For starters, here is the CRAFTSBURY FUNNERY staff of collaborating artists:
PETER GOULD is our founder. He has directed more than eighty youth theatre productions. He's also a young adult novelist whose novel, WRITE NAKED, published by Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, won the 2009 National Green Earth Book Award for its ecological content. Peter directs at the New England Youth Theatre; he's a Professor of meditation at Brandeis University in the Peace & Justice & Coexistence Department. Peter also founded our Chelsea, Vermont, sister camp, and our Highgate Apartments Funnery in Barre. He keeps "Get Thee to the Funnery" alive all year long, prepares the script, the concept and the whole crew of campers and directors. Peter's passion is Arts-in-Education. (He was the Vermont Arts Council 2016 Arts Educator of the Year.) He is always ready to share his skills with people nearly everywhere, and always ready to explain Shakespeare's metaphors and most outrageous jokes. "I'm not making this up; it's right here in the text! "Peter says.
Years ago, Peter was a founding member of the "back-to-the-land" movement & migration to Vermont, and a performing partner of Stephen Stearns in "Gould & Stearns," a physical comedy duet with more than 3000 shows under their belts. Peter's two latest books are published by Green Writers Press and set in Vermont. MARLY is about a young professor who is fighting an industrial wind development in her wilderness. HORSE- DRAWN YOGURT is a collection of stories about his years on the commune at TOTAL LOSS FARM.
Years ago, Peter was a founding member of the "back-to-the-land" movement & migration to Vermont, and a performing partner of Stephen Stearns in "Gould & Stearns," a physical comedy duet with more than 3000 shows under their belts. Peter's two latest books are published by Green Writers Press and set in Vermont. MARLY is about a young professor who is fighting an industrial wind development in her wilderness. HORSE- DRAWN YOGURT is a collection of stories about his years on the commune at TOTAL LOSS FARM.
JONNY FLOOD studied secondary English education at Boston University. Born and raised in the woods and swamps of Woodbury, Vermont, Jonny directs Funneries all over, from Barre to Brattleboro to Craftsbury to St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. He has been with the Funnery since he was twelve—never missing a summer! Jonny loves music and theater and Maple Creemees. He also loves thinking about education reform, and enjoys working with young people of all ages. He works in early childhood education in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
ZOE GUTTENPLAN has performed amazing Shakespearean characters at the Funnery since 2009. In 2013 she transitioned to lifetime staff member, specializing in one-on-one monologue work and child wrangling. Zoe is comfortable on both sides of the camera and both sides of the Atlantic, too. She is a recent graduate of Columbia University, and is plotting her next move. Zoe's portrayal of Pyramus in Midsummer 2013 will NEVER BE FORGOTTEN. By anyone. Ever. Even if you are hearing about it here for the first time.
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ROSA PALMERI was raised in Putney and Brattleboro, Vermont. She has been doing Shakespeare with Peter, with New England Youth Theatre, and with the Funnery since 2004! She has worked at Craftsbury, Brattleboro, and Barre Highgate. Rosa is a powerful serious actor and a gifted clown. She channeled the role of Harpo Marx in Peter's NEYT production of "Night at the Opera," and did a moving portrayal of Helen Keller's teacher, Annie Sullivan, at NEYT in 2006. Rosa graduated from Evansville, Indiana conservatory in 2013; three years later she earned her MFA in Acting from American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. Rosa is a gifted painter, and a writer, too: she turns out one over-the-top rollicking Commedia dell'arte script for her young actors, every year!
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DUCKY hails from Castleton, Vermont. He worked for more than ten years at the Governor's Institute on the Arts, and is still on board at Craftsbury and Brattleboro Funneries. As the METAPHOR DUCK, he quacks to alert campers and audience alike to Shakespearean language that needs more than passing notice. In his super-hero disguise, the "DUCK OF DOOM" is the number-one disciplinarian at the Funnery. Ducky unfortunately missed one entire season after he was locked in a suitcase at the end of Peter and Rosa's production of Twelfth Night at the New England Youth Theatre. Ducky has had recent supporting roles in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and in "Robin Hood" and "Treasure Island" at NEYT, where his stage life and general health have improved since the company's acquisition of a stunt-double Duck.
~We also owe a lot to the folks who have supported us over the years, like the Vermont Community Foundation, the Monteverdi Artists Collaborative, Concept 2, the The Hardwick Gazette, Craftsbury Academy, Sterling College, Heartbeet Lifesharing, and lots of faithful anonymous friends who love their Shakespeare.