A Special Preview of the Gold Standard Arts Festival

A special preview of what the festival has to offer this year.

The event will be co-hosted by Courtney Simon and Judy Tate, co-chairs of the Career Longevity Salon.

Michele Ganeless is best known for her tenure as President of Comedy Central, a position she held from 2004-2016. Under her leadership, the network grew to be the number one brand in comedy across all platforms. Prior to her role as President at Comedy Central, Michele held programming and leadership roles at USA Network, Comedy Central and MTV. During her multiple terms at Comedy Central, Michele oversaw the growth of the Comedy Central brand as franchises including the Emmy® and Peabody® Award-winning “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”, “The Colbert Report”, “South Park,” “Inside Amy Schumer” and “Key & Peele”, dominated the cultural landscape.

Since leaving Comedy Central, Ganeless has focused her energy and expertise on producing and consulting. Her first feature film, Egg, starring Christina Hendricks, Alysia Reiner and Anna Camp, premiered at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival. She is also a co-producer on Irreplaceable You, which can be seen on Netflix. Both films were written and directed by women, and were produced with a clear mandate: hire more women behind the camera, thus helping to level the playing field for women in entertainment, an issue at the heart of Ganeless’ decision to continue creating content as an independent producer. Ganeless is Chair of the Board of Directors for Comic Relief, Inc, dedicated to ending child poverty around the world, and on the advisory board of Northwestern University’s School of Communications, where she earned her bachelor’s degree.

Jerry Goehring is a theatrical lead producer and arts administrator dedicated to mission-driven content, artists, and organizations. He is a Grammy and Tony-nominated producer and has worked in commercial theatre, service- driven arts, and academic groups for 25+ years. Jerry has produced, created, and worked with award- winning artists while producing on Broadway, the West End, Off- Broadway, in Regional Theatres, and many national tours across North America. His non-profit work includes executive director for The National Theatre of the Deaf, co-founder of Connecticut Children’s Theatre, Weston Woods Institute, Kean University, and Sacred Heart University. During the pandemic Jerry founded Saltbox TV (external – opens in a new window), the first ever free streaming service for older adults formally helmed by Ed Asner.

Caytha Jentis began making movies while driving carpools in suburban New Jersey. Four features later, her most recent film is Pooling to Paradise that was released in August and stars Jonathan Lipnicki, Lynn Chen, Dreama Walker, Jordan Carlos and Taryn Manning. Her other features include Bad Parents whose cast includes Janeane Garofalo, Cheri Oteri, Christopher Titus and Kristen Johnston, And Then Came Love that stars Vanessa Williams, Eartha Kitt, Anna Camp and Ben Vereen, and The One whose cast includes Jon Prescott.

Her other major credits include: The Other F Word, a short form series featuring Steve Guttenberg, Judy Gold, Alysia Reiner and Gilbert Gottfried, and April Showers, a short film that stars Bill Sage and Lorraine Farris. Caytha has produced three WHAM events for Goddard Riverside – a comedy night and two storytelling events. She began her career as a literary agent in New York. Caytha was profiled by the Writers Guild as well as Screenwriter Magazine. She is a member of the Writers Guild, Film Fatales, NYWIFT and the Producers Guild.

Eileen Katz had her start in television at Late Night With David Letterman as a researcher.  She went on to MTV  where as Vice President of Development, launched The Real World franchise, including Road Rules and The State and the original Jon Stewart Show. Eileen was then brought over to Comedy Central as Executive Vice President of Programming where she was part of the team that re-vamped the network by launching a slate of distinctive programming including: South Park and The Daily Show and tent pole events, The Roast and Indecision Political programming.

As an independent Producer, Eileen has most recently created and consulted on programming for Bravo, E, Comedy Central and Amazon Prime. Additionally, Eileen has been Alzheimer’s Ambassador to Congressman Jerry Nadler for the city of New York’s 10th district working to get key legislation passed to support those diagnosed, research and caregivers.

Learn more about the WGAE Career Longevity Salon and other Equity & Inclusion initiatives.