Emmy winner Lori Kaye formed Putti Media with Leslie Thomas in 2007 to develop projects for TV, film, theater and anything that they feel wildly passionate about or that makes them laugh until they pee. Lori’s career includes work in documentary and unscripted television, stand up comedy, theatre, journalism and film. She has an extensive background in fashion programming and a deep love for comedy and prides herself on being able to take any subject matter and create a compelling audience experience from concept to completion.

 

Lori produced and directed Emmy-winning documentary KEVYN AUCOIN Beauty & The Beast In Me. Prior to that she executive produced docuseries Arranged about arranged marriage in America for FYI Network. Her first foray into reality TV began with the first season of the groundbreaking series Joe Millionaire, one of the most watched shows in FOX television history. Kaye served as executive producer and showrunner of Bravo’s Work Out which she developed from concept. She also served as executive producer and showrunner on docuseries Kathy Griffin: My Life on The D List and First Class All The Way for Bravo, molecular gastronomy show Future Food, The Real Skinny for TLC and docuseries Curl Girls for LOGO. Kaye also executive produced the highly acclaimed LOGO documentary series The Ride: 7 Days To End AIDS that detailed the struggles and triumphs of six people riding for a cure. Other television credits include competition series Blush: The Search for the Next Great Makeup Artist on Lifetime and American Princess for NBC.

 

Lori’s fashion programming includes the series MODEL for Style Network which highlighted the careers and behind-the-scenes lives of models Giselle Bundchen; Carmen Kass; Amber Valetta; Alek Wek; Nadja Auermann; Maggie Rizer and Paulina Porizkova among others. Lori also developed and produced the documentary series STYLEMAKER for Style Network which featured such noted style icons as Donna Karan; Michael Kors; Sean “Puffy” Combs; Vera Wang; Simon Doonan; Kevyn Aucoin, Carolina Herrera, Mark Badgley and James Mischka, the Zegna family and many more. Other in-depth fashion interviews include Anna Wintour, Patrick McCarthy, John Fairchild and Hal Rubinstein.

 

Lori is also a writer. Her career as a professional stand-up comic spanned twelve years, scores of comedy clubs and numerous television appearances. Her first play, the comedy Girls Room, had its world premiere at the Imagined Life Theater in Los Angeles to rave reviews and a three-month run. Lori's latest play is The Bagel Principle. Kaye was also a regular entertainment feature contributor to The Advocate for several years. Lately, she has been developing documentaries and scripted comedy with partner Leslie. She finds this process a fertile fusion of her producing and writing skills.

 

Lori is a proud graduate of The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.

Leslie is thrilled that her passion project, TV pilot EAT ME, a character-driven, raw, high-speed ensemble comedy based on years in the trenches showrunning food competition TV is ranked so highly on Coverfly. 

 

And her indie film HONESTY WEEKEND won Best Romantic Comedy from Film Threat out of 2000+ indie films reviewed by them. More about this feature at honestyweekend.com.

​

As Executive Producer Leslie showruns multiple baking series for Food Network: Kids Baking Championship (13 seasons), Holiday Baking Championship (11 seasons), Halloween Baking Championship (7 seasons), Spring Baking Championship (4 seasons), Summer Baking Championship (2 seasons), Holiday Baking Championship: Gingerbread Showdown (1 season).

 

Prior to all those tempting baked goods, she brought her culinary expertise to Las Vegas based pilot Late Nite Chef Fight for FYI and the NBC series Food Fighters. She was also the showrunner of 5 seasons of premier cooking competition Next Iron Chef for Food Network as well as 2 seasons of Star Salvation, the companion web series to Food Network Star.

 

In the non-food space, she headed up the comedy documentary Surviving the Holidays with Lewis Black for the History Channel and docuseries Curl Girls for LOGO. As a supervising producer her credits include documentary The History of the Joke with Lewis Black for History, Work Out for Bravo, Cowboy U for CMT, Girlfriend Intervention for TLC and the MTV pilot Homewrecker. She also worked on Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List for Bravo, documentary UNCUT: The True Story of Hair for A&E, The Bruce Vilanch Show for Bravo, a documentary film on the life of Anna Nicole Smith called Dark Roots for Showtime and won an Emmy for executive producing doc KEVYN AUCOIN Beauty & The Beast In Me.

 

Leslie's abiding passion is writing for film and television. She graduated from Loyola Marymount University with a degree in Writing for Film & Television and performed stand up comedy for 3 years during which she realized she was much more comfortable offstage writing than onstage performing. For the past few years she has been actively developing and pitching scripted television in partnership with producers like Josh Barry and companies like Will Packer Productions.

 

Leslie loves theatre, too. Her play CAVE QUEST about an ADD-riddled video game developer who crashes the Tibetan meditation retreat of a Buddhist nun in order to extract the secret to enlightenment so he can make it into a video game had its world premiere at East-West Players. It received raves from the Los Angeles Times and was deemed "GO!" by LA Weekly. Her plays MAP OF THE HUM and DAMN YOU, DARLON also slayed audiences.

​