Augusto Boal was a theatre director, dramatist, theorist, writer and teacher. He was a Vereador (Legislator) for the Camara dos Vereadores (Legislative Chamber) of Rio de Janeiro from 1993 to 1996. He was the author of The Theatre of the Oppressed, Games for Actors and Non-Actors, The Rainbow of Desire, Legislative Theatre, Hamlet and the Baker's Son: My Life in Theatre and Politics, and The Aesthetics of the Oppressed. He died in Rio de Janeiro in May 2009.

Adrian Jackson is a theatre director, playwright, activist and teacher. He was the Founder and Artistic Director of Cardboard Citizens, a theatre company working with homeless people, from 1991 to 2021. He has translated five books by Augusto Boal with whom he collaborated on a number of occasions and has taught Theatre of the Oppressed in over twenty-five countries across Europe, Asia and Latin America.