Originally from Toronto, Alia has built a gratifying career in animation through a series of chance encounters. After graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver (where she studied painting, drawing and printmaking), she needed a job. A production manager she met at a party led her to her first summer gig at Studio B Productions, cell painting, back when people still painted on acetate cells. She stayed more than a decade, producing original Canadian productions such as CTV’s D’Myna Leagues, YTV’s Yvon of the Yukon and Teletoon’s Class of the Titans and other series such as Ned’s Newt (for Nelvana) and The New Woody Woodpecker Show (for Universal Cartoon Studios). New York City became her new home in 2006, after the project she was working on in Vancouver moved to New York and she moved with it, to work on Word World, the Emmy-Award winning series aired on PBS.
Alia is very proud to be working on Peg + Cat, an empowering show that features a strong girl character, is very funny, well written, and has great music and beautiful designs. In fact, she wishes such a program were around when she was a kid, one that showed math is everywhere and can be fun. She also loves working with the creative and ridiculously talented Peg + Cat team everyday, and that she gets to walk to the office from her home in Brooklyn, where she cohabits with a strong-willed feline name Zig.
I’m originally from the Boston area, but Brooklyn is my real home now! I’ve been drawing all my life and eventually ended up marrying my love of film and traditional art by studying animation at NYU. I was incredibly lucky for the opportunity to work as a Junior Designer at 100 Chickens Productions and couldn’t have asked for a better first job in the field that I love! It’s been thrilling and fulfilling to work on a show that will make a difference and help kids learn. In addition to designing elements for the show, I’ve also worked on research art, layout, and design for the interstitials! Outside of work, my hobbies include cooking, biking, traveling, reading, music, and more drawing (always).
Andrew Roberts left his humble fishing village in Maine ages ago in the hopes of getting into animation. Two college degrees and over a decade later, after wearing both creative and technical hats in the industry, he rigs characters full-time for Peg + Cat. He likes to work on his own projects as well. Andrew is not actually from a fishing village.
Playwriting: Plays produced by EST, Playwrights Horizons, Woolly Mammoth, 1812, Wellfleet Harbor, SF Playhouse; published in 5 volumes of Best American Short Plays.
TV: Scripts for Beavis & Butt-head, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Upside Down Show, Bert and Ernie’s Great Adventures, Postcards From Buster, The Wonder Pets! (head writer, Emmy).
Musical theatre: Original concept/additional lyrics for Rent, book for Click Clack Moo (Lucille Lortel nom.), lyrics for No Dogs Allowed, librettos for American Opera Projects.
Educational writing: Science books for WH Freeman, Franklin Watts; history books for Marshall Cavendish; legal column Plain Talk About the Law for NC newspapers.
Favorite thing about 100 Chickens: The people! I can’t get over how great everybody is at what they do, and how much heart they put into their work. Also, the pastries!
More about me: billyaronson.com
From a very young age, Brett has been fascinated with making cartoons. Having graduated from R.I.T.’s Film and Animation department, he now enjoys a blossoming animation career with the pleasure of working on such exciting projects as Jim Gaffigan’s Pale Force for NBC’s Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Adult Swim’s Metalocalypse, The Wonder Pets! on Nick Jr., and the BBC’s 3rd & Bird. Currently, he serves as Animation Director for Peg + Cat and lives in Brooklyn with his loving girlfriend + 2 cats. bretthall.com
Christopher Chandler Jammal, is the full name his mother calls him when she’s mad at him, but boy have times changed. Now her favorite son is a Storyboard Director in the BIG apple, that’s right New York City!! Some of his Projects include Nickelodeon’s The Wonder Pets! and Team Umi Zoomi, Disney’s Chuggington and Tarzan (on broadway), SYFY’s Eureka and PBS’s The Electric Company and Word World. Look for his new Show, Peg + Cat coming Fall 2013 on PBS. He says it’s going to be PAWesome!
Chris has also written on shows for Nickelodeon and PBS. Animated Music Videos for They Might Be Giants and has created Apps for kids. His side Job, as a stand up comedian isn’t really for kids, but trust me, he’s really not that funny. Hey wait a minute, who’s writing this? Oh it’s me, Christopher Chandler Jammal!!!!
Erica’s story begins in Dayton, Ohio, the home of The Wright Brothers. From an early age she was obsessed with children’s media. Big Bird, Fievel Mousekewitz, The Warner Brothers (and the Warner Sister) were a few of her closest friends. Her fascination with cartoons led her to study animation at the Columbus College of Art and Design. In 2004, Erica received a Bachelor of Fine Arts, and with that degree she left the Buckeye State for New York City to pursue her dreams.
Since arriving in the Big Apple she has worn many hats: Designer, Animator and Storyboard Artist. Her work can be seen on Nick Jr’s The Wonder Pets!, Disney’s Third & Bird and Small Potatoes, and now her personal favorite, Peg + Cat for PBS kids! She’s also done concept designs for Hasbro’s Gloworms, Weebles, and Care Bears.
When she’s not hand painting new places for Peg and Cat to explore, Erica can be found baking delicious treats for her co-workers, cooking (she really loves to cook, like, a lot - seriously, this girl would be a chef if she didn’t like drawing and painting just a bit more than cooking), jogging, and hugging her adorable cat, Eli.
Check out her blog at ericakepler.blogspot.com
What can I say about myself that won’t completely bore you? I guess people would say I’m blunt. I definitely say whatever is on my mind, with discretion of course, and I often use humor to make an intense situation seem not so intense. Hence, the perfect combination for being a television Producer. I’ve worked in the children’s television industry for about ten years and I hope to continue working for another one hundred. That’s it in a nutshell, but here are some facts…
Day Job: Producer for Peg + Cat
Credits: Nick Jr’s Jack’s Big Music Show, Blue’s Room, The Wonder Pets! Nickelodeon’s W.A.C.K and Peg + Cat airing on PBS Kids!
Other Roles: Post-Production Supervisor, PBS Kids Packaging, Writer and Producer Nick@Nite On-Air Promos, Writer and Producer Nickelodeon International On-Air Promos
My Job while I commute on the LIRR: Writing about, well, everything and anything that I’m interested in at the moment: Motherhood, personal relationships and let’s be honest for a minute here, really bad reality television. I hope and dream to be a published author some day. (I was this close once and I will be again.)
My Full-time Job: Being a mom to two small boys, Gabriel and Jude. They keep me on my toes, make me laugh (and cry) everyday and I’ve never had a higher dry cleaning bill in my life than I do right now. Not to mention the serious relationship I have with Clairol Natural Instincts in Nutmeg because I have so many gray hairs, but I wouldn’t change a thing.
Passions: Helping to create an amazing, animated pre-school series for kids, working with a super-star team of talented artists who inspire me everyday. And, of course, eating all the chocolate and baked goods that sit on the windowsill behind the water cooler. (And reading sappy Nicholas Sparks novels, but don’t tell anyone!)
Jane Nechayevsky first entered the field of animation when she was just a tiny girl living in Russia, watching her favorite cartoons for hours and drawing incessantly. She went on to graduate from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and has since animated on a variety of TV, film & commercial projects, including Nickelodeon’s The Wonder Pets! & Team Umizoomi, BBC’s 3rd & Bird, Disney’s Go, Baby!, History Channel’s Engineering an Empire, MSNBC’s Why Planes Crash, HBO’s The Wire, and the summer blockbuster film, Green Lantern. When not staring at a computer screen, Jane swing dances, takes care of a mischievous Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, and sometimes sleeps.
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Jennifer Oxley was born in Hollywood, California and caught the filmmaking bug early – she made her first film at the age of seven. Since then she has directed fifteen short films for Sesame Street, as well as the award-winning adaptation of Spike Lee and Tanya Lewis Lee’s children’s book, Please, Baby, Please. Her latest film, The Music Box, was acquired by The Museum of Modern Art for their permanent children’s film collection. Her work in children’s television includes directing and artistic credits. Jennifer is the recipient of an Emmy Award for her role as director on Little Bill, and she created the look and animation style of The Wonder Pets!, which won an Environmental Media Award and the prestigious Japan Prize. Most recently Jennifer teamed up with Billy Aronson to create Peg + Cat for PBS Kids, and is co-founder of 100 Chickens Productions.
To watch The Music Box, click here.
Originally from Pascagoula, MS, three time Emmy Award-winning composer/trombonist/ukulele player J. Walter Hawkes has been an active performer, composer, and arranger/orchestrator in New York City for about two decades. He has played and/or recorded with some people you’ve possibly heard of, Norah Jones, Elvis Costello, John Lithgow and many more you possibly haven’t. It’s also likely that he’s freaked out your little kids with the music he’s composed for The Wonder Pets! (Nick), Third & Bird (CBeebies & Disney Channel), Blue’s Clues (Nick), Bubble Guppies (Nick) as well as other tv cartoony gems on Cartoon Network, Sprout, and the Disney Channel. He is happy and proud to be serving as the Music Director for Peg + Cat. He also enjoys playing with old computers and writing about himself in third person.
Performing Blog
Michael graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and animation from Philadelphia College of Art, UARTS. He has worked in the animation industry in many roles. Before joining 100 Chickens productions he worked as a digital designer for Nickelodeon’s The Wonder Pets! and Blues Clues.
Michael has worked on several animated projects as background color supervisor including: Disney’s Doug, Doug’s 1st Movie, PB&J Otter, Daria, and Nickelodeon’s Doug. He painted color backgrounds for the theatrical film Beavis and Butt-Head Do America. While working at MTV Animation he was the Animation Production Supervisor for the music video I Got You Babe starring Cher and Beavis and Butt-Head.
Two of his abstract animated films are included in the absolute film series Synthetic Movements distributed by The American Federation of Arts. Michael is a member of the electronic musical group Crash Course in Science.
Mason Rather is Supervising Producer for Peg + Cat. In this capacity, Mason creates and implements production processes and oversees day-to-day studio operations to insure successful delivery of PBS’ award-winning, animated series.
A 15-year veteran of the media industry, Mason has successfully delivered more than 400 episodes of content (linear and digital exhibition) for companies including Nickelodeon, Sesame Workshop, AOL, KidzBop and Cartoon Network. In 2012 he was honored with a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children’s Special for his work on Sesame Street’s Growing Hope Against Hunger. Outside the studio, Mason composes music for TV and film clientele including the theme song for Nick Jr’s Blaze and the Monster Machines and regular compositions to Nick Jr’s Wallykazam.
Mason was born and raised in Arkansas and graduated from University of Arkansas. He currently lives in Maplewood, N.J. with his wife and their two children.
Find out more about Mason at www.tastetestcreations.com and www.masonrather.com.
Robert Powers, graduated from The School of Visual Arts in 1999 and has been an Animator/Director working in the New York animation industry ever since. Robert has worked on such shows as Nick Jr’s Little Bill, The Wonder Pets!, Team UmiZoomi and MTV2’s Fridays. With his company Slippery Rock Creative he has worked closely with clients such as PBS, NYRR, Nickelodeon, MTV, The Walt Disney Company, Marriott Hotel Properties and with the artist/musician Moby. In 2009, Robert directed an animated music video for The Subterraneans called TEST. It was an official selection for the 2010 Cannes Independent Film Festival and won best music video for that year.
Steven joined the Peg + Cat team in 2010 during production of the pilot. He is responsible for providing creative sound direction and overseeing the show’s audio production, including voiceover, music, and sound effects work. Some of his favorite day-to-day activities include directing voice talent, working with composers, recording, editing, and mixing.
Steven first met Peg + Cat co-creators Jen Oxley and Billy Aronson in 2004, when they began working together on Nickelodeon’s Emmy Award-winning hit series The The Wonder Pets!, which earned Rebollido an Emmy Award nomination for Best Sound Editing.
Steven Rebollido has been creating high quality sound content for children’s television since 2003. Some of his credits include Sesame Street, The Wonder Pets!, 3rd & Bird, Piper O’Possum, Go, Baby!, The Electric Company, Tobi!, Study Jams, Winnie The Pooh: Wonder & Wander, and short films The Music Box and Petalocity.
He has a degree in Recording Arts (FSU), Producing for Film, Video and Broadcasting (NYU), and two Pro Tools Certifications in Music and Post-Production. He speaks 4 languages, loves the beach, and has been a bagpipe player since the age of 8!
Amy began her career in children’s media in 2004 while studying animation and illustration at RISD. Over the last decade, she’s worked as a designer on a number of film, television, app, and publishing projects for clients like Nick Jr., Disney, CBeebies, and PBS Kids. She likes animals, children’s books, crossword puzzles, the History Channel, Snoopy greeting cards, and dreaming up new worlds for Peg and Cat to explore.
Born in South Jersey and raised on morning cartoons, Zach Decktor studied animation at Delaware College of Art and Design, The University of the Arts, and AnimationMentor. He’s worked as a character animator, motion graphics artist, and Civil War historical interpreter. As Lead Animator on Peg + Cat, Zach loves giving personality to the characters.
Billy Lopez is a writer and musician from New York City. He’s worked on shows for preschoolers, like The Wonder Pets! and 3rd & Bird, and also shows for people who are too old to be preschoolers, like Phineas and Ferb and South Park. Billy lives in Manhattan with his lovely wife, Sarah, their Siberian Husky, Job, and about 20 cheap electric guitars he’s amassed from years of buying things on eBay when he should have been finishing a script.
Qui Nguyen is a Brooklyn-based playwright, screenwriter, and Co-Founder of the OBIE Award-winning Vampire Cowboys Theatre Company of NYC. His work is known for its innovative use of pop-culture, stage violence, and diverse characters. The Chicago Tribune recently praised him as a refreshing, break-the-rules writer.
Qui’s plays include She Kills Monsters (premiered by The Flea; recipient of the 2013 AATE Distinguished Play Award & 2012 GLAAD Media Award nomination); the Off-Broadway productions of Soul Samurai, The Inexplicable Redemption of Agent (both premiered by Vampire Cowboys and Ma-Yi Theater); the hip-hop musical Krunk Fu Battle Battle (East West Players); the high school comedy Aliens Versus Cheerleaders (Keen Company); and the critically acclaimed Vampire Cowboys productions of Alice in Slasherland, Fight Girl Battle World, Men of Steel, and Living Dead in Denmark. He’s currently working on two new musicals: War is Awesome (being developed with the Sundance Theatre Lab) and Sam Versus Fear (commissioned and developed by Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis).
Qui is a resident artist of New Dramatists, The Playwrights Center, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Ma-Yi Writers Lab, and an alumnus of Youngblood. His company, Vampire Cowboys, holds the unique distinction of being the only professional theatre organization to be officially sponsored by NY Comic Con.
Dustin Ferrer is a children’s television writer and – oddly enough – a woman (picture provided for proof!). Other shows she’s worked on include The Wonder Pets!, 3rd & Bird, Team Umizoomi and Bubble Guppies. If you’re old enough to read this bio, perhaps you have seen some of these shows with your kids. If you’re reading this bio and you don’t have kids, perhaps you should get out more.
410.857.2509
Project Director Elementary Mathematics Specialists and Teacher Leaders Project – ems&tl mathspecialists.org
McDaniel College
Westminster, MD
Story at McDaniel professor is consultant for new PBS KIDS math series
ffennell.com
Kevin Del Aguila is an actor, writer and director in New York City. He has written for HBO, NBC, and the Nickelodeon series The Wonder Pets! He is the bookwriter of the hit off-Broadway musical Altar Boyz (NY Outer Critics Circle Award, Lortel and Drama Desk nominations) and lyricist of Click Clack Moo (Lortel and Drama Desk nominations). He received the Heideman Award for his play The Greekest of Tragedies (Actors Theatre of Louisville) and took top prize at the NY Fringe Festival with his comedy 6 story building. Other works include his stage adaptation of the DreamWorks film Madagascar and Nickelodeon’s Storytime Live, both of which played engagements at Radio City Music Hall. Kevin has been commissioned to write several stage adaptations of childrens’ books for Theatreworks USA including Skippyjon Jones, Lilly’s Big Day, Martha Speaks, I Have To Go, Duck for President and The Velveteen Rabbit. Other projects include his middle-aged superhero musical The Astonishing Return of the Protagonists!
delaguila.infoSound Effects Designer, mixer and Foley artist Dick Maitland C.A.S. 16x Emmy award winner.
Melinda Richards LaRose is an Emmy-nominated pen-for-hire, specializing in children’s media. In addition to lending her writing and research talents to Peg + Cat, Melinda writes for the hit Disney Junior show Jake and the Never Land Pirates, Nick Jr.’s Dora and Friends, the Emmy Award-winning Bubble Guppies and the upcoming Sprout/Scholastic series Astroblast. She has also written for Disney Junior’s 3rd & Bird, the Emmy Award-winning series The Wonder Pets!, Dino Dan, Oobi! and Piper O’Possum, among others. Melinda also creates original manuscripts for Disney Publishing based on Jake and the Never Land Pirates and Jungle Junction and has adapted several The Wonder Pets! stories for Simon & Schuster’s Ready-to-Read series. For seven years Melinda served as the in-house writer and story editor at Little Airplane Productions and has worked on developing preschool series with Brazil’s tv PinGuim and on Moonscoop’s Ava Riko Teo. Melinda also writes manuscripts for e-books and interactive books. Her interactive work can be seen in Lazoo’s Squiggles app and on the newly launched Speakaboos iPad app. Melinda got her start in children’s media as the host of The Playground radio show on Boston’s WERS-FM.
Dan has been a musician since the first day he beat a pair of pans with some wooden spoons in the kitchen of his parent’s house. In high school, he started to pursue music and engineering more seriously by joining bands and running the audio for the high school Musical Theater Department. From those experiences, Dan gained interest in the magic that was happening on the other side of the glass. Shortly after high school, he continued his education at The Institute of Audio Research, where he got interested in Audio Post Production. Upon his graduation from IAR, he continued on to become an Audio Engineer on The Wonder Pets! (Nick Jr.) and 3rd & Bird (BBC/Disney). Since then he has ran countless VOs and music records with hundreds of people; most notably Idena Menzel (Rent), and Jim Breur (SNL). During his time at Little Airplane Productions he earned a Daytime Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing on The Wonder Pets! for Nick Jr. and worked as the Audio Engineer on several other Emmy Award-winning shows. Occasionally, Dan works as a live sound technician and stagehand. Mixing, building stages and setting up sound and lighting at places like the Meadowlands Fair, Giants Stadium and the Bethelwoods Performing Arts Center. In the live music world, Dan has been lucky enough to work on concerts for artists such as Brad Paisley, The Fray, Kelly Clarkson, Kenny Chesney, Lauren Allaina, Cousin Brucie, and Ronnie Spector. Dan is now the Audio Engineer on Peg + Cat here at 100 Chickens Productions.
In addition to his work as one of the proud composers for Peg + Cat and his other projects for film, tv and media, the Canadian-born, New York-based pianist/composer D.D. Jackson has written regularly for both The Wonder Pets! (Nickelodeon/Little Airplane) (which won 4 consecutive Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Musical Direction and Composition), and 3rd & Bird (Disney Jr./Little Airplane), and wrote the entire 26-episode score and theme song for the Canadian children’s show The Ocean Room (which won the 2010 Gemini Award for Best Pre-School Series).
An alumnus of the Lehman Engel BMI Advanced Musical Theatre Workshop in New York City, the classically-trained D.D. Jackson begin his career as a jazz pianist/composer, and went on to perform with some of the most acclaimed names in jazz and beyond, including Jack Dejohnette, James Carter, David Murray, and (most recently) Questlove and The Roots on their Grammy-nominated CD Undun. He has also recorded 12 jazz CD’s as leader or co-leader (including two for the major label BMG), ranging from his Juno Award-winning solo piano CD ...so far (RCA Victor/BMG), to his larger-scale meditation on the events of 9/11 entitled Suite for New York (Justin Time Records); and two operas, including Quebecite (based in part on his African-American father and Chinese mother).
As an educator, Jackson also teaches part-time at Hunter College and at the Harlem School of the Arts, and as a writer has penned articles for such publications as the Village Voice and Down Beat magazine (for which he for five years wrote a popular bi-monthly column on his experiences as a jazz musician entitled Living Jazz).
For more on D.D., please visit ddjacksoncomposer.com (covering his work for film, tv and other media), and ddjackson.com (covering his work as a jazz musician).
Zina Goldrich won the 2009 Fred Ebb Award for excellence in songwriting with Marcy Heisler. She is currently working on the musical Ever After, directed by Kathleen Marshall, aiming for Broadway Spring 2014. Goldrich and Heisler’s musical, The Great American Mousical, directed by Julie Andrews premiered last year at Goodspeed’s Chester Theatre in Connecticut last Christmas. Their song, Baltimore was recently sung by Audra McDonald on Live at Lincoln Center. She composed music for Dear Edwina (Drama Desk Nomination) and Junie B. Jones (Lucille Lortel Nomination) which ran successfully Off-Broadway. Snow White, Rose Red (and Fred) (Helen Hayes Nomination) was commissioned by the Kennedy Center and is currently licensed by MTI. On television, she has composed for The Wonder Pets!, Johnny and the Sprites, Pooh’s Learning Adventure and Peg + Cat on PBS. She is the recipient of the ASCAP Richard Rodgers New Horizons Award, a Larson grant and is a Seldes-Kanin Fellow. She has played keyboards on Broadway for Avenue Q, Bombay Dreams, Oklahoma and Titanic, where she also conducted.
marcyandzina.com
Pat Irwin has been living and making music in New York City since the late 1970′s. He is currently scoring the upcoming season of Nurse Jackie for Showtime and recently completed the scores for the HBO Documentary, Fall To Grace, written and directed by Alexandra Pelosi, (Sundance 2013) and Hopper Stories a series of shorts based on works of Edward Hopper including The Muse written and directed by Sophie Barthes (Arte France).
Past credits: HBO’s Bored to Death, numerous independent films including: But I’m A Cheerleader, My New Gun, and Bam Bam And Celeste. He also scored animated television series: SpongeBob SquarePants, Rocko’s Modern Life, Pepper Ann, and Class of 3000 (with OutKast’s Andre 3000). He received a 2012 ASCAP Film & Television Award for his contributions to the SpongeBob soundtrack. The SpongeBob score also received a 2011 ASCAP Film & Television Award.
Pat Irwin was a founding member of The Raybeats and Eight Eyed Spy and later joined The B-52s, recording and performing with the group from 1989–2008.
patirwinmusic.comMartin Erskine is a three-time Emmy Award-winning composer for Nickelodeon’s TV series, The Wonder Pets!, and has composed the scores for 3rd & Bird, currently airing on Disney Junior and the Disney Channel. He has also produced music for numerous Disney movies, including Pocohontas, Enchanted, and Cinderella, and live theme park background music for Disneyland, Disneyworld, Tokyo Disneyland, and Shanghai Disneyland, set to open in 2015. He is currently one of the composers for PBS Kid’s Peg + Cat.
Composer credits include: Nickelodeon’s The Wonder Pets! (5 Emmys), additional music for Disney’s Little Mermaid II, two episodes of Spielberg’s Amazing Stories, several TV documentaries, as well as the films Not for Publication, The Watchman, and Alaska (Omnimax). His orchestral work In Memoriam received its premiere in Berlin (1994) and had its US Premiere with the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra. It is available on CD and is published by E. B. Marks. Orchestration credits: 11 Broadway shows including The Book of Mormon (Tony Award, Drama Desk Award), Pippin, Big Fish, Chaplin, Scottsboro Boys, Monty Python’s Spamalot, The Addams Family, Fiddler on the Roof (2004 revival). 5 Tony Nominations. 25 Regional and Off-Broadway shows including Death Takes a Holiday (Maury Yeston), The Nutty Professor (Marvin Hamlisch), The Landing (John Kander). 17 films include The Informant! (Marvin Hamlisch) and Disney (Annie, Lady and the Tramp II, Little Mermaid II, Geppetto, Cinderella). Recordings and concerts include: Paul McCartney, Eric Idle, Barbra Streisand, Hugh Jackman, Audra McDonald, Barry Manilow, Mandy Patinkin, Boston Pops, San Francisco Symphony, New York Philharmonic.
LarryHochman.net
Beth Richman is an early childhood education expert, with a Master of Education from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education. She has spent the past two decades of her career as a researcher and content specialist in the field of children’s media. Currently, Ms. Richman serves as Research Director for Peg + Cat, a new PBS KIDS educational series for preschoolers created by Billy Aronson and Jennifer Oxley of 100 Chickens Productions and produced by The Fred Rogers Company. In this role, she helps to ensure that young children can comprehend and benefit from the content and curriculum that serve as the basis for Peg + Cat. For example, do children understand the scale of the number 100 in the storyline of Peg + Cat’s debut episode, The Chicken Problem?
Ms. Richman conducts qualitative research with preschool and school-age children, parents, and educators, examining the efficacy of curriculum-based media. She previously served as Director of Development and Creative Executive for Scholastic Media, where she managed the development and production of new television projects, including MAYA AND MIGUEL for PBS. Ms. Richman also held several positions in the Education and Research Division of Sesame Workshop.
Ms. Richman is a contributing author to the book G is for Growing: Thirty Years of Research on Children and Sesame Street and has co-authored numerous articles and delivered a variety of presentations and guest lectures on issues related to creating educational television for children. She is also a Senior Advisor to Children’s Media Association, an organization committed to creating and distributing thoughtful, entertaining media to children and young adults.
Ms. Richman lives in Connecticut with her husband and their two daughters.
Le Kecia Gray was born and raised in Southern California. She received a Bachelors of Arts degree in Radio, Television and Film from California State University, Fullerton. She moved to Brooklyn, NY in 2006.
Le Kecia worked in production on the animated series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Viva Piñata and Chaotic for 4Kids Productions. She has also assisted on video production shoots for the WWE, the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers.
In her spare time Le Kecia enjoys hanging out with friends, reading, watching movies, and anything true crime related.
Writer/lyricist/composer David Steven Cohen has been creating happily-twisted entertainment for over 25 years. He began as a writer for Pee-wee’s Playhouse and ALF, also co-creating NBC’s animated ALFTales, of which he was Executive Producer. David then joined FOX’s Parker Lewis Can’t Lose as Co-executive Producer and Head Writer, going on to co-write Steven Spielberg’s animated feature Balto.
David haunted a generation of innocents as Head Writer of Cartoon Network’s Courage the Cowardly Dog, having first disturbed them as Executive Producer of Nickelodeon’s The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss, for which he received two Emmy nominations and a Writers Guild Award. He also worked with Amy Sedaris and Stephen Colbert as Consulting Producer of Comedy Central’s Strangers With Candy.
David’s recent episodes for the animated series Arthur won him another Emmy nomination, as well as the #1 and #7 spots in Wired Magazine’s “15 Geekiest Episodes of PBS’s Arthur.” The top-ranked episode starred author Neil Gaiman, who guides one of Arthur’s friends as she creates a graphic novel. Gaiman blogged about David’s script: “It’s a delight; with luck…it will usher in a new golden age of comics and creativity.”
David has written lyrics and music for dozens of productions, including theme songs for Wubbulous World, the new series Space Racers (produced with NASA and debuting in 2014) and the song-score for the Warner Bros./Scholastic animated feature Clifford’s Really Big Movie. Lincoln Center’s American Songbook Series celebrated David’s songs in Hear and Now: An Evening of Contemporary Lyricists.
David lives in Brooklyn Heights with his wife and two sons.
Follow David on Twitter: @CohenDS
Visit David’s website: dstevencohen.com
Brad Alexander is the composer of See Rock City & Other Destinations (book and lyrics by Adam Mathias), which received the 2011 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical, six Drama Desk nominations including Outstanding Music, the Richard Rodgers Award and The BMI Foundation Jerry Bock Award. He wrote the music and orchestrations for Theatreworks USA’s Click, Clack, Moo (Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel Award nominee), the music for Just So Stories and Martha Speaks and songs for Duck For President, Fly Guy & Other Stories, and We The People: America Rocks! (Lortel Award nominee). Brad’s music has also been featured on VH1’s “Celebreality” campaign, Showtime’s The L Word, SiriusXM’s Stage Door Supper Club, P.King Duckling and web series Submissions Only. He is a member of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, The Dramatists Guild of America and member Emeritus of The BMI Musical Theatre Workshop.
Visit Brad’s website: bradalexander.com
Allison Leyton-Brown is an award-winning composer, pianist, and Musical Director. She has composed countless original scores for theatre, dance, opera and film productions across the U.S. and Canada. Recent productions include Pete the Cat: The Musical (2015 premiere), and Pilgrimage to the Mouth (Skyline Theater/NJ Arts Collective). Upcoming, Allison is writing score and songs for a regional production of the absurdist play BOB.
Leyton-Brown composes regularly for various TV programs including 20/20, The Good Wife, Primetime, What Would You Do?, and PBS Kids’ Peg+Cat. Recent film credits include dramatic shorts It Had Wings (Archipelago Cine), The Bicycle (NY Film Fest), documentaries Rainy Season and features Millions: A Lottery Story (nationwide screening) and Dog’s Life (Telluride Film Fest).
Leyton-Brown works regularly as a Musical Director, band-leader and recording pianist. Most recently, she musically directed and arranged music for the touring stage show and album of Tennessee Williams: Words and Music, and Bottle Shock: The Musical for the Napa Valley Film Festival and Fogg Theater in SF.
Allison can be seen performing around NYC with multiple groups including New Orleans jazzers Smith & 9th Ward.
Visit Allison’s website: www.allisonleytonbrown.com