Casey Childs founded Primary Stages in 1984 and has directed many productions for the company including works by Jack Heifner, Bob Kingdom, Bill Leavengood, Lee MacDougall, Keith Reddin, and Edwin Sanchez. He served as the Artistic Program Director for the New Dramatists from 1981 until 1985 and has directed other new plays off-Broadway including Lanie Robertson’s Woman Before a Glass at the Promenade Theatre (OBIE Award-winner). Casey is the recipient of the Carnegie-Mellon Commitment to New Playwrights’ Award, as well as two Emmy Awards and many nominations for his extensive work in television. He is a past Vice President of the Directors’ Guild of America and a past trustee of The National Association of Television Arts and Sciences. He has taught at many universities including Columbia’s School of Film, New York University and Duke, and is currently an associate fellow at Calhoun College at Yale University. Casey has a BFA in acting and an MFA in directing from Carnegie-Mellon University.
Casey has served on the Board of chashama for over 10 years and has always been impressed with chashama’s commitment to provide affordable workspaces to young artists.

Anita went to yoga camp at the age of six, and dropped out of high school in the 9th grade. In 1991, Anita was Marilyn Monroe in "Father was a Peculiar Man," a play in NYC's meat packing district with 100 foot long dinner table, a house that blew up, a green Jesus Christ pulling a cross, a band and a cast of 50. She was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for best supporting actress for her silent role in "The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Cont." Anita founded chashama after Reza Abdoh's death because she wanted to continue his creative energy.

David M. Glanstein is a partner in the law firm Glanstein LLP. An experienced contract negotiator and litigator, he also counsels his clients on fiduciary duties, internal audits and investigations, and in formulating compliance policies and procedures.

David regularly advises his clients in all aspects of matters concerning labor and employment laws, employee benefits laws, health care law and regulations, government relations, administrative proceedings and regulations, privacy law, trade secrets and intellectual property protection, and other issues. His clients are involved in myriad industries including transportation, financial services, construction, professional sports, new media and publishing, motion picture and television production, hospitality, and health care.

David received a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations in 1994, and has served on its Alumni Association’s Board of Directors since 2007. He received a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School in 1997 and a Master of Laws from New York University School of Law in 1998. David previously worked as an attorney for the National Basketball Players Association from 1997 to 2000.

David joined Chashama’s Board of Directors in 2009.

STACI LEVINE is a producer and general manager working in theater, concerts and film and is proud to have been associated with chashama since 2000. Producing projects include John Lithgow’s one-man show Stories By Heart, the theatrical concerts Mandy Patinkin in Concert and An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin. She has produced multiple works by the playwright David Simpatico including the musical drama The Screams of Kitty Genovese (Will Todd, composer), the play Mary and short film Wish Fulfillment. Staci general managed the Off-Broadway play The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant by Fassbinder (featuring the fabulous Anita Durst) and was the General Manager for dre.dance, a contemporary dance company created by Taye Diggs and Andrew Palermo. She was associated with Dodger Theatricals, working on numerous Broadway, Off-Broadway and touring productions including Titanic, Footloose, High Society, Blast!, The Music Man, 42nd Street, 1776, Wrong Mountain, Into the Woods, Barbra’s Wedding, Bare, Urinetown, Dracula and Good Vibrations, as a member of Dodger Management Group.

Ms. Packes practiced trial and appellate law primarily in the Federal Courts in New York.

Ms. Packes was President of Feathered Nest, one of Manhattan's largest rental companies, with approximately 70 people engaged exclusively in residential rentals. Ms. Packes specialized the work of Feathered Nest to residential rentals and created a referral system with real estate colleagues in both the sale and commercial markets.

Feathered Nest's creation of its referral system facilitated the distribution of information for the benefit of both industry professionals and consumers in the absence of a multiple listing system. Ms. Packes sold Feathered Nest in 1998 to the owners of Brown Harris Stevens who subsequently also acquired the Halstead Property Company.

Currently, Ms. Packes’ work is devoted primarily to consultation services to developers concerning all aspects of the Manhattan residential market, including but not limited to overall value creation, site acquisition, the planning of mixes and apartment sizes, floorplan layouts, interior finishes, building amenities, and marketing strategy.

Ms. Packes has been twice elected Chairperson of the Ethics Committee and twice elected co-chairperson of the Rental Committee of the Residential Division of the Real Estate Board of New York. She has served as one of seven members of the Board of Directors of the Residential Division of the Real Estate Board of New York.

Chris Pappas is a commercial real estate finance and investment consultant with Global Realty Consulting. Chris manages workouts and restructurings for lenders and underwrites acquisitions for investors. Prior to his current role, Mr. Pappas was the Chief Underwriter for a large Midtown Manhattan based asset manager with a $500 million lending program targeting real estate and finance companies. Previously, Chris was a real estate securities portfolio manager for The Praedium Group and prior to joining Praedium, Mr. Pappas was the portfolio manager for Deutsche Bank‘s $300 million REIT fund. As a portfolio manager Chris was responsible for formulating investment strategies, making investment decisions, trading and fund marketing.

He has also worked as an investment banker at PaineWebber and Chase Securities, raising debt and equity capital in the hundreds of millions of dollars for real estate enterprises and managing single asset and portfolio sale transactions; Chris also worked in an asset management capacity while with Chase. Mr. Pappas started his career at the FDIC’s Division of Liquidation, restructuring, managing and selling loans and real estate assets from failed commercial banks.

Mr. Pappas has a B.S. in Finance from Lehigh University and an M.B.A. in Finance from Columbia University.

For more than 20 years, Michael Rosenblum has been on the cutting edge of the digital ‘videojournalist’ and Citizen News revolution.

During this time, he has lead a drive for videoliteracy, and the Democratization of Video and Video news. His work has included: The complete transitioning of The BBC's national network (UK) to a Vj-driven model, starting in 2002. The complete conversion of The Voice of America, the United State’s Government’s broadcasting agency, (and the largest broadcaster in the world), from short wave radio to television broadcasting and webcasting using the ‘VJ” paradigm (1998-present). The design behind Current TV in partnership with former US VP Al Gore, The construction of a national hyperlocal citizen journalist network with Verizon. The construction of NYT Television, a New York Times Company, and the largest producer of non-fiction television in the US. Rosenblum was both the founder and President of NYT TV, (all based on the “VJ” paradigm – 1996-1998). The President and Founder of Video News International, a global VJ-driven newsgathering company, with more than 100 journalists around the world. (1993-1996).

He has partnered with a number of major media companies including The Guardian (UK), USA Today, New York Magazine, The Travel Channel and others to create video ‘Academies’ where anyone can learn to report, shoot, edit and produce video on their own.

In 2009 he founded nyvs.com, an online video training site.

He has also designed, built and implemented VJ-driven newschannels around the world, including Time/Warner’s New York 1, Associated Newspapers (UK) London based Channel 1, Young Broadcasting stations in the US, Switzerland’s largest commercial TV broadcaster, TeleZuri, as well as a host of smaller projects such as Eritrea’s ERI-TV and Sri Lanka’s SLBC. His consulting clients include The BBC, McGraw-Hill, TV-24/Germany, TV4/Sweden, Oxygen Media, National Public Radio, Danmarks Radio (DK), TV-3 Sweden, Norway & Denmark, Tokyo Broadcasting, Korea Broadcasting.

As a producer, Rosenblum has produced or overseen production on more than 3000 hours of programming for both network and cable. His shows have included the long-running TRAUMA: LIFE IN THE ER, Paramedics, Police Force, Labor and Delivery, Science Times. These series have aired on TLC, Showtime and National Geographic. He has also produced for ABC, CBS, Oxygen and the BBC. Most recently his groundbreaking 5Takes series for Discovery has completely rewritten the production paradigm. The company currently has more than 350 hours in production for this year alone.

He has conducted his unique VJ training classes and bootcamps all over the world, from Thailand to Marrakech, and has lectured extensively both overseas and in the US. He recently entered into a partnership with Discovery Communications to set up the Travel Channel Academy, a national training facility open to anyone. For 8 years he was an adjunct professor of communication at New York University, where he taught “Television and the Information Revolution”, a course of his own design and at The Bauhaus in Germany. Prior to that he taught at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. His Brussels based Rosenblum Institute trains European journalists to work as vjs. He is the author of Videojournalismus (germany).

Richard P. Rubinstein is currently chief cook and bottle washer at New Amsterdam Entertainment. He has been profitably blending art and commerce as a NYC based producer of Feature Films, Miniseries and Syndicated TV Series since 1973. Along the way he took his prior production company public and at various times was a subsidiary of Spelling Entertainment, Blockbuster and Viacom. Mr. Rubinstein holds an MBA from Columbia University and is known for his willingness to give new directors, writers and actors a chance to prove themselves.

Gavin Steinberg joined Chashama's board in 2007, and was the Junior Honoree at Chashama's 2010 Fall Gala. Gavin is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin- Madison (B.A) and is currently a student in Baruch’s Honors MBA program. In addition to earning an MBA Gavin works at Balfour Investors, a merchant bank located in New York City.
In February 2005, Gavin Co-founded Major Key Entertainment, an independent Hip Hop and R&B record label. Here he gained a broad range of experience running the company. Major Key has released 6 albums and 15 singles, including music by three time Grammy winner’s Ghetto and Blues. Gavin has managed many international tours in more than 12 countries and 40 cities. In addition, Gavin is a founding member of the restaurant group that opened Vela Restaurant and Snitch Rock and Roll Bar in New York City, April of 2004.