Peter Flynn is a New York–based award-winning director who specializes in the development of new works as well as staging classic American musicals both in New York and with some of the most notable regional theaters in the country. Peter most recently was in Cape Town, South Africa where he directed the world premiere of Calling Us Home, by Alice Gillham. The production is now slated for a European tour in the fall 2024.

His New York directing credits include the Off-Broadway premiere of Smart Blonde by Willy Holtzman, starring Andréa Burns; the Off-Broadway premiere of Curvy Widow by Bobby Goldman and Drew Brody; Rhapsody in Seth starring Seth Rudetsky; Lee Blessing’s Two Rooms; the 75th anniversary performance of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town with Adriane Lenox, B. D. Wong, and S. Epatha Merkerson; On the 20th Century with Douglas Sills and Marin Mazzie; Chess with Josh Groban and Julia Murney; Funny Girl with Bebe Neuwirth, Whoopi Goldberg, and Lillias White; Skippyjon Jones; and Junie B. Jones (two Lucille Lortel nominations).

Other credits include Andrea Martin’s one-woman show, Final Days! Everything Must Go!; Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop; Gypsy at The Muny; Kiss Me, Kate for the Maltz Jupiter Theatre, where he also directed productions of Man of La Mancha, Born Yesterday, and Other Desert Cities; and Into the Woods and Ragtime (Helen Hayes nominations) for Ford’s Theatre, where he is an associate artist. He was artistic director of Ithaca’s Hangar Theatre for five seasons, overseeing a variety of large-scale productions, intimate plays, and the development of new work.

A graduate of Northwestern University, Peter serves as President on the board of Live and in Color, a non-profit theatre company dedicated to the creation of new plays and musicals by and for BIPOC Theatre Artists. An associate professor of musical theater at Montclair State University, Peter has been directing American History Unbound lectures for nearly a decade, including The Eyes of the World: From D-Day to VE Day at Boston Symphony Hall, Carnegie Hall and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Opera House, and November 1918: The Great War & The Great Gatsby at Carnegie Hall.

Ian Weinberger is the music director of Hamilton on Broadway. He is a proud member of the hip-hop improv group Freestyle Love Supreme, with whom he performed on and off-Broadway, at the Kennedy Center, and on the Tony Awards. New York credits include Chess, A New Brain, Titanic (Lincoln Center), Nobody Loves You, the premiere presentation of The Eyes of the World: From D-Day to VE Day and November 1918: The Great War & The Great Gatsby at Carnegie Hall. Other new works include The Secret of My Success (Paramount Theatre) and Titanic (Hangar Theatre). His arrangements and orchestrations of Titanic and Disney’s Moana Jr. have been heard in productions around the world. Other Broadway and Off-Broadway orchestras as a conductor and/or keyboardist include The Book of Mormon, Kinky Boots, Rocky, Side Show, Chaplin, and Little Miss Sunshine. Television credits include Fosse/Verdon, Peter Pan Live, and The Sound of Music Live. Cast recordings include The Christmas Schooner, A New Brain, and The Theory of Relativity. He holds a bachelor’s degree in music education and percussion performance from Northwestern University and a master’s degree in jazz piano from New York University.

Gene Graham is an award-winning director, producer, and editor with more than 15 years of experience in indie films, branded content, and live events. His work encompasses a diverse field of clients, including The Pulitzer Prizes, Education Writers Association, Biden/Harris 2020 (Situation Interactive), Mercedes-Benz, Ford, PNC Bank, and Morgan Stanley. His most recent feature documentary, This One’s for the Ladies produced by his Determined Pictures, received a Special Jury Recognition at SXSW in 2018. The following year, he was filmmaker-in-residence at Docs in Progress, a nonprofit arts organization that supports documentary filmmakers. Gene’s feature documentary The Godfather of Disco won jury and audience awards at the Fire Island Film Festival, as well as an Emerging Filmmaker Award at the Minneapolis / St. Paul International Film Festival. Among his many indie credits is editor of Maurice Jamal’s American Black Film Festival award-winning dramady Dirty Laundry, which was nominated for a NAACP Image Award, and the 2015 documentary short Renoir at Work, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the 1936 film A Day in the Country. Gene is a graduate of the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Alexander R. Diaz is a multi-talented artist and executive who has made a significant impact in the world of performing arts in New Jersey, New York City, Philadelphia, Miami and abroad. He graduated from the University of the Arts with honors and has since then worked as a performer, director, educator, and producer. Alexander has dedicated his life to promoting arts education and served as the education director at bergenPAC for 12 years. He is currently the executive director at bergenPAC, where he continues to inspire young artists and bring world class entertainment to northern New Jersey. Alexander also serves as a producer, production manager, and set designer for American History Unbound Inc. He is a devoted husband to his beautiful wife Desere and a loving father to his two children, Delilah and Alexander.

Meredith Wagner is a media executive and independent producer whose work on women’s equality and social justice has been honored many times over. Her experience encompassing production, live events, advocacy, and communications has recently included The Pulitzer Prizes, Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, SIPA (School of International and Public Affairs), the newly launched Institute of Global Politics and the Yale Class of ’81. As executive vice president of Lifetime Television, Meredith created campaigns and content to inform and empower women on a range of subjects, including voting, political engagement, and mobilizing to end violence. Those programs helped drive the passage of five bills into law, earned a Governors Award Emmy, and recognition from the Ms. Foundation, the National Domestic Violence Hotline, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, the League of Women Voters and many others. Meredith has also held positions at ABC and CBS. A graduate of Skidmore College, she lives in New York City with Bernedoodle Winston Wagner.

Eric Duran is the media asset manager, video editor, and motion graphics artist for all American History Unbound theatrical projects. His attentive collaboration with other producers and artists helps him turn elemental ideas into sophisticated outcomes. One of Eric’s greatest passions is using his deep knowledge of Photoshop and After Effects to create 3D animations out of still Images and other media. He has worked with Comedy Central, Showtime, Rodale Publications, and Jose Cuervo. He has also worked on numerous independent projects. In addition to music videos and short films, Eric also produced and co-directed the documentary Safe Love, which details the nitty-gritty about safe sex for women in the age of AIDS.  Eric studied cinematography and fine art at CUNY and After Effects and Motion Graphics at Digital Film Academy.

Reece dos Santos is a New York City-based multi-hyphenate artist with a passion for bringing conversation-starting theater to audiences. He is thrilled to be a part of the American History Unbound team. MFA: NYU Graduate Acting class of ’23 (Recipient of Felicia Montealegre Bernstein Scholarship).

An honorary colonel in the 116th Infantry Regiment of the 29th Division, Alex Kershaw is the widely acclaimed and award-winning author of several New York Times best-selling books about World War II, including The Bedford Boys, The Longest Winter, The Few, Escape from the Deep, The Liberator (also a widely praised Netflix limited series), Avenue of Spies, The First Wave, and most recently, “Against All Odds.” A graduate of University College, Oxford, Alex worked as a journalist for The Guardian and other newspapers before moving to the United States in 1994. Alex serves as Resident Historian for the Friends of the National WWII Memorial leads battlefield tours and lectures on World War II. VISIT SITE

The study of American participation in the First World War, and in particular the activities of the 1st Corps of the American 1st Army during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, has been a life-long passion of historian and author Robert John Laplander. His specific research into the “Lost Battalion” of the 77th Division spans 20 years and is perhaps the most extensive ever done. His book on the subject, Finding the Lost Battalion: Beyond the Rumors, Myths and Legend of America’s Famous WW1 Epic, has become the benchmark work on that event, for which he is recognized the world over. His work with the Lost Battalion led to his being a featured expert in The Great War, a six-hour record of America’s contributions in the First World War, presented as part of the American Experience series for PBS in conjunction with the 100th Anniversary of the War. The series aired to great acclaim on April 10th, 11th and 12th, 2017. His lecture, "Hell's Half Acre: The True Story of the Lost Battalion," was featured on CSPAN in late 2018.

Rob has also provided professional development lectures for the US Army to both the old 77th Regional Readiness Command and the 78th (Training) Division and in 2018 he worked with the US Army Center For Military History in leading tours of the Meuse-Argonne in France for current serving soldiers of the army. A much sought-after speaker, he has also been a featured speaker at the 1st Division Museum in Wheaton, Illinois and appeared as part of the discussion panel at the National WW1 Museum in Kansas City. In July, 2023 Rob was raised as a Knight Commander in the order of Prince Danlio I of Montenegro in recognition of his contributions to keeping the stories and memories of the US soldiers of WW1 alive. As such, he is one of only 500 current recipients of the award world-wide.

Dr. Erik Villard is the Digital Military Historian (DMH) at the U.S. Army Center of Military History, Fort McNair, DC, as well as an Army historian of the Vietnam War and one of the world's leading experts on the 1968 Tet Offensive. In his role as the DMH, he produces websites on the Army in World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War, creating twelve websites covering the entire span of Army history. All of the enhanced pictures he publishes are free to be used and are designed to promote history and heritage education efforts for the US Army, the veteran community, and public learning institutions. Erik is a military expert and photo archivist. Erik fuses his authority on military history and expertise as a photo archivist to identify, enhance, and sometimes retouch the most important, powerful and often obscure images used in American History Unbound presentations.

Frank Blazich, Jr. specializes in the American military experience in the twentieth century. A veteran of the U.S. Air Force, he holds a doctorate in modern American history from The Ohio State University (2013). His dissertation, “Economics of Emergencies: North Carolina, Civil Defense, and the Cold War, 1940-1963,” examined the confluence of civil defense, natural disasters, and economic development leading to the evolution of the state’s modern emergency management agency.

Following his doctoral studies, Frank served as the historian at the U.S. Navy Seabee Museum in Port Hueneme, California before moving to Washington, D.C. to serve as a historian in the History and Archives Division of Naval History and Heritage Command. From June to December 2016, Frank served as the historian on Task Force Netted Navy working for the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations.

In January 2017, he assumed his current position as curator of modern military history at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. His first edited book, Bataan Survivor: A POW’s Account of Japanese Captivity in World War II, was published by the University of Missouri Press in February 2017. His second book, “An Honorable Place in American Air Power”: Civil Air Patrol Coastal Patrol Operations, 1943-1943, was published by Air University Press in December 2020.

Additionally, he has published articles, essays, blog posts, book reviews and delivered public talks on numerous topics relating to modern American military history. His work has appeared in the Journal of Military History, Naval War College Review, The Northern Mariner, North Carolina Historical Review, Army History, Naval History, Air Power History, Marine Corps History, War on the Rocks, Volunteer Magazine, Center for International Maritime History, The Sextant, Seabee Magazine Online, Smithsonian Magazine Online, and the Washington Post.

In 2020, he received the Air Force Historical Foundation’s Best Article Award in 2019 for his article “‘Definitely Damaged or Destroyed’ Reexamining Civil Air Patrol’s Wartime Claims,” published in the Spring 2019 issue of Air Power History. In 2022, he received the Keith Matthews Award for Best Article from the Canadian Nautical Research Society for his piece, “Inventors and Innovators: Naval Lighterage and Anglo-American Success in the Amphibious Invasions of German-Occupied Europe,” published in the Summer 2021 issue of Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord. In December 2022, his article “Notre Cher Ami: The Enduring Myth and Memory of a Humble Pigeon,” published in the July 2021 issue of The Journal of Military History, received a 2022 Smithsonian Secretary’s Research Prize awarded for recognizing and promoting excellence in scholarship across the institution.

He is currently the Mid-Atlantic Regional Coordinator for the Society for Military History and the National Historian Emeritus of the Civil Air Patrol at the rank of colonel. He serves the Secretary of the Air Force Historical Foundation and on the board of directors for the National Museum of Civil Defense. Blazich is currently a Knight Grand Officer in the Order of Prince Danilo I of the House of Petrović-Njegoš, a Knight in the Equestrian, Secular and Chapterial Order of Saint Joachim, and a Knight in the Order of the Royal Crown of Hawai’i.