George Cram Cook or Jig Cook was an American theatre producer, director, playwright, novelist, poet, and university professor. Believing it was his personal mission to inspire others, Cook led the founding of the Provincetown Players on Cape Cod in 1915; their "creative collective" was considered the first modern American theatre company. During his seven-year tenure with the group, Cook oversaw the production of nearly one-hundred new plays by fifty American playwrights. He is particularly remembered for producing the first plays of Eugene O'Neill, along with those of Cook's wife Susan Glaspell, and several other noted writers.

Floyd James Dell was an American newspaper and magazine editor, literary critic, novelist, playwright, and poet. Dell has been called "one of the most flamboyant, versatile and influential American Men of Letters of the first third of the 20th Century." In Chicago, he was editor of the nationally syndicated Friday Literary Review. As editor and critic, Dell's influence is seen in the work of many major American writers from the first half of the 20th century. A lifelong poet, he was also a best-selling author, as well as a playwright whose hit Broadway comedy, Little Accident (1928), was made into a Hollywood movie.