WHERE DID SFL COME FROM?
Peter Gould founded "Get Thee to the Funnery," a Shakespeare enrichment program in the fabled Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, and now spread to other locations. He is an educator with a doctorate from Brandeis University, where he teaches conflict transformation and meditation. Peter is also a long-time director at the New England Youth Theatre, and former Shakespeare teacher at Vermont's Governor's Institute on the Arts. His work with young people has won him many foundation grants, plus the 2016 Vermont Arts Council award as Arts Educator of the year. Peter's young adult novel WRITE NAKED received the 2009 National Green Earth Book Prize, which encourages environmental stewardship in young readers. His newest book, HORSE-DRAWN YOGURT, published in 2017 by the Green Writers Press, is his long-awaited memoir of the "back-to-the-land" years in Vermont.
Since 1997, the mission of Peter and "The Funnery" has been to transmit respect and love for Shakespeare's plays to the next generation. Our young actors perform at a level of clarity, commitment, and sophistication that seems impossible, but comes from our encouraging growth in the heart, the mind, the body, and the voice. We call that "The Sign of the Four."
The mission of Shakespeare Free Library is to support the work of building this new constituency around the world by providing workable scripts, staging notes, and in-person help if we can, with the goal of total fun and clarity in Shakespeare performance!
Want some more information about any of the people and places we're related to?
Get Thee to the Funnery (our summer enrichment program in northern Vermont)
The Chelsea Funnery (the second Funnery camp, founded in 2001)
Brandeis University (the university department where Peter Gould teaches)
New England Youth Theatre (the cutting-edge place where we are training stellar new actors!)
Vermont Arts Council (the state council that represents and supports working artists)
National Green Earth Book Award (the national award given to children's and young adult books that encourage ecological thinking)
Vermont Governor's Institute on the Arts (a summer program that brings young people together to sing, dance,
act, write, draw, paint, and grow)
Green Writers Press (a publishing house dedicated to building community by providing beautiful books of high quality writing by excellent regional authors)
"You shall also make no noise
in the streets!"
[ Much Ado About Nothing, III, 3 ]
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