Night; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Talley’s Folly;  Farnsworth; All in the Timing; etc.  Film: tick, tick, BOOM; The Same Storm; Indignation; The Family Fang; Transamerica; etc.  TV: “Cry Wolf,” “Julia,” “Tokyo Vice,” “Winning Time,” “Will Trent,” “The Good Fight,” “Dr. Death,” “Evil,” “Fosse/Verdon,” “Tales of the City,” “Long Story Short,” “Boardwalk Empire,” “Absolutely Fabulous,” etc.  2021’s Drama League Award, three Drama Desk Awards, four Outer Critics Circle Awards, one Tony Award (9 nominations) and four Grammy Award nominations. 

Debra Monk (Emmy, Tony, Obie and Drama Desk Award-winner) has appeared on film in: Standing Up Falling Down; Demolition; This Is Where I Leave You; Reaching Home; One For the Money; Ass Backwards; The Great Buck Howard; The Savages; Palindromes; Center Stage; Devil's Advocate; In & Out; Extreme Measures; The Bridges of Madison County; Jeffrey; and Fearless.

She has starred on Broadway in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Curtains (Drama Desk Award, Tony nomination); Chicago; Reckless; Thou Shalt Not; Ah, Wilderness!; Steel Pier (Tony nomination); Company; Picnic (Tony nomination); Redwood Curtain (Tony Award); Nick and Nora; and Pump Boys and Dinettes (Co-Author, Tony Nomination). Off-Broadway, she was featured in the original company of Assassins, as well as appearing in Love, Loss, and What I Wore; Show People; The Seagull; The Time of the Cuckoo (Obie Award); Death-Defying Acts; Three Hotels; and Oil City Symphony (Co-author, Drama Desk Award).

On Television, she has appeared on “The Gilded Age”, “Cupertino”, “American Horror Story”, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”, “New Amsterdam”,  "Mozart in the Jungle", “Tell Me a Story”, “Diet Land”, “Mr. Mercedes”, "Grey's Anatomy," "Damages," "Glee," "White Collar."  "Mercy Street," "Madam Secretary," "Blindspot," "Reckless," "Girls," "Brothers and Sisters," "Ghost Whisperer," "The Closer," "Notes from the Underbelly," "Desperate Housewives," "Law and Order," "Frasier" and has appeared in the TV movies: "Good Luck, Charlie: It's Christmas!," "The Music Man," "Eloise at the Plaza," "Eloise at Christmastime," "Ellen Foster," and "Redwood Curtain" (reviving her Tony-winning performance).

Debra won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for her portrayal of Katie Sipowicz on "NYPD Blue."

Susan Stroman is a five-time Tony Award winning director and choreographer. She is most known for the Broadway musicals Crazy for You, Contact, The Scottsboro Boys, and The Producers – winner of a record-making 12 Tony Awards including Best Direction and Best Choreography. Her work has been honored with 2 Olivier, 6 Drama Desk, 13 Outer Critics Circle, 2 Lucille Lortel, and a record six Astaire Awards. 

Her most recent Broadway shows include the musical SMASH, the Delia Ephron play Left on Tenth, the new Kander and Ebb musical New York,

New York, and Selina Fillinger’s play POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive. 

In London’s West End, she most recently directed and choreographed the sold-out concert performance of Little Dancer at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane and the critically acclaimed revival of Crazy for You at the Gillian
Lynne Theatre. 

Other Broadway credits include Prince of Broadway, Bullets Over Broadway, Show Boat, The Frogs, Big Fish, Oklahoma!, Young Frankenstein, Thou Shalt Not, The Music Man, Big, and Steel Pier. Off-Broadway credits include Dot by Colman Domingo, The Beastin the Jungle, Flora the Red Menace, And the World Goes ‘Round, Happiness, The Last Two People on Earth: An Apocalyptic Vaudeville, as well as The Merry Widow for the Metropolitan Opera and Liza Stepping Out at Radio City. She has created ballets for New York City Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and Martha Graham Company. For ten years she choreographed Madison Square Garden’s annual spectacular A Christmas Carol. 

She received the American Choreography Award for her work in Columbia Pictures feature film Center Stage. She is member of the Board of Directors for the Ronald O. Perelman Center for the Performing Arts located at the World Trade Center. She recently has been named the president of Guild Hall's Academy of the Arts. She is the recipient of the George Abbott Award for Lifetime Achievement in the American Theater and an inductee of the Theater Hall of Fame in New York City.

Larry Gelbart had a long, prolific career writing for radio, television, film and stage. He was regarded as a master of situation comedy and one-liners. His earliest stage success was co-writing, with Burt Shevelove, the classic musical comedy A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, which earned him his first Tony Award. He won his second Tony Award in 1990 for City of Angels. Some of his other works for stage include Sly Fox(Drama Desk award), The Conquering Hero and Better Late. He developed, wrote and produced the acclaimed television series M*A*S*H (Emmy Award, Humanitas Prize, Peabody Award, WGA Awards) and the teleplays for Mastergate, Barbarians at the Gate (Emmy nomination, WGA Award), And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself (Emmy nomination, WGA Award) and Weapons of Mass Distraction (Emmy nomination). In addition, he wrote and co-wrote many screenplays, including Tootsie (Oscar nomination, WGA Award), Oh, God! (Oscar nomination, WGA Award), Bedazzled, Blame It on Rio, Neighbors and Movie, Movie(WGA Award).