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Meet The Creative Team

FELICIA D HENDERSON (Writer-director-producer and artivist) created Soul Food, Showtime’s Emmy Award-nominated and three-time NAACP Image Award Best Drama winner, television’s first successful African American one-hour drama.

THE REBEL GIRLS is Felicia’s first film. Most recently, she completed showrunning, head writing, and executive producing duties on the Netflix vampire hunter drama, First Kill.  She co-created and executive produced The Quad, a one-hour drama set on the campus of a fictional HBCU, co-executive produced Marvel’s The Punisher, and Empire.  

She has written and produced high-profile shows such as Gossip Girl and  Fringe.  The lifelong comic book fan has also written several monthly DC Comics titles, including Teen Titans, Justice Society of America, and Static Shock.

Felicia earned her B.A. and M.F.A at UCLA.  She is committed to race, thought, and gender equality and provides arts and education opportunities to teens in underserved communities.  She also supports survivors of domestic violence through free writing workshops at shelter support sites in Los Angeles, CA.

Although she owes her warrior spirit and love of candied yams and banana pudding to her mother’s Mississippi roots, Felicia was born and raised in Pasadena, CA.

KATRINA KUDLICK (Producer) is a queer Los Angeles-based producer and founder of Fever Dream Studios. Her collective body of work includes nine features and showcases. Her projects have included both A-list talent and breakout performances with festival credits and awards hailing from the industry’s top film festivals, such as TIFF, Fantastic Fest, Fantasia SXSW, and the Sitges Film Festival.

Katrina worked as a resident producer for Disney+, where her focus was in marketing and ideating content for the launch of the Disney+ streaming service. Notable credits include Fixation which premiered at TIFF 2022 and Spoonful Of Sugar which recently was released on AMC’s Shudder. Katrina most recently produced Appendage through Fever Dream Studios. Appendage world premiered at SXSW 2023 and is now streaming on Hulu.

KEITH L. SMITH (Director of Photography) is a graduate of the American Film Institute (AFI) in Los Angeles, CA, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree. He began his career as a camera assistant working with filmmakers and long-time mentors Oliver Stone and Robert Richardson, ASC, on such projects as JFK, Heaven and Earth, Natural Born Killers, and Any Given Sunday. His duties on Any Given Sunday included shooting all second unit work, including directing several sequences. Smith lensed Let the Church Say Amen, the feature film that marked Regina King’s directorial debut. His credits also include First Kill, a supernatural vampire teen drama series for Netflix. He is currently working on the series Bel-Air.

MOLLIE WARTELLE (Production Designer) is a production designer from New Orleans. She is interested in building unusual, detailed worlds and set design that conjures memories or dreams. Recently, she designed Linoleum, which premiered at SXSW 2022, and The Starling Girl, which premiered at Sundance 2023.

MARC POLLON (Editor) was born and raised in Los Angeles. After studying History at the University of Oregon, he returned home and by chance had an opportunity to find work in the editorial departments of his future mentors. During that time, he fell in love with the craft and has since edited many hours of television and film, including Black Lightning, Vampire Diaries, FBI Most Wanted, and First Kill.

KURT FARQUHAR (Music Composter) is a Los Angeles-based television and film composer, songwriter, producer, and founder/CEO of True Music, a prominent music licensing company. He has scored more primetime television series than any other African American composer throughout his 35-year career.

In 2022, Farquhar was presented with the Hollywood Music in Media Career Achievement Award. He is an eight-time BMI award winner – four for his work on The King of Queens, two for Being Mary Jane, one for The Game, and one for The Neighborhood. He recently completed composing duties on Netflix’s First Kill. In a rare move for the streamer, it released a soundtrack of Farquhar’s groundbreaking music for the series. In the same year, he scored the mini-series Abraham Lincoln, based on the novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin. He credits his incredible productivity to the fact that ever since he was a child, he says, “I hear music all the time. Even when I’m sleeping.”

ASHLEY NEUMEISTER (Music Supervisor) grew up in a small town in the Midwest. She went to Columbia College Chicago for Music Business and finished with a semester in Los Angeles focusing on Music Supervision. She got a job working as an assistant to a record producer, producer-manager Bennett Kaufman, and ended up starting a music licensing division within his company.

A couple of years later, she got an opportunity to move on to a cutting-edge music library, True Music, headed by legendary composer Kurt Farquhar. She came on as an administrative assistant and is currently the SVP of Farquhar Productions (True Music’s parent company). She heads their Music Supervision and Music Editing teams. In

2019 and 2020, she was nominated for a Guild of Music Supervisors Award (Best Music Supervision in a Television Drama) for her work on Seasons 1 and 2 of American Soul.

KEVIN RANDOLPH AND JON DECUIR (Music Producers) are a dynamic duo of music producing, having worked with artists in various music genres. Their clients range from gospel legend Cece Winans to hip hop artists such as Kanye West. Currently, they’re hard at work producing music for Coco Jones and Andra Day. Their television credits include First Kill (Netflix) and The Quad (BET). Jon and Kevin are highly sought after, classically trained session musicians, and piano virtuosos. Kevin also plays several other instruments, and Jon is an award-winning gospel choir composer/director.
RITA MCGHEE (Costume Designer) is an Emmy-nominated Costume Designer best known for her work in TV and film. After working on only one season on Empire, McGhee received an Emmy nomination in 2015. Although she moved on from Empire after season 1, she has been acknowledged as responsible for creating the looks of all cast members, including “Cookie,” and establishing a fashion-forward foundation for the characters that is cutting edge, groundbreaking, and trend setting. Other work includes Chi-Raq, Zoe Ever After, Let’s Stay Together, Martin, and more.

McGhee has worked with some of Hollywood’s top directors during her 20 years in the business including Spike Lee, Lee Daniels, John Singleton, and actors such as Denzel Washington, Lawrence Fishburne, and Terence Howard. Learning under some of the best in the industry, McGhee credits costume designer Ruth Carter as her mentor. She first worked with Ruth on Mo Better Blues. McGhee was born in San Francisco, CA.

ALITA BAILEY (Costume Designer) has been rising in the ranks of the entertainment industry for more than 15 years. To date she has worked with several of Hollywood’s best, such as Tracee Ellis Ross, Naomi Campbell, Samuel L. Jackson, Courtney B. Vance and Helen Hunt. She has worked on some of the most groundbreaking television series and film projects including New Edition Story, American Soul, P-ValleY, Blindspotting and 61st Street. Her experience has included working with some of the most dynamic directors and producers in Hollywood including Jessie Collins, John Singleton, Spike Lee, Chris Robinson, Debbie Allen and Katori Hall. Bailey was raised on the beautiful Island of Guam and always had a love and passion for fashion, dance, art and music.

Meet The Producers

LIESEL WILKE (Executive Producer) was born in Princeton, NJ and is a graduate of Princeton University and the University of North Carolina School of Law. Liesl made her way from the practice of law to the (much more fun and fulfilling) world of storytelling via short stories, novels, and later, stage plays and screenplays. Her stories and novels have won many awards and have been adapted into current film projects. She wrote and produced the award-winning short film Lines in 2022, and she has produced multiple projects including Girl At A Bar (2023; digital series), More Together (2023; musical short) and STALLED: A New Musical (2022, Pacific Resident Theatre). She now lives in Los Angeles and Seattle where she writes, paints, and advocates for Native American education, Lyme Disease research and human rights of all sorts, from bodily autonomy to freedom of sexual and gender expression.

DR. BERNICE A. KING (Executive Producer) is a global thought leader, strategist, solutionist, orator, peace advocate, and CEO of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center For Nonviolent Social Change (The King Center), which was founded by her mother as the official living memorial to the life, work, and legacy of her father. In this position, Bernice continues to advance her parents’ legacy of nonviolent social change through policy, advocacy, research, as well as education & training through the Kingian philosophy of nonviolence, which she re-branded Nonviolence365™️ (NV365). Through her work at The King Center, she educates youth and adults around the world about the nonviolent principles and strategies modeled by her parents. Under her leadership, the Center has implemented numerous initiatives reaching over 500,000 people around the world, including the Beloved Community Leadership Academy.

CAROLINE WILLIAMS (Executive Producer) is a veteran television writer, producer and creator. Her original series, Miss/Guided, aired on ABC and led to writing for The Office, Modern Family, Arrested Development, BoJack Horseman and others. In addition to television, she has written feature films, directed short projects, and is setting up her feature directorial debut. Born in Atlanta, Ms. Williams grew up in Chicago, Portland and Southern California where she lives with her husband, filmmaker Drew Goddard, and their three children.

MARA BROCK AKIL(Executive Producer) created the UPN comedy Girlfriends (2000-2008) and its spin-off The Game (2006-2015). She later created Being Mary Jane (2013-2019), the first drama series for BET. In 2018, she produced the DC Arrowverse series Black Lightning for The CW and created the show Love Is… for OWN. She is a graduate of Northwestern University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and became a member of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, Inc. a public service organization, founded by Black women at Howard University in 1913. In 2020, she signed an overall development deal at Netflix Studios and is currently beginning production on her first series under that deal, an adaptation of Judy Blume’s Forever. Mara is also the founder of The Writers’ Colony, an in-person residency for burgeoning creative writing talent based in Los Angeles. Mara lives in Los Angeles with her producer-director husband, Salim Akil. The couple  shares two sons.

MAJORIE TINGLE (Executive Producer) is the founder of AniMak26 Inc. She has a zeal for producing interesting, compelling, and thought-provoking narratives. In February 2020, she produced her first documentary, Fireburn, which was shot in Frederiksted, St. Croix. The documentary won awards in numerous film festivals around the world, including the Chicago lndie Awards, Baltimore International Black Film Festival, and the Venice Film Festival. Marjorie a supervisor for Dramatic Education, an enrichment Arts company, where she produces theatrical productions during the school year. Her work allows her to encourage students’ creativity and stage presence by providing opportunities for them to act, sing, and dance.

EDWARD ALLEN BERNERO (Executive Producer) is a former Chicago police officer who began his writing career on Brooklyn South. He then created Third Watch (WB/NBC) with John Wells and quickly worked his way up to Executive Producer. Bernero made his directorial debut on the 100th episode of Third Watch (which he also wrote). He was the Executive Producer/Showrunner for the first six seasons of Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior. He sold a straight to series show in Europe and the U.S. , Crossing Lines, which premiered in 2013 (NBC), which streams on Netflix. He was the Executive Producer/Showrunner for Audience Network’s Ice, produced in Vancouver and South Africa. Bernero has developed several shows through his company Bernero Productions.

BRETT MAHONEY (Executive Producer) is currently the Executive Producer/Showrunner of STARZ’ top- rated show, Ghost: Power Book. Formerly, he served as the Showrunner/Executive Producer for three seasons of Empire on FOX. His writing credits include Eli Stone, CSI: Miami, and The Following for which he was the Co-Showrunner/Executive Producer in its final season.

Mahoney received his BS at Stanford University, Master’s in Journalism from Columbia University, and Law degree from UC Berkeley. Before becoming a television writer, he reported for the Oakland Tribune and the Los Angeles Times and was an on-air journalist and producer for ABC News here he covered the dragging death of Robert Byrd and the OJ Simpson trial. He started his entertainment career as a producer on Dick Wolf’s Crime and Punishment series for NBC.