Original Creative Team

TIM MADIGAN (Playwright) Tim Madigan is a New York Times bestselling author, playwright, journalist and lecturer whose work has often focused on humanitarian concerns and race history and reconciliation. His books include the critically acclaimed and best-selling The Burning: The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, which is a definitive account of America's worst episode of racial violence. In 2019, it was primary source material for the depiction of the massacre in the pilot episode of the Emmy-winning series, Watchmen on HBO. The Burning became a New York Times bestseller in June 2021. That same year Tim's piece on the massacre was the cover story in the April 2021 edition of Smithsonian magazine. 

In 2019, he published Of The First Class, a definitive history of Fort Worth’s renowned Kimbell Art Museum. His most recent major work is another cover story in the November 2024 issue of Smithsonian, this one chronicling a little known massacre of Lakota Sioux people in 1855, and attempts by Lakota descendants to heal generational wounds from the atrocity. In 2017, Tim collaborated with grief therapist Patrick O'Malley on the critically acclaimed, Getting Grief Right: Finding Your Story of Love in the Sorrow of Loss, published by Sounds True. In 2020, Tim published Extra Innings, the story of Fred Claire's remarkable career as general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and in his later years, Claire's triumph over a near-fatal case of skin cancer at the City of Hope Medical Center in California.

A 1995 newspaper assignment led to Tim's interview with Fred Rogers, the icon of children's television, and a close friendship between the two men that lasted until Rogers' death in 2003. Tim's memoir, I'm Proud of You: My Friendship With Fred Rogers, is an intimate account of Rogers' human greatness, and a testament to the healing power of friendship. First published in 2006, I'm Proud of You continues to inspire readers around the globe. The stage adaption of I'm Proud of You, written by Tim and Harry Parker, made its world premiere at Circle Theatre in Fort Worth on October 28, 2023. As of the July 2025, the play has enjoyed five professional productions at theaters around the nation. The transformative relationship between Tim and Fred Rogers, and Tim's own experiences as a seeking and healing human being remain at the heart of his work. Tim continues to speak of Mister Rogers and matters of the heart to audiences around the nation. Tim and his wife, Catherine, live in Texas.

HARRY PARKER (Playwright) Harry Parker has been a Professor of Theatre since joining the faculty at Texas Christian University in 2003. He also served as the Chair of the Department of Theatre for 18 years (2003-2021), and as the Founding Managing Director of the Trinity Shakespeare Festival, which was hosted at TCU for 10 years (2009-2018). 

A native of Oklahoma City, Harry received a B.F.A. in Theatre from TCU, and from the University of Kansas he earned an M.A. in Theatre (Acting/Directing), and a Ph.D. in Theatre and Film. He has also served on the faculty of Westmar College in Iowa, and spent eleven years as the Director of Theatre at Emporia State University in Kansas. For seven summers Harry worked professionally as the Assistant Artistic Director at Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma, where he assisted Artistic Director Lyle Dye in staging more than 35 musicals. He has directed more than 125 professional, community and academic theatre productions across the country including professional productions at the Kennedy Center (Washington D.C.); Stages Repertory Theatre (Houston); American Heartland Theatre (Kansas City); Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma (Oklahoma City) and the Oklahoma City Repertory Theatre. 

In the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex he has directed professionally for Stage West, Amphibian Stage Productions, Jubilee Theatre, Theatre Arlington, Lyric Stage, BishopArts Theatre, and the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, as well as having directed over 15 shows for Circle Theatre. For TCU his directing credits include Company, Sweeney Todd, Everyman, No, No, Nanette, Oklahoma!, Little Women, You Can’t Take It With You, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, The Skin of Our Teeth, and Merrily We Roll Along, among others. 

Harry served a term as the National Chair for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, and has twice been awarded the Kennedy Center Medallion of Excellence for his service to that organization. In 2013, Harry was awarded the TCU Chancellor’s Award as a Creative Scholar and Teacher. In 2018 the University of Kansas named him the first recipient of the Ronald A. Willis Scholar/Artist Award. In 2026, he received the Dean’s Award for Scholarship and Creative Activity at TCU. In 2020, was awarded the Elston Brooks Lifetime Achievement Award by the Live Theatre League. He is an Associate Member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers' Society and a member of the Dramatists’ Guild. Harry has been married to Karen Parker for more than 40 years, and they have two adult children. I’m Proud of You, co-written with Tim Madgian and based on Tim’s memoir, is Harry’s first play.