Original Creative Team

Adaptation by John Hildreth

John Hildreth was born in Madison, Wisconsin and received a B.A. in chemistry from the University of Chicago. While at the University of Chicago, he was a founding member of the ground-breaking improv group, Cardiff Giant Theater, which created original scripted plays and musicals through improvisation, including LBJFKKK, Love Me, and After Taste. Mr. Hildreth is an alumnus of The Second City, and performed at Second City, Northwest in such revues as Casino Evil, and at Second City, e.t.c. in such revues as Whitewater for Chocolate. He was also a resident director at Second City, Detroit for three years, where he directed five consecutive comedy revues, including Generation X-Files. Since 1999, Mr. Hildreth has been an artistic ensemble member of the Lifeline Theatre in Chicago, where his stage adaptations of Around the World in Eighty Days and Johnny Tremain received Non-Equity Joseph Jefferson Awards for Best New Adaptation. He has also recently directed in Chicago at Lifeline, the Metropolis Performing Arts Centre, Live Bait Theater, Emerald City Theatre, Theatre on the Lake, iO (formerly the Improv Olympic), Donny's Skybox Studio, The Athenaeum, and Columbia College, and recently appeared at Piven Theatre, Theatre on the Lake, Live Bait Theater, Northlight Theatre, and Lifeline. Mr. Hildreth lives in Chicago with his wife, Kate, and teaches in the theater department at Columbia College and the Conservatory at The Second City.

Adapted from the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped and A Child's Garden of Verses.

Born and educated in Edinburgh, Stevenson suffered from serious bronchial trouble for much of his life but continued to write prolifically and travel widely in defiance of his poor health. As a young man, he mixed in London literary circles, receiving encouragement from Andrew Lang, and W. E. Henley, the last of whom may have provided the model for Long John Silver in Treasure Island. In 1890, he settled in Samoa where, alarmed at increasing European and American influence in the South Sea islands, his writing turned from romance and adventure fiction toward a darker realism. He died of a stroke in his island home in 1894 at age 44.

A celebrity in his lifetime, Stevenson's critical reputation has fluctuated since his death, though today his works are held in general acclaim. In 2018, he was ranked just behind Charles Dickens as the 26th-most-translated author in the world.