Our Staff

Ave Carrillo - Associate Producer

Ave comes to Fair Game from the Peabody award winning program Studio 360, hosted by Kurt Andersen. Originally, she came from the Bay Area and moved to New York to study music. She quickly learned that the life of a musician is not all it's cracked up to be and landed a job at Murray Street Productions where she became Associate Producer for NPR's Jazz From Lincoln Center, hosted by CBS news correspondent Ed Bradley. She also produced NPR JazzRiffs This Week in Jazz hosted by the infamous jazz critic Stanley Crouch. For the past three years she was the Associate Producer for the arts and culture show Studio 360, hosted by Kurt Andersen. After which, she was convinced to follow the great Kerrie Hillman to join the folks at Fair Game.

Brian Donovan - Head Writer

Brian is an actor, comedian, and writer based in New York City. Some of his notable television credits include contributing writer for Chappelle's Show and co-creating/directing/starring in I Love the 30s, a flagship show for Comedy Central's Motherload. As well as acting on stage, Brian appears frequently on VH1 where he makes fun of the far more famous and successful.

Marit Haahr - Producer

Marit began her career in public radio as a reporter for KQED in San Francisco and then spent three years producing The Infinite Mind in New York. Her work has also been heard on Studio 360, The World, All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Marketplace. She briefly left public radio to indulge her love of pop culture as a story editor at VH1, but she was thrilled to return to the fold to help bring Fair Game into being.

Ed Herro - Writer

Ed is a comedian, writer and commercial actor living in Brooklyn. He has toured the country doing stand-up and written for Comedy Central. After too many jobs in advertising, he has found a home in radio which wonderfully suits his talent in comedy with his face. No matter what Ed is doing, he’d rather be playing video games. No matter what.

Dave Johns - Associate Producer

Dave is a writer and public radio producer in New York. His work has appeared on many national public radio programs, including NPR's All Things Considered and Living On Earth, PRI's Studio 360 and The Next Big Thing, and other shows. He has also written about Iraq for the PBS FRONTLINE/World television series web site.

Chanda Khatso - Production Assistant

Chandapiwa Edward Lucian Khatso comes to Fair Game from the BBC in New York. A self-described global citizen, Chanda grew up in between Zimbabwe and England before moving to the U.S. in 2003. After completing his Masters in Radio and Television at San Francisco State University, Chanda moved to New York in 2005 to work at ABC Radio News.

Matt Lieber - Senior Producer

Matt came to Fair Game from WBUR, where he was a producer for National Public Radio's live morning news program On Point. Before that, he produced for Public Radio International's The Next Big Thing and also for VH1 Radio. He has contributed pieces to NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday, PRI's To The Best of Our Knowledge, and BBC Radio 4's A World In Your Ear.

Jonathan Mitchell - Producer

Jonathan got his first tape recorder for Christmas in 1977 (when he was 7 years old), and has been fascinated by recordings ever since. Fortunately, he managed to channel this obsession into a career in radio, where they let him spend all of his waking days thinking up cool stuff to do with sound. He has produced work for programs such as Studio 360, Weekend America, Marketplace, Radio Lab, Living on Earth, The Next Big Thing, Savvy Traveler, and All Things Considered. He has also produced work for WNYC, WBEZ (Chicago Matters), PRI, Hearing Voices, Time Magazine, The Metropolitan Opera, Antenna Audio, Maxis/Electronic Arts, Nextbook.org, Candide Media, Ben Manilla Productions, and Sirius Satellite Radio. He is the former Senior Producer of Loose Leaf Book Company and the former Creative Director of Beyond Computers, for which he also composed the theme music. He was a member of the production team that created the 2004 Peabody Award-winning episode of Studio 360 which deconstructed Melville's Moby-Dick. His past work also includes the 2004 Golden Reel Award-winning documentary Shades of Gray (co-produced with Ahri Birnbaum), a cell-phone walking tour of Boston hosted by Steven Tyler, and the commercial parodies heard when you turn on the T.V. in the computer games "The Sims" and "The Sims 2." He studied music composition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Mills College. He lives in New York City.

Jessica Vitkus - Producer

Jessica is a writer and producer who began at Sassy magazine in its heyday. Jessica learned to produce TV during her seven years at MTV News and Specials. (She wrote the "Boxers or briefs?" question for the '94 President Clinton town meeting). Jessica wrote for VH1's Pop-Up Video and produced a British version of the show for VH1-UK. Jessica was Head Writer for ABC's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (during the Regis reign), then a field producer/writer for the Emmy-winning Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Jessica produced segments for Martha Stewart's Living TV, until her boss went to jail. She co-developed Craft Corner Deathmatch for Style Network. Then in 2005, Jessica returned to MTV Networks as Supervising Producer for MTV2's Wonder Showzen. (May it rest in peace.) All along, Jessica has worked as a freelance writer – talking about pretty things for Domino magazine, and funny things for Comedy Central promos, among others. She lives in the East Village of New York City.

contributing writers

Mike Birbiglia

Mike gained national notice when he appeared as a guest on the Late Show With David Letterman at age 24. Since then, his Comedy Central debut Two Drink Mike was touted as "the arrival of standup's next big thing" by AMG Music; The Boston Globe recently described Birbiglia's new material as "honest as any Richard Pryor confession, and as engaging and inclusive as an old Bill Cosby record." In Birbiglia's new CD/DVD My Secret Public Journal Live he performs his best stories from his popular blog/newsletter/radio segment in front of a live audience. It is set to be released in Fall 2007.

Gideon Evans

Gideon was a producer on the Emmy award winning Comedy Central show The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He worked behind and in front of the camera on Michael Moore's two television projects, Bravo's The Awful Truth and NBC's TV Nation. He has also performed improvisational comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York City and done voice over work for the cult MTV show Beavis and Butt-head. His proudest moment, however, was when Vice President Dick Cheney singled out Gideon for being a "pillar of goodness and a great American".

Chris Kula

Chris is a comedy writer in New York City. He teaches and performs regularly at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, and is a staff writer at the Onion News Network. Kula has previously written for Time, Inc., Cracked.com, and FUSE TV. He is a drummer and a graduate of the University of Michigan.

Eliza Skinner

Eliza is one half of a tiny musical improv group, I Eat Pandas — a Time Out NY Critic's Pick, 2005 ECNY nominee for Best Musical Act. She is also the voice of Kitty Pryde in Marvel.com's Astonishing X-men, and can be seen in Channel102.net's Sexual Intercourse American Style. More importantly, she sings and plays drums in her band, Stickerbook. Currently she can be seen in her one-person show, Eliza Skinner is: SHAMELESS! (also a Time Out NY Critics Pick) at the UCB Theater.

Todd Levin

Todd Levin is a writer and comedian. He has performed all over New York City and beyond, including at the 2006 US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado and on television, on Comedy Central's Premium Blend. His writing has been published in Salon, McSweeney's, The Onion, RADAR Magazine and in the book, Gawker's Guide to Conquering All Media. You are encouraged to visit his web site, tremble.com.