Rafael Monserrate - Director

Rafael Monserrate was born in Puerto Rico and studied Acting and Directing at Framingham State College before winning a scholarship to study theatre at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in NYC. He directed a series of plays in NYC before moving to LA to work as an acting and dialogue coach, productions include Miss Miami (NBC), Chasing Pap(20th Century Fox), and The Rundown(Universal Pictures). In 2004 he was hired to voice direct the first all Latin cast animated feature SIAN KAAN and then went on to voice direct A Cat’s Tale starring Michelle Rodriguez, Troy Garity, Jeremy Piven, and Troy Hall. This past December, Rafael directed a television pilot, IMAGINE THIS that is already buzzing all around the networks. Poundcake is his directorial debut.

Troy Hall – Producer/ Screenwriter/ Actor

Troy is a good ol’ Georgia boy but has been living in the New York City area for the last fourteen years. He is a graduate of The American Academy of Dramatic Arts and has been working as an actor for the last eight years. Some of Troy’s film and television credits include THE FAMILY MAN, THE WAR WITHIN, TWO AGAINST TIME, and as “Tito” on ANOTHER WORLD. His theatre credits include DANNY BOY (Official Selection of The New York Fringe Festival), LONESTAR, TRACERS, THE MELVILLE BOYS, AWAKENING, and WRONG FOR EACH OTHER. Troy has made a living doing voice-overs for commercials as well as acting in several on-camera campaigns. He starred in comic genius Marty Granger’s 2005 Miller Lite campaign, which was voted one of 2005’s Funniest Commercials. He also kicked off Cingular Wireless’ “More Bars in More Places” campaign in a commercial called “Road Trip”, directed by world-renowned cinematographer Lance Acord and slated as the most recognizable commercial of 2005 & 2006. Troy has been the voice of a number of national campaigns, including Verizon, Oral-B, H&R Block, Garnier, Dunkin Donuts, and Ralph Lauren.

Troy met writing partner Kevin Logie while doing improv at New York City’s well-known Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, and shortly thereafter, Poundcake was born. “Poundcake” is Troy’s first feature length screenplay, which he also stars in and produced.

Kevin Logie – Producer/ Screenwriter / Actor

Kevin was born and raised in Buffalo, NY. He was a disc jockey working nights and weekends for 103.3 WEDG-FM and then auditioned to be an emcee for the New York Lottery. Competing with over 400 people, Kevin was chosen as the Western New York representative of the New York Lottery Draw Team. He took classes at Studio Arena Theatre School and soon after, moved to NYC to be an actor. Eventually, he ended up doing improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, where he met writing partner Troy Hall, and started writing Poundcake. Poundcake is Kevin’s first feature length screenplay, which he also stars in and produced.

Mridu Chandra - Producer

Mridu Chandra has been producing social issue documentaries and narrative films for the past decade. In addition to co-producing Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin (Sundance 2003, P.O.V. 2003), she produced the documentary film Let the Church Say Amen (AFI/ Silverdocs 2003, Sundance 2004, Independent Lens 2005). Her Indie feature projects include line producing “Love, Ludlow” (Sundance 2005), associate producing Tanuj Chopra’s “Punching at the Sun” (Sundance 2006) and most recently producing “Poundcake.”

She currently teaches documentary classes at The New School in their Graduate Department of Media Studies and at New York University in their School of Continuing and Professional Studies. She is a fellow at American University’s Center for Social Media focusing on ethical practice in documentary filmmaking. Mridu was born in India, grew up in Virginia, and lives in New York City.

Gene Miller - Producer

Gene Raphael Miller studied acting with Mr. Hall and Mr. Monserrate at the American Academy Of Dramatic Arts. He furthered the collaboration with the two in numerous theatrical productions in the late 90's. Gene co-produced "The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me" in 2000, and in 2004, Gene lead produced the recently released at Blockbuster film "Crazy For Love" starring David Krumholtz, Natasha Lyonne, and Tim Blake Nelson. "Poundcake" came next, and most recently Gene has produced a television pilot called "Imagine This!."

David Vaccari - Producer

David Vaccari is currently a casting director at Telsey & Company where his most recent film credits include Jonathan Demme’s, “Rachel Getting Married”, Gus Van Sant’s “Paranoid Park”, Peter Hedges’ “Dan in Real Life”, Helen Hunt’s “Then She Found Me” and Julie Taymor’s “Across the Universe.” Past film projects include “Rent”, “Pieces of April” , “The Bone Collector”, “Keane,” “The Grey Zone” & “Finding Forrester.” In television he has worked on “Whoopi” for NBC, and for HBO he worked with John Leguizamo on his film “Undefeated” as well as the JJ Abrams pilot, “Hope Against Hope.” One of the original casting directors of the stage musical “Rent”, his career in theater casting includes working with Woody Allen, David Mamet, Martin Short, Edward Albee. and Eric Bogosian on premiers of their work. Current commercials include work by Chris Guest, Todd Field, Tom Schiller, Frank Todaro, Noam Murro, Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris and Jared Hess. “Poundcake” marks his first feature as a producer, having produced the short film, “Right Foot, Left Foot”, which appeared on IFC last year.

Anthony Ripoli – Editor

Anthony Ripoli is a graduate of NYU’s Film School and “Poundcake” is his first feature editing credit. Previously, he served as assistant editor on “A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints,” “El Cantante,” and “Fighting” (due out this Spring). Most recently, he edited with David Tedeschi on the Martin Scorsese featurette “Shine A Light: The Making Of” (the Rolling Stones Concert Film).

Josh Silfen – Director of Photography

Josh Silfen has been shooting films since graduating from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2001. In that time he has shot shorts, music videos, commercials, and several feature films including THE BIG BAD SWIM (Tribeca ‘06) and GOODBYE BABY (Slamdance ‘08). POUNDCAKE marks Josh’s first collaboration with director Rafael Monserrate, and his first film in Buffalo.

Celine Diano - Production Designer

Celine Diano began her career on the television series FASTLANE for WB, where she worked with respected production designer Carlos Barbosa (24, CSI: MIAMI). She then branched out on her own, working as a production designer on numerous feature films (Jake's Corner, Juan Frances, Anna Nicole), commercials, music videos and TV programs.

She has also been traveling around the world for various projects (Turkey, Peru) and is now working as a production designer for Sony pictures (Star-ving, Dusty Peacock).

Adam Schoenberg - Composer Original Score

The music of composer Adam Schoenberg (b. 1980) has been hailed as "ruminative" (New York Times), "stunning" (Memphis Commercial Appeal), and "lush" (Kansas City Star). Performance highlights include the Kansas City Symphony, Charleston Symphony, Aspen Music Festival Chamber Orchestra, New World Symphony, IRIS Chamber Orchestra, Juilliard Symphony, Chicago Youth Symphony, American Brass Quintet, New Juilliard Ensemble, and Sybarite Chamber Players. Next year, the American Brass Quintet will release a CD of Schoenberg’s brass quintet, which was commissioned by and premiered at the Aspen Music Festival as part of a recording celebrating its 50th anniversary. Upcoming commissions include the Kansas City Symphony, Albany Symphony, and Blakemore Trio for premieres in 2010 and the Atlanta Symphony in 2011.

Schoenberg is a Doctor of Musical Arts candidate at The Juilliard School, where he studied with John Corigliano and Robert Beaser. Recently completed commissions include pieces for the IRIS Chamber Orchestra, Sybarite Chamber Players, Baldwin High School Symphonic Band, and harpist Gretchen Van Hoesen of the Pittsburgh Symphony. Schoenberg was the First Prize winner at the 2008 International Brass Chamber Music Festival for best Brass Quintet, resulting in the publication of his quintet by Brass Chamber Music. In 2007, he was awarded ASCAP’s Morton Gould Young Composer Award, Juilliard’s Palmer-Dixon Prize for Most Outstanding Composition, and a Meet the Composer Grant from the Southern Arts Federation. He received the 2006 Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has garnered further acclaim from ASCAP and the Society for New Music. His music has been performed throughout the United States at such venues as Alice Tully Hall (Lincoln Center), the Benedict Music Tent (Aspen Music Festival), the Midwest Composers' Symposium, and the Merce Cunningham Studio, as well as broadcast on WCNY.

Adam Schoenberg is a member of BMI and his official website is http://www.adamschoenberg.com.