Meet The Team
Creative Director
Amy Guglielmo
Amy Guglielmo is an award-winning author, educator, artist, and community arts and STEAM advocate. Her eighteen children’s book titles include the Christopher award-winning POCKET FULL OF COLORS: The Magical World of Mary Blair Disney Artist Extraordinaire (Atheneum 2017) and the new WHAT THE ARTIST SAW series with The Metropolitan Museum of Art. As Creative Director, she brings over twenty years of experience in both children’s publishing and public and private school education to the Reading Rainbow Live team.
Executive Producer
Steven Beer
Steven C. Beer created Reading Rainbow Live in early 2021, during the COVID quarantine when concerned parents yearned for new ways to engage and educate their young children. A huge fan of Reading Rainbow, Beer first grasped the outsized role of creativity with learning as a parent watching a kindergarten class taught by RRL Creative Director Amy Guglielmo in 2000. Steven recruited Guglielmo and Producer Mark Harris (Ohana Pictures) to help develop and present the show to WNEDPBS’ Nancy Hammond and her Reading Rainbow team.
Beer is the National Chair of the entertainment, media and sports practice group at Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP, a top ten law firm. He graduated from Washington University in 1981 and Villanova Law School in 1986. He is an executive trustee of the City Parks Foundation/Summerstage and an executive board member of the New York Production Alliance (NYPA).
COO Buffalo Toronto Public Media
Nancy Hammond
Nancy Hammond, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Buffalo Toronto Public Media, has been working for the broadcasting organization since 2005. Before joining BTPM, she worked for the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library system, an institution that was instrumental to her as a child in developing her love of learning and reading. Hammond has held various positions with BTPM including Controller and Chief Financial Officer before being named to her current position of Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer in 2017. She oversees Finance, Human Resources, Facilities, Engineering and Corporate Communications and is a liaison to production companies seeking office and production space when filming in Western New York.
Hammond was integral in the transition of the Reading Rainbow brand to WNED PBS when past partnerships ended. She is responsible for Reading Rainbow licensing and new business opportunities and has been working to develop the next life for the series.
Creative Producer
Mustapha Khan
Mustapha Khan is an Emmy Award-winning American director of uniquely inspiring narrative, documentary, and television films. His credits include: twenty years of original films and specials for Sesame Street and other children’s television shows; and his breakthrough film Reflections of a Native Son, which is on permanent display at the American Museum of Television and Radio. Mustapha Khan is a graduate of Harvard University and a member of the Directors Guild of America.
Ohana Pictures
Ohana Pictures is producing Reading Rainbow Live. Ohana is led by Producer Mark Harris, a creator of Kevin Hart’s “What the Fit” for YouTube and Fox’s “Kicking & Screaming.” The Company has multiple TV projects currently in development with top streamers and linear networks, as well as their first feature film which is in development with a major studio. Ohana has a second feature film also slated to shoot in 2022. Harris has an MFA from the USC School of Cinematic Arts. He is an award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker whose work has been screened at over forty film festivals around the world.
Providing key creative input and support at Ohana is Associate Producer Monica Foley. Ms. Foley is a graduate of Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne Australia, with a masters in Creative Writing.