COMPANY STAFF

EXECUTIVE

Jem Jender JEM JENDER a.k.a. James O´Connor-Taylor (Founder & President) In 2006, with support from The Actors Fund of America and Career Transition for Dancers, Jem laid the foundation for PureJem Pictures LLC. More Than A Woman is Jem´s debut as a screenwriter. Jem is also co-author of the new musical Diva Diaries which had sold out runs at The Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, The Broward Center for Performing Arts and the Lakeshore Theater in Chicago. Jem has also written another new musical Sugar Creek which is currently in development. Other writing credits include Total New York, The New York Times, Wire Magazine, Rizzoli & Chronicle books.

As a performer, Jem´s classical ballet career started at The North Carolina School of The Arts. Shortly after, he received a full scholarship with New York City Ballet´s prestigious School of American Ballet. Jem went on to dance with several major Ballet companies including The Boston Ballet, The Joffrey, Chautauqua Dance Theater and The Universal Ballet of Korea. This lead to a contract with The Ballet Trockadero De Monte Carlo and a drag ballerina was born. Famous for his portrayal of "The Dying Swan," Jem toured internationally with the company for five years. During this period he published a book in Japan with art photographer Wouter Deruytter titled Tu-Tu Much, a look at the art of dance and travesty.

Jem also became a strong force in the global fashion and nightclub industry where he toured the world appearing in charitable fashion events and modeling for designers such as Armani, Donna Karan, and Izzac Mizarahi to name a few. As the nightclub drag diva of New York City Jem holds the record for the longest drag nightclub booking ever at John Blair´s The Roxy.

Jem´s film and television highlights include: Hitch, My Super X Girlfriend, Little Manhattan, Miss Congeniality 2, The Summer of Sam and HBO´s Angels in America directed by Mike Nichols. Under the guidance of HBO´s Sheila Nevins, Jem has starred in three HBO documentary features: Girls, Girls, Girls, and most recently Dragtime for America Under Cover. Guest television appearances include Late Night with Conan O´Brian, The Jon Stewart Show, Saturday Night Live, and Entertainment Tonight.

Jem is a member of the historic Players´ Club in New York (Helen Hayes was its first woman member; Jem is the first more-than-a-woman member in its history). www.jemjender.com

Wendy WoodsFRED M CARUSO (Producer) has been working professionally in the business for over 30 years, which is remarkable since he is STILL only 26 years old. As an actor, he has worked in over 40 states in shows like Big River, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Shenandoah, Mame, Music Man, Oliver, etc. When he was 14, he began producing theatre. At age 16, he opened the first Equity theatre company in Hollywood, FL making him the youngest producing artistic director in Equity’s history. After high school he moved to NYC for college. After a few more years of performing, he realized that his true love is producing and writing.

The first show he produced in NYC was the Off-Broadway production of Bitter and Jaded at 25, which he wrote the book, music and lyrics and starred in as well. He then went on to produce and develop the Off-Broadway musical revue NEWSical which opened at Studio 54 and had numerous productions and incarnations all over the country. He received 2 Drama Desk Nominations for his work on NEWSical.

After producing several other shows, Fred decided to give movies a shot. He started as a co- producer and AD on the feature film A
Four Letter Word, and he fell in love with film making. Since then. he has written, produced and directed the hit movie The Big Gay
Musical (currently available on DVD and Blu Ray) and Go Go Crazy (which is in post production). He has produced the movie You
Can’t Have It All starring Wendie Malick (Hot in Cleveland and Just Shoot Me) and Jon Lindstrom (As the World Turns) which will be
released in 2011. He is finishing the screenplay for 2 other movies including the sequel The Bigger Gayer Musical. Fred has one
undisputed talent which is hiring amazingly talented people to work with. He is blessed and honored to have worked with and to be
working with so many brilliant people and he is looking forward to making movie magic with them again.

HARVEY S. TRAISON (Financial Advisor) served LaBranche & Co Inc. from March 2000 to June 2005 as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Prior to joining LaBranche, Mr. Traison was Vice President, Treasurer of DaimlerChrysler North America Holding Corporation from 1984 to 1999. Mr. Traison served three years as CFO of Paramount Group in New York City, a German-owned, U.S.-based commercial real estate company, and fourteen years with Ford Motor Company’s Financial Services subsidiaries in the U.S. and Europe. He is the past Chairperson of the New York Treasurers Group, a member of Financial Executives International and the National Association of Corporate Treasurers Alumni. Mr. Traison graduated with an accounting degree from Wayne State University and earned a MBA degree in finance from The University of Michigan. Mr. Traison is a trustee of the American Friends of the Berlin Staatsoper, the Marlboro Music School and Festival and the Great River Arts Institute, and a Lifetime member of the Glyndebourne Opera Association.

PureJem Pictures is under the guidance of Financial Advisor Harvey Traison while PJP is currently conducting an executive search for CFO.


ETC.

ARNOLD J. CIVINS (Certified Public Accountant)
Citrin Cooperman & Company, LLP
529 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10017

BEN FELDMAN, Esq. (Attorney for PureJem Pictures LLC) is affiliated with Beigelman, Feldman & Associates, P.C. and focuses his practice in matters concerning theatre and independent film. Adept at negotiating and structuring a variety of agreements, Mr. Feldman also provides counsel in the areas of art, book publishing, music, sports and television. His varied clientele consists of film and theater producers, cable television show hosts, actors, publicists, distributors, Obie Award-winning theater directors and Tony and Emmy Award winning writers and composers. He has artfully secured the film rights for stories appearing in publications ranging from The New York Times to Vanity Fair and the live musical stage rights to numerous novels and popular films. In his film practice, he represented more documentaries at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival than any other attorney, and as a producer rep he sold one , in an unprecedented deal, to a national broadcast network for prime time exhibition (he subsequently sold two additional films at the Tribeca Festival later that same year, in the Spring of '04). Mr. Feldman's work as a theatrical attorney was acknowledged on the Tony Awards program (2002), making him one of only a handful of attorneys who have received such an honor. His clients have also been recognized at the Tony's, having been nominated in such categories as best Play Revival (producer) and Best Actress in a Play, both in 2004.

In addition to his legal practice, Mr. Feldman also serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Naked Angles Theater Company, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Hourglass Group and of the New Festival Inc., sponsor of the New York Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. As a producer himself, Mr. Feldman has presented The Cutting Room, a short film featuring Kate Hudson, and the commercial run of The Stand In, a play developed by Naked Angels and later optioned by Miramax.

Formerly, Mr. Feldman was affiliated with Epstein, Levinsohn, Bodine, Hurwitz & Weinstein, LLP from 2002 to 2007. Before that, he was affiliated with the law firms of Parker, Chapin, Flattau & Klimpl, LLP, and Kaufmann, Feiner, Yamin, Gildin & Robbins, LLP. Mr. Feldman was admitted to the New York Bar in 1999. He received his J.D. from New York University School of Law, where he won the ASCAP Copyright Law Prize and the school's Moot Court Oral Argument Competition. He is a Summa Cum Laude graduate of Yale College. CONTACT: Beigelman, Feldman & Associates, P.C., 100 Wall Street, 23rd Floor (@ Water Street), New York, NY 10005 | (212) 230-1300 | E: bfeldman@bfalaw.com | FAX: (212) 230-1090 | www.bfalaw.com.



JOHN HAGER
(Director of Photography) was born on May Day 1975 in Charleston, S.C. and moved to New York in 1999. He studied film production in Charleston and cinematography at Watkins College of Art and Design in Nashville. In 2002 he worked with Entertainment Struggle Magazine as a photographer and photo editor. He has been a director of photography for independent films, documentaries and promotional programs in New York and Los Angeles. Credits include Flesh For the Beast (16mm Feature, Director: Terry West, Fever Dreams Productions) which was awarded "Best Cinematography" at NYC Horror Film Festival; Long Island Love Story (16mm Musical, Director: Peter Phok, Basement Productions); The Last Witch (16mm Feature, Director: John Dolan, Dolan Films); Cocaine Cowboys (16mm short, Director: John & Paul Buckholts, Our Thing Productons); and Blood Bath (16mm-DV Feature, Director: Zac Adams, Bloody Films).


ERIN LEVY
(Web Developer/Designer and WebMaster) Erin graduated from Ithaca College in 2004 with a BS in Cinema and Photography with a concentration in Still Photography. She then went on to receive her MS in Information Technology / Web Design from Marlboro College Graduate Center in 2006. She has worked as web developer and designer in NYC for the last 5 years. Currently she is the Senior Benefits Web Developer at NYU Langone Medical Center. Her expertise fall under User Experience, Design and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). erinelevy@gmail.com

DJ PHILIP KOHL (Music Consultant & Event DJ) Veteran DJ Philip Kohl has been spinning from the tender age of 15 in such clubs as Fantasia, Galaxy 21, The Loft, Ice Palace 57, on Fire Island, in New Orleans, Las Vegas, Dallas and Austin. He is currently an Ipod stylist. Philip has an extensive collection of rare music from the 60s through today which includes illusive remixes, rare DJ sets and mashups. Pkohlnyc1@aol.com.


JOHN MERCURIO
(Composer) wrote the score and co-wrote the book to Diva Diaries which ran for three months at the Lakeshore Theatre in Chicago. Before that, it played to packed houses at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center and set box office records at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

He wrote the music for A Time to Be Born, based on the novel by Dawn Powell, which scored a big success last summer at the Lucille Lortel theatre as part of the New York Fringe Festival. Before that, it was chosen to be part of the National Opera and Musical Theatre Initiative in Boston.

This January, his new musical The Riverhaven Book Club, about an unlikely group of country folk who start a book club to try and improve themselves, had a workshop production at the Lyric Theatre in Florida.

He is the recipient of an award from the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation and a Commendation Award from the Gilman & Gonzalez-Falla Musical Theater Foundation for his work in musical theatre.

John wrote the score for 1001 Nights, the story of a group of abolitionists posing as a traveling theatre company to help a runaway slave along the Underground Railroad. It was developed at a workshop at the George Street Theatre and produced at the Lyric Theatre in Florida. His original show A Tailor's Tale was chosen to be developed at the Eugene O'Neill National Music Theatre Conference in 1999.

John is currently developing a musical entitled Myth, a contemporary variation of three Greek myths in present-day New York City. He is also writing songs for an original play with music, Arturo's Window, (www.arturoswindow.com), which tells the fascinating true story of John Jerome. This spring it had its sold-out premier as part of the York Theatre Developmental Reading Series.

John has composed the incidental music to plays and the scores to three ballets including one on which he collaborated with former New York City Ballet dancer Miriam Mahdaviani. He has also written and illustrated three children¢s books. He has received degrees from the Eastman School of Music and NYU and was a member of the BMI Advanced Musical Theatre Writing Workshop. www.johnmercurio.com

PETER PHOK (Producer & Line Producer) Born in New York City and raised in the suburbs of Long Island, Peter grew up loving movies and developed a passion to make them. This desire took him to the School of Visual Arts where he wrote, produced, shot, edited, and directed many short films including his senior year thesis, a dramatic musical tragedy about an outsider's journey into Long Island's posh house party scene, titled Long Island Love Story. The film earned much notoriety after its acceptance by IFP's Buzz Cuts and the New York International Independent Film & Video Festival where it was acquired by RCN's IT-TV television program Shoot It which highlights student films of extraordinary vision. Upon graduation with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Film, Peter went to work with Ti West, fellow SVA graduate and collaborator, on The Roost as a production manager and associate producer. This low budget indie horror feature written and directed by Ti West and produced by Susan Leber with executive producer Larry Fessenden, premiered at the 2005 South by Southwest film festival with much success and received both theatrical release and DVD distribution. Peter continued to demonstrate his professional abilities as he went on to production manage another film with accomplished producer Susan Leber. Bittersweet Place, directed by Alexandra Brodsky and starring Seymour Cassell, received honorable mention at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival. Peter then went on to assistant direct Bristol Boys, an indie film produced and directed by Brandon David, starring Tom Guiry which released on DVD in the spring of 2007. Peter's personality, organization, managerial skill and desire to make movies have taken him to produce Ti West's second feature with executive producer Larry Fessenden, Trigger Man, world premiering at the 2007 SXSW film festival. Peter continues to produce feature films for Larry's production company Glass Eye Pix under the Scareflix banner, which includes the directorial debuts of Graham Reznick's I Can See You and Glenn McQuaid's I Sell The Dead. Peter resides in the New York area working on projects that draws his attention and interests as he prepares to produce his
own feature film project.


STEPHEN WAGNER (Production Assistant)
Stephen Wagner attended Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY where he majored in theatre. He has stage managed many productions at Kitchen Theatre Company working with award-winning actors, playwrights and directors. He has worked on many national tours (CATS, RENT, THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE, OKLAHOMA). Stephen currently lives in Ithaca and is a freelance stage manager.

 


Copyright 2007 PureJem Pictures, LLC | Contact the WebMaster: erinelevy@gmail.com

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