Benjamin Strouse is a writer, composer and producer who recruited the talented Mars Patel team and serves as Executive Producer of the project. He is currently the CEO of Gen-Z Media (www.gen-z.fm), one of the leading podcast production companies for kids and family programming.
David Kreizman is an award-winning showrunner, writer and producer across television and digital media platforms. David is a co-creator and head writer of Mars Patel. David co-founded Gen-Z Media, where he serves as Chief Creative Officer, overseeing the development and writing of more than a dozen original scripted audio podcasts for families including Becoming Mother Nature, Young Ben Franklin, The Ghost of Jessica Majors, and the on-going sci-fi serial, Six Minutes, named best tween/teen podcast by Common Sense Media. Gen-Z’s podcasts have been downloaded millions of times all over the world and are the gold standard for family friendly audio drama. David served as head writer for the long-running daytime drama, Guiding Light, where he led his team to both an Emmy and Writers Guild Award before moving on to be headwriter of All My Children, As the World Turns and WWE, World Wrestling Entertainment. His young adult novel, The Year They Fell is set to be released by Macmillan in Spring 2019. He lives in Maplewood, NJ, with his wife and three kids.
Chris Tarry is a Juno award-winning musician, writer, and producer. As an author, his book, How To Carry Bigfoot Home (Red Hen Press, March 2015), won the IndieFab book of the year for short fiction, and has been widely praised as one of the best short story collections of 2015. His writing has appeared in publications such as MAD Magazine, Funny or Die, The Literary Review, On Spec, The GW Review, and PANK. As a musician, Chris is a five-time Juno Award winner (the Canadian Grammy), and one of New York’s most in-demand bass players. He has produced countless award-winning albums, developed short films, and is the co-creator and sound architect behind “Mars Patel.” Chris also heads up the music and post-production departments at Gen-Z Media (www.gen-z.fm), setting the sound standard for scripted audio programming, but his favorite job is being a parent to his two awesome kids, Chloe and Lucas, and laughing about all of it with his amazing wife, Michelle in the very Brooklyn-like town of Maplewood, NJ.
Jenny Turner Hall (jennyturnerhall.com) is an Executive Producer, Director, and Writer of Mars Patel, and at the forefront of multi-platform storytelling. Her latest project is simultaneously being developed as a podcast, television show, and video game. It is voiced by host John Oliver of HBO’s Last Week Tonight. Jenny has been named one of the “25 Screenwriters to Watch” by Movie Maker Magazine. Her writing has placed twice at the Austin Film Festival, where she has also served as a featured panelist. The New York Times, The Atlantic’s City Lab, CBS News, NPR, and PRX have all mentioned Jenny’s work in theater and podcasting. She has a weakness for Mel Brooks’ comedy, Dungeons & Dragons, science fiction, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.