Director of Playhouse West-Philadelphia, one of the foremost respected acting teachers in the country. For over three decades, Mr. Savant has been integral to Playhouse West achieving its top reputation throughout the industry and as one of the finest acting schools in the world. Helped train some of the most successful film and T.V. actors, including Ashely Judd, James Franco, Tessa Thompson, Scott Caan, Scott Wolf, Jim Parrack, Scott Haze, Wentworth Miller, Alain Uy, Jean Elie and hundreds of other working actors. Artistic Director of the award-winning Playhouse West Theater Company in L.A. over 20 years. Created, co-wrote and directed the award-winning production, “Welcome Home, Soldier”, winner of “Best Drama”, hailed as “the year’s most powerful theater” in 1991. The play closed in Los Angeles in 2016 after 25 years. Directed over 75 stage productions, including The Baby Dance, Light Sensitive, Country Singer, Speed The Plow, Dinner With Friends, Sin and All In A Day's Work. Directed five films including award-winners Red, Buddy, Billy and the Hurricane. Acted in more than twenty films and over 40 stage plays.

Lanford Wilson, was an American playwright, a pioneer of the Off-Off-Broadway and regional theatre movements. His plays are known for experimental staging, simultaneous dialogue, and deferred character exposition. He won a 1980 Pulitzer Prize for Talley’s Folly (1979). Wilson attended schools in Missouri, San Diego, and Chicago before moving to New York City in 1962. From 1963 his plays were produced regularly at Off-Off-Broadway theaters such as Caffe Cino and La Mama Experimental Theatre Club. Home Free! and The Madness of Lady Bright (published together in 1968) are two one-act plays first performed in 1964. Wilson's first full-length play was Balm in Gilead (1965), followed by The Rimers of Eldritch (1967). In 1969, along with longtime associate Marshall W. Mason and others, he founded the Circle Theater (later Circle Repertory Company), a regional theatre in New York City. Wilson remained involved with Circle Repertory until 1996, when it closed. Wilson achieved commercial success with The Great Nebula in Orion (1971), The Hot l Baltimore (1973; adapted for television 1975), and The Mound Builders (1975). He also wrote a cycle of plays about the effects of war on a family from Missouri; these include The 5th of July (1978), Talley’s Folly, A Tale Told (1981), and Talley and Son (1985). His other plays include The Gingham Dog (1969); Lemon Sky (1970); Angels Fall (1982); Burn This (1987); Redwood Curtain (1993); Sympathetic Magic (1997); and Book of Days (1998).