Milton Glaser is an internationally known artist and illustrator. Born on June 26, 1929 in New York City, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, Italy. He has had an eclectic career, starting the Push-Pin design studio in 1954 while teaching at the School of Visual Arts. Collections of his designs appear in book form, including Milton Glaser: Graphic Design and The Underground Gourmet Cookbook. Glaser is perhaps best known for his creation of the I Love NY logo, but he has also created numerous other logos for various entities, including the one for Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize- winning play, Angels in America. In 1968 he co-founded New York magazine, and in 1974, his own… company, Milton Glaser Inc. In 2004, Glaser won a National Design Award Lifetime Achievement from the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. In 2009, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama.
Playwright Tony Kushner was born in New York City and raised in Louisiana. In addition to his plays, Kushner teaches at New York University and has co-written an opera with Bobby McFerrin. Kushner is best known for Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, a two-part seven-hour play that has won many awards (two Tony Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, two Drama Desk Awards, the Evening Standard Award, the New York Critics Circle Award, and the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award). It was also selected one of the ten best plays of the 20th century by London's Royal National Theatre.