Soheil Parsa is an award-winning director, actor, writer, dramaturge, choreographer, and teacher whose professional theatre career spans two continents. In his native Iran, he completed studies in theatre performance at the University of Tehran and began a career as an actor and director. Arriving in Canada with his family in 1984, he completed a second Bachelor of Arts in theatre studies at York University and then went on to establish Modern Times Stage Company as one of the most exciting culturally diverse theatre companies in Canada. As a director, set and stage designer, translator, adaptor, choreographer, and actor, his work is based on his experience in Iran and focuses on oppression and loss of freedom.

Benj Pasek is an American composer and lyricist, best known for his work with Justin Paul as songwriting duo Pasek and Paul, a composing team for musical theatre, films, and television. Their works include A Christmas Story, Dogfight, Edges, Dear Evan Hansen, and James and the Giant Peach. Their original songs have been featured on NBC's Smash, and in the film La La Land, for which they won both the Golden Globe and Academy Awards for Best Original Song for the song 'City of Stars'.

Jusin Paul is an American composer and lyricist, best known for his work with Benj Pasek as songwriting duo Pasek and Paul, a composing team for musical theatre, films, and television. Their works include A Christmas Story, Dogfight, Edges, Dear Evan Hansen, and James and the Giant Peach. Their original songs have been featured on NBC's Smash, and in the film La La Land, for which they won both the Golden Globe and Academy Awards for Best Original Song for the song 'City of Stars'.

Michael Pavelka is an award-winning theatre designer with over 160 credits to his name, including productions at the National Theatre, RSC, Old Vic, Barbican, West End and abroad. He is a founder member of the acclaimed Propeller Theatre Company, and was Course Director of the MA in Theatre Design at Wimbledon College of Arts.

Paweł Pawlikowski is a Polish-born filmmaker living in Britain. His films include: Last Resort (2000), My Summer of Love (2004), Ida (2013) which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and Cold War (2018), for which Pawlikowski won the Best Director prize at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director.

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) was a Mexican poet and diplomat, winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature.

David Peace is an acclaimed novelist, best known for his Red Riding Quartet (1999–2002), GB84 (2004), The Damned Utd (2006) and Red or Dead (2013).