Profile; Interview with Jaime Laredo; Interview with Joe Citro; Interview with Sarah Carleton

In the midst of a distinguished world class career encompassing conducting solo performance chamber music and teaching Jamie Laredo decided to lead an orchestra in northern New England. Stay with us for a conversation with the vessel's and Jamie Laredo next on profile. Jamie of the radios family moved from their native Bolivia to the United States to support the musical talents of their youngest child. His remarkable promise on the violin so impressed Arthur Fiedler that he put the 11 year old on stage with the San Francisco Symphony. The radio went on to study at the Curzon Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and at 17 he won the prestigious Queen Elizabeth of Belgium competition and a year later he debuted at Carnegie Hall. Since then he has guest conducted or played on over 100 stages around the world and has made as many recordings in 1901 CD with frequent collaborators Emanuel Ax Yo Yo Ma and Isaac Stern won a Grammy. He has been nominated for nine others in 1998 he was named

artistic advisor of the VSO and in 2000 accepted the position of musical director just back from concerts in Amsterdam and London. We welcome you Maestro. Thank you for history. It's great for you to be here. So you're a world class musician and conductor. What why did you take the helm of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. Very simple. Number one we live in Vermont. I love our month and I love the Vermont Sophie. I had an association with them of playing appearing with them on several occasions in the past and I thought it was a very unique orchestra a unique organization and I was very proud and very happy to join them. Well you were also artistic director of the chamber music that 90 second Street. Why the Brandenburg ensemble the New York string orchestra you also head up the international Violin Competition in Indianapolis. What pulls you into that administrative or

business side of music. I just I think every every one of these was purely an accident quite frankly. And it it's it's a little deceiving because it really is not all all that administrative work there are other work you're doing. It's really artistic. And there you know with all these organizations I'm. Very lucky to be associated with great people and they really do all the administrative work and I just do the playing of the contact and the plan for that. The plan I mean the artistic director is the one who chooses you choose all the programs what the pieces are going to play the whole series. I want to what. What are some of your organizing principles around planning for a season. I mean well first of all first of all we try to have variety Try had try to have an has as interesting a season with with with works from various centuries and very various nationalities.

So you know so what goes well together. Sometimes you you could have two great pieces but they don't really match they don't go very well together and so you know things like that but it's so much fun doing it I really enjoy doing that very much. Well is it also a matter of marketability in a way. Has that changed over the years from your Because you've been music artistic director of some of these for the last 30 years but. Is there is there is you do have to think about marketing classical concerts. Unfortunately yes unfortunately you do and you can't force is if we have an evening here of only works of. Come on American come what happened are you know what I mean they are the results of the last five years. That's right I don't think we'd have many people. But but you know there is a way of getting in all these people and I don't I WAS ACTUALLY SO PROUD. Two seasons ago we opened our program our concert season

with the work of John Adams is filing and you know and everybody was a little bit nervous of how you know the audiences were going to react to that and they loved it it was a it was a huge hit. So and you have a Vermont composer on your roster for the masterwork season this year. I mean I think you know Oh for heaven's sakes no it was I think it was for the Made in Vermont series there were things that made her. Well Allen Shawn I think of you as being from here. Well the maid of Vermont series that we do every year we always try to have a Vermont divorce and we have had and we've had wonderful wonderful luck with beautiful wonderful pieces really. And that's really where you travel around to small That's where we go to all over the state literally. I found your early history just fascinating. You were born and Bolivia. But tell us and tell us how at the age of six 20 the nonmusical family no one else was a musician. You found your passion how did that happen.

Well my family was not musical but my parents loved music passionately especially my father. And there was always music in the home. So he actually used to have friends who were amateur musicians who used to come play string quartets in the house so I just grew up with this it was so natural. And I always loved the sound of the violin and I kept. Apparently I kept bugging the parents that I wanted a violin I wanted to play and eventually when I was about five and a half I think they gave me a little I have sized violin. Well and who your your teachers on the advice of your teachers very soon there after they saw that you had. Remarkable talent help. Well I was very lucky in that I had a wonderful first teacher that that is something that is so important. He was a man refugee from the war he was a violinist from Vienna Philharmonic and he had to escape. From from Europe and ended up. Somehow

in culture Obama Bolivia. And so he was he was my first teacher and so he gave me all the the first wonderful training and he's the one and yes that told me said to my father that he really should take me to the United States which your father did. You went to San Francisco I guess your father had spent some of his job. My father kind of grew up there because his father had been the consul Bolivian consul in San Francisco. And so he went to high school there he went to college there. And so he knew the city he knew the area had a lot of friends and that's why he chose San Francisco. So you were there you were impressed of course Arthur Fiedler and the whole audience there who were very excited about your your debut and compared you to your hoodie Medwin and Isaac Stern and pretty amazing but your for your family continue to follow you to Cleveland and then to Philadelphia to the Curtis Institute now.

How did your siblings and family feel about this I mean there. Well Holloway they're young they're younger brother you know. It's pretty pretty remarkable and oh forever grateful because my older brother or sister were were just incredible with me. And there was a there's actually a slight age difference so that I really almost had like two sets of parents I had my parents and then my brother and sister who were. A take you know about 10 years older than me. So but there was always tremendous support and it is incredible when I think of it all the sacrifices and everything that my family did for me. Your father was also careful though that Arthur Fiedler want to take you to Boston right after the concert it and San Francisco. And he said no yes I want my son to sort of have a normal you know.

Yeah I would you know. When people blow that I played with with orchestra when I was 11 years old so they immediately assume the child prodigy I was a child prodigy. But I really wasn't in in the sense of the word. I did not travel I did not go touring around. That's something that my father did not want. You know he parents could have probably made a lot of money for me when I was that at that age. And I thank God they didn't and I get kind of very quite normal childhood. So you were at the Curtis Institute which is a very prestigious but sort of little known. But at the age of 17 you went to Belgium and for the Queen Elizabeth of Brussels competition you won the gold medal the youngest person ever to do so and with within that year of 1959 you also did Beauty at Carnegie Hall which was more terrifying. Oh definitely the competition. Definitely.

Carnegie Hall is different. Eg your cardio was not terrifying it was kind of. Awesome. It was kind of all inspiring walking out on that stage even to this day every time I walk out of that stage you know I just you can't help but feel that. Sheer wish had been Tchaikovsky and Rahman and of Heifetz and Chrysler and Caruso and Scania you know and you feel it you feel it in the hall. But it wasn't terrifying at all no. Is it true that you really that you hated the practice that you claimed you were lazy. Do I still hear you. This is this is hard for other people to grasp. Well this let's back up. You start applying at the Marlborough Festival very early on. Soon soon after this debut again and again called How has the festival been. The marble festival that important to you. Well it most professional played a tremendous part of my life. Number one I fell in love with Vermont because of it. I'm living here today because of it.

I met my wife through through the Marlborough Festival and in those in the days when I was there. Rudolph Circulus was the head of my bro and he was such an extraordinary musician and man and he made a. Just. Incredible impression on me to this day I think about him. Oh a lot of the time and the kind of musician he was and in the people that he surrounded himself with I mean the movie's family blushed when he was still today. You know she's she's so extraordinary still going strong. Alexander Schneider Publica sols who. Really who also is another incredible influence on me. So to have grown up on those day I spent 12 summers in my bro and to have worked with all these people it was an absolutely incredible experience.

So you mentioned your wife Sharon Robinson you celebrating your 25th anniversary just last year. She's a world class cellist What were the circumstances of your of your meeting. Well I had actually met her. I did meet her in mother I had met her before she was still a student at P party conservatory. And when I heard her play I was just astounded at her you know her playing and I said to I say you know you should go to Marlboro. And so a year or two later she should audition. And this wasn't just a ploy. No no no no no no not that believe me Believe me I was she was you know she was a student of the art. Yeah. And so a couple years later she did go to my bro and. I was there that summer and then the following winter we did a music for my bro tour together. He said she was a group of mob or musicians that travel around the country and give

concerts in very cities and we did this tour together and we fell in love. It's a great story. What is the dynamic. At home with two. Fabulous musicians and on stage. I think it's wonderful. I think we're very lucky that we share so much and we understand each other so well we know what the other one is going through. It's just you know there's so many people think they can be. A problem they can be very difficult to have two careers at the same time. I I just can't imagine actually not being mistreated. Good musician and no we have never had a problem we support each other and the best thing of all of course is the fact that we can work together. So much of the time surely we can travel together when that makes. Traveling just so much nicer. I can't tell you. Well you celebrated another silver anniversary last year which was the 25th year of

the Kalak Stein Loredo Robinson trio which was also named trio of the year 2002 by musical America. Yes gratulations. So it includes you and Cher and pianist Joseph Calix time. It's very unusual for a trio or chamber group to stay together that long especially with the same if it actually is as well as you can see that's why we never gave ourselves a name. We just have our individual name because we knew that we just wanted to play together and if for any reasons somebody decided to lower it well then that would be the end of it. But it is unusual and I think I think part of the reason that we say we are still together is the fact that we don't do it. 12 months out of the year. This is not our primary life. We each have our own careers our own solo careers as you know when I do conduct I do whatever I think. But the trio is a very important part of my life and I think of all our

lives and we all love playing and we love being together. I mean again and again after 25 years you can hear it. You can look at it and I was dark I hope so. Yeah. You had quite a debut it was at the White House where just like Carter and I was for the card occupation oh is this again just another gig for you know well how that came about was was rather unusual. Robert Shaw the great conductor who passed away a couple of years ago I had known him since since as I said in Cleveland when I was 12 he was then and so she conducted an orchestra. And so I've known him all my life played with him many many times. He was a great friend of Jimmy Carter because he was conductor of the Atlanta Symphony and Carter being governor of Georgia. Carter loves classical music and he apparently went when he won the election he asked Bob Shaw

if he would organize a series of classical concerts during the inauguration week. He said to him he said I don't want rock'n'roll I don't want pop music I want classical music. So he organized a concert by the Juilliard Quartet Cleveland Court there was a music from opera group as a matter of fact and Bob Shaw called me and he said I understand that you just formed a trio. I said yes and he said Well would you like I said before but we haven't actually played a concert yet. And he said Well would you like to play your first concert at the car at the White House. And so I said sure. You know all three of you actually in a way were child prodigies I don't know if. Any of you were. Were run around by by your parents but. What do you think of young children on a stage with a symphony orchestra. I think even the the the violinist from this last weekend's concert debuted at age 8.

How does that serve you well those if that's what is your opinions and thoughts about the very young children. Well I tell you being a teacher myself now and having had students as as young as 10 and 11 I think it's an important part of their education to know what it's like to be on stage. And so therefore an occasional concert I think is great and I think it's part it's part of their their whole upbringing. But when I see some of these. 10 year olds who are going on world tours and playing 100 concerts a year I must say it does something to my stomach that it's not very pleasant. I think it's it's it's not right. I think it's criminal quite frankly. Must be interesting to recognize a child with that talent. Oh it is and it's a tremendous responsibility I mean I have had for instance one of my. Younger students. When she

was 12 years old just awful it's about is who's actually played with her 170 several times. It was a tremendous responsibility here that was this incredibly talented 12 year old and all I kept thinking to myself was God don't let me go let me ruin her don't let me fall. Just let me guide her the right way. I'm sure you did then you had great teachers at Curtis and actually I read that as a teacher Curtis you really emphasize chamber music. What why do you feel that you know because I think it's very very very important to be an all around musician. And it's it's it's it's. It's not only your instrument but you have to know how to react and how to interact with other music with other musicians and to play in a string quartet is very different than playing a violin concerto and I think that kids should. Have that as part of their education. Well you have collaborated with the most eminent musicians of our day including Glenn Gould

and as we mentioned earlier Yo-Yo Ma Isaac Stern and it's a Perlman you also have conducted the best orchestras of our day. Is it the planning that does it for you more than the conducting. Can you make those kind of parents. It's hard to it's very very hard. Let's put it this way. I sure would hate to have to make a choice if somebody said to me all right you either have to play or can not. I'd hate to make that choice. I think probably at this point the violinist Dail my number one in my primary thing in life. It's still something that I. Love to do. But as I get older and you know if I. Know. My Way My wife always tells me that when I start to play out of tune she's going to let me know. And then it's time to only conduct. I'm sure she well that's another interesting place you probably critique can produce and sell their own.

And the most honest we are each other's best and worst critics. And as as you just said in a very honest way and I think it's good I bet. You were of course born in Bolivia. And they clearly still think of us as a native son you have a soccer stadium in La Paz named after you you had commemorative stamps made. What what part does believe you know playing. The part even though I don't go back as nearly as much as when my parents were alive I used to go every year to visit them. But I haven't been there no many many years. But it's still you know it is the place I was born and I could never forget. All these All these incredible tributes that they did. And when I'm there it's it's it's a feeling of you know this is where I was born this is this was my home. There's there's a home you know thing. You travel. So

much. Yeah it's mind boggling you are involved in festivals all over the world and in Europe and in the U.S. in particular you're juggling all of these responsibilities an artistic direction and soloing and chamber music one. How do you do it how do you cope with all that traveling. What do you do or to relax. I really don't know how I do it quite frankly. The troubling part of it I must say has gotten worse and worse and worse and I was professionally since since September 11. Traveling is really a nightmare. I have to say I have to admit and for instance Sharon and I do the craziest things to avoid going through airports. I mean we have we have driven sometimes 10 12 hours to get from one city to another if we have a day you know in between concerts and it's not that we're afraid of flying or anything like that but just the hassles that one goes through at an

airport especially you know you try traveling with a cello and a violin. Oh my God. And you know our instruments are priceless. And of course these people who want to open them up and touch them and feel them. They don't know what they're you know what they are. And and it's it's it's quite quite horrendous really white quite horrendous. Thank you for cellist the sheet you have to buy an extra seat. Oh yes was that we always we all did we always did and that's that's fine. You know and that's just the tampering with. It's just when they started tampering I mean you know it's that's horrible. How does Vermont as a home influence. You and. Where you are. I think it's an incredibly calming influence. Leading the kind of crazy life that we do whenever we get home for even a day and in the last couple of months that's that's all it's been. Just after each trip we get home one day sometimes half a day but just

just being home for that one day is is great. You know we live in a very rural area and we're surrounded by this credibly beautiful meadow and lots of trees and woods around and it's it's great we love it. Really I don't think I really don't think that we would ever live anywhere else. Well it's very special to have you here. Goals that you might have for the Vermont Symphony Orchestra. GOELZ Well. To get better and better and better you know I think in the last few years we've really done some wonderful work together and I'm so proud of some of the concerts that we've done together. And I think I really do see kind of. I would say improvement that's that sounds good but I think there's a growth. I really think that there's a growth of us growing

together and I just would love to see more of that. And I would love to see more support from from people all over the say Who are you know sometimes I feel a little bad that our Burlington concerts are always either sold out or just about but sometimes we go to other parts of the state and we don't have quite you know the support. And I'd love to see that grow a lot. Well it seems that you have there's a there's a energy there's like every musician that I've talked to is so excited about having you at the helm there. That's very nice. There really is that sense back to just teaching for a minute and the talk about Kurt Curtis is such an interesting place to me isn't every everyone is on scholarship Yes but that goes there. That's why Curtis is a unique school and it's very small. There's about one hundred twenty five students in Seoul. And the reason why we really have the cream of the crop is because you cannot pay to get into careers

strictly by scholarship so weak we can really choose from just the most extraordinary talents and you've decided to give back. And yes I have been teaching there for you know it's almost 30 years now. And I got so much from that school and I I feel a sense of duty really to pay back. We are going to go out with the credits with your conversations is a wonderful city that you and Sharon put together that has some very modern interesting conversation works. We are going to put on the handle anything that you would like to say about the Handel piece just because it sounds like there are so many more than two instruments. Well it's it is a great piece and the way it's written it really does make the violin or the cello sound like like a string quartet sometimes. Well let's listen to it and thank you so much. Thank you have led you to the right of way. And thank you for joining us.

Known alternately as Vermont's ghost master general and New England's board of the bizarre

Joe Citroen has the scoop on spooks in our region. Why is this popular author obsessed with the supernatural. Stay with us for a conversation with just a TRO. Next on profile. Joseph Citron fascination with weirdness in New England has made him an important preservationist of our region's history and folklore. Born and raised in Chester Vermont Citroen has written five Vermont based thrillers a collection of humor a ghost travel guide and three collections of strange but true stories with another on the way. He regularly shares for monts mysterious tales as a commentator on Vermont Public Radio and has taught writing at area colleges and writer's conferences. Mr Citroen is in great demand as a speaker in schools and special events especially this time of year. So we're grateful he made the time to help us get in the mood for all those young ghosts and goblins about to invade our neighborhoods.

Welcome here today now. I'm sure you get this question all the time but how did this fascination with oddities in the supernatural begin. Well I have to blame it on my parents. The source of all troubles. My father was a bit of a storyteller typical New England storyteller and had a whole head full of local lore. So wherever we went in the area he would have a story about you know this house or that barn. What happened here what happened there. And those are really where the basis for the whole collection I've gone back to revisit some of those and turned out my father often would have the the details a little misaligned but that's really where the collecting started. There is this I mean the cuttings Milhouse that you would go by. I love reading that story just that was the start. Yeah that was the start every time we took a family trip. But I want all three to the big city of Rutland which is called by this it look like the Psycho house in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. It was a

creepy old Victorian house and right across the street there was a Mongolian and in front of the mausoleum. What appeared to be the ghost of a man kneeling on the steps it wasn't a ghost of course it was a it was a statue but it was easy to convince myself that it was a ghost and and my father would explain that the history of the house included such weird elements as a reclusive millionaire who fought he was going to return from the dead and used his fortune to keep the dinner table set every night just in case he should show up. Now is this is the house still abandoned or is it. Well it's not it's not abandoned it's maintained by a trust that John P. Bowman and self set up. But the trust that they that the amount of money in the trust is dwindling in the then members of the trust are going to find ways to have the house generate some income.

Muslim on the other hand is standing very solidly and probably will for years to come. Now what did your family think of your vocation of going into kind of writing this kind of work for a living. Well they were. Mike my mother especially was never one to discourage my taste for the bizarre effect I think she might have had a little strain of that herself because her career recreational reading ran toward you know detective novels and thrillers and stuff like that. So those were. Always mixed in with the you know the I think one of Doyle in the coupling and right and the Stevenson something. So I think she was pretty tolerant of it. And it wasn't until pretty late in life that I actually started putting pen to paper I mean they really start writing seriously until around 1900 85 and my first book came out in 87 now. Now what made you make that leap I mean you did have what you had a government job you had a lot of odd jobs and then you decided I'm going to be a writer I'm going to write a novel like fats. That's a big decision to make what it was a big decision. And I I had

been in state government. And there were those who told me that I would have to be crazy to become a writer. But you know the state government seemed like the perfect preparation for that and I had this whole head full of stories and I love them so much that I wanted to pass them on. And so it seemed like the only way to do that was that was that was was to write them down. And I know I can be a little verbose. So so novels seem to be the the format as opposed to short stories that took me by surprise because it's always such a perfect form in a way for short stories. But that's what you like to write. Well what I wrote evolved I mean I started by I started by writing fiction and the fiction was it was always based on legitimate Vermont history unfold lore. And when I was researching those novels I kept discovering that we had all these other stories that in Vermont in fact was was rich with legends and lore. Some of which was in danger of

vanishing forever if somebody didn't grab hold of them. So I took a detour from the fiction and just started collecting the stories. And my first collection of stories came out in 1994 and I thought maybe there were enough for my stories to fill up one book but when I was researching that I realized that. I thought I was seeing the bottom of the barrel but the barrel was rabid only of another man. Yeah. Well actually it's interesting because there are a lot of stories about New England stuff but there wasn't much on on for modern particular from great. You know some of the Stephen Kings and Lovecraft and but. But you seem to find this bottomless pit is very much more haunted than the rest of New England or is it. I don't miss the name but I think it's less explored. For one thing it's a small state I mean the rightward hovering around half a million people. So I suspect in the past writers with an eye toward something a lot of books probably would claim to that the coastal

states of Vermont is the only and only state without a without a sea coast and there very few people here. So I think I think those people who spent time chronicling Vermont's weirdness among them people like Edward Rowe snow or album blacking done people that did this sort of work before I started doing it. I stuck pretty close to the coastline and just didn't go inland to Vermont as far as I know nobody's ever done this before. Nobody's collected Vermont stories so the consequence to me was that it became. Became serve a mission. I wanted to be the one to do it and where. How do you do your research in the old papers and magazines of people now calling on the phone not all. All those things I mean. It started with this small body of stories that my father bequeath to me. Among them the mind in Phineas Gage and I think the eddy brothers if he ate I mean he left me with a body of stars which I subsequently revisited and fleshed out if you will. I started doing

commentary on Vermont Public Radio in 1982 and so I became a presence who who told these stories but didn't ridicule the tellers i.e. I speak a lot publicly so I provide a forum where where there can be some interactive dialogue to get to a point where I was I was discovering stories in books and in old newspapers and magazines. But people were also bringing me stories you know that you know it's interesting you say you didn't ridicule them that probably yes that is a problem but how do you even verify these stories for their reality. Well you know is it real or is it true or is it somebody just giving you know the and there are the stories they're all real they're over you know there's there are degrees of illiterate I suppose. Remember my orientation to the material first of all is as a novelist I'm interested in the story and if a story has endured for several centuries say the story of the Lake Champlain monster.

It's still disputable whether there's a monster in the lake. But the story has tremendous tenacity. Sometimes people try to fool me. You know they try to try to bring me a story and they're sort of testing my gullibility on testing their credibility. But I have over the years and I suppose to some degree I have to realize you have to rethink my experience in state government for this over the years I've I've developed sort of a detector. I can tell if somebody is trying to con me. Usually it's not infallible but I often can and if a story can be corroborated then I'll try to corroborate it either in printed material or with another witness although it's not always the multiple witness stories that interest me sometimes it's those very peculiar things that happen to a solitary individual that the interest in your life. Well the whole thing ghost stories are popular throughout the world yes and in some

places actually a very important part of the culture. Why. Why are we so intrigued with the stories of this other what other worldliness. I think there's a whole spectrum of reasons I think one of the most easily overlooked three reasons is that they're kind of on a mortar that provides a sense of community and people like me are ghosts. And if they also provide a historic link I think because you can't really tell a ghost story without without a little bit of historical awareness. So they do kind of link us with our heritage with our past and we like them for that reason. I think in a more metaphysical sense we like them because they they. For the the possibility that we are something other than meet that that there's that there there is an afterlife that there's a possibility that there's some transcendence and that we will

we will go on after we shuffle off this mortal coil as it were. Well the other thing that's fascinating about your stores is they kind of hawk history with the human psyche and what we need an imagination with fact. But it's it's the way you bring in history that I find it so fascinating and I think compelling about your books do you. Did you think of yourself as as an historian. When I know in fact I really don't think of myself as anything. That's that's often a function of the market place. I think the you know the elite the people who publish books the people who sell books have to decide which shelf to put the book on. I just see myself as one with a particular set of interests that include history and include the supernatural. I don't think of myself as a star and I don't think of myself as a full bore as their investigator or a researcher or a scientist. You see I've got a real identity crisis a very I don't know what I mean.

You're here later this weekend in context which is you know when did your father become popular or or did we American spiritualists and love met which which of which you are an expert which started in the mid 19th century and kind of died off after the first few decades of the 20th. Now why did that weigh in and is there a revival of sorts of that now. Well if it if it has waned in it in the form that it took in the 19th century bit but it has been reincarnated. It certainly I mean this is a popular network television program that I think is the John Edwards show where I got it every night. I don't think it's I don't think it's done live. But what he does is he allows audience members to talk to their deceased friends and relatives I mean spiritualism is very much alive in that context in the context of channeling these you know wherever these voices come from. I suspect they come from the same source. I've never been one to believe that that

the spiritualist or the channelers or John Edwards or any of these people are really talking to the the spirits of the dead I think it's something else but. I don't think spiritualism has has as has waned I think it's just put on a different disguise. It became unpopular for a while because because of a number of things One is that there were a lot of fraudulent mediums who were making fools of themselves publicly. There were they were intrepid destroyers of mediums like Harry Houdini and other practicing magicians who would incorporate go shows and medium debunking into their performances. So this kind of turned the the mediums from from into objects of ridicule. Really. So those people who had dabbled with spiritualism were suddenly putting away the

the weeds the boards and hiding the books and sort of pretending that they never experimented with people at the minute dead another time and not in their in their private time. They were very embarrassed about it here for a period of time. One of what sounds like one of your favorite stories of the brothers from right here in Vermont were quite spectacular and I think we have a picture of them tell us a little bit about who they are who these guys were. This is an incredible story. It's happened right here in Vermont. Two brothers William and I were a show Eddie were conducting seances in the upstairs of their ramshackle farmhouse and in Chittenden Vermont what they were doing was incredible. They were doing automatic writing they weren't doing trance peaking. They were somehow able to manifest three dimensional phantoms. They would walk a walk around on an elevated platform and in some cases dialogue with people in the in the audience. People would come all over come come

from all over to witness these phantoms because among the Phantom's people would often recognize their dead relatives their dead friends people that they had known long ago. So so so it kind of caught on. People came from Vermont but they started to travel from all over the all over the country and in fact from other countries. The city and the senators are two that this was going on. This is roughly about the height of it was really eight hundred seventy eight hundred seventy five. They were rigorously and repeatedly investigated by a whole army of investigators and the thing investigators all had in common was they couldn't figure out how it was done if it was a trick. Nobody has ever been able to figure out how it was done and the house still exists. That's a good intersection is it just down by normal folks now are. I'm always careful how I use the word normal. They are it's owned by a group of people from New Jersey who are on a ski club or an organization of

skiers and they and there's hundreds of them and they are thinking about now they own they own the house they call it the high life ski club. OK. You know religion enters into many of your stories. Of course it would it's kind of very closely related. How does religion play in your in your CSS in your stories and even in your life. Well it's essential to any any belief in the supernatural or consideration of the supernatural. I mean if you would ask me why do people believe in ghosts. I would start by looking at their early religious training I think anybody who's grown up in any sort of a religious or religious household is predisposed to believe in the supernatural. So I think it's a you know it's a short leap from there to the consideration that there might be spirits of the dead walking among us. Spiritualism didn't really start to take off until it was embraced by conventional Protestant Christian sects among

the mostly Universalists but it did it did spread beyond that. And you were brought up a Catholic. I was. So you really kicked out of catechism. I think I was. I think I was OK. Yeah yeah. Have you ever seen a ghost or a UFO or or experience bizarre things yourself. Yeah I think I don't really have these experiences. If I if I look for you I thought it was a very single and I look for chance but never seen and I've put myself in harm's way in the sense that I have spent the night all by myself in allegedly haunted buildings and a couple of times I've gotten scared. You know I've never I've never really had an unambiguous experience. Is that disappointing as well. I mean I would like to have the experience. But I'm not sure that I would trust it either very very analytical mind. And so I would

continue to look for sort of mundine reasons for what happened I would need I would need an experience that were absolutely and ambiguous. Oh I know I know how the mind works a little bit I mean I've seen Phantoms in the sense that I've I've you know awakened at night and seen someone standing at the bottom of my bed. Of course I recognize that person as a good friend who lives in the next town and so all of the fandom sort of faded away. If that had been my my mother would have thought I'd seen a ghost but we do we do have these altered psychological states that the psychologist column the hypnagogic in him a puppet state. But we're sort of half awake and half asleep we're awake enough to be conscious but asleep enough to actually create dream imagery. And that is one thing a lot of ghost stories have in common. You know it's a lot a ghost story star. Well I was in bed reading or I just woke up and it was

the middle of the night. And so one has to one has to include the possibility that that these are dream experiences. In my case. The dream experience included somebody who was very much alive and I knew it. So interesting. Now what's interesting about your novels are many of them is that they are about kind of lost tribes or these groups of Ghouls or evil entities. Why have you kind of got there not about ghosts. Yeah they're they're about something else. Well I never wrote about the ghouls. First of all there's a little bit of rule in any one of my books they might write any one of my novels. Well it's about the unknown. It's about what's over the next ridge or what's at the bottom of the undiscovered cave for more what might be lurking. At the bottom of the league.

Yeah it's about that it's just it's about the things that are just just beyond the circumference of perception and that's that's what I write about. And if you read the novels you come you might come across with the idea that that I'm not a real optimistic sort of person who when the the the novel with the most unlikely title The Good War is probably the one that's the most benevolent. But mine and in my novels some of the men and tragically and some of them the men positively because it seems to me that that's the way life works some of us and positively and some others and tragically the other thing the novels have in common is that it's very likely that the the the the traditional older monitors are the ones who get whacked because I think that that's what's happening you know. You know there is you have actually sort of a dying breed. So I mean it's rare to spot a real one. Yeah anymore. Yeah. MARTIN with that so I started in one book.

Yeah. Actually it is interesting the kind of underlying meanings of some of their stuff and want to short story and I know it's been a while but then the bald headed snake eyes were just so intriguing to me and I'm tired. I like you that you know what was the inspiration for that. What about when I get out thanking people that it takes me by surprise that you have discovered that there is a story because I write so few short stories and only by invitation and I wrote that one for an anthology. She's back in the late eighties that I think an editor by the name of J and Williamson asked me to come up with a story and I I don't write short stories so I was kind of plumbing the depths of my my childhood to come up with an idea. I mean that seems to be that childhood is right the well that we that we draw on. And I remember when I when I went to school there was this kid this kid named Brucey and everybody used to pick on him and call him names and beat up on them.

And my cousin Eugene. Are you a fellow Catholic boy once asked me why. Why do you suppose God makes people like boosie. And I thought I guess it was kind of a sophisticated thought for the time but it occurred to me that picking on Brucey somehow makes us feel better the rest of us feel better. As perverse as that is there seems to be some truth in it. We say that we elevate ourselves by by pummelling others and that's what I was. It is and I say I got to thinking what if it were literally true. I mean what if that were literally true if there were if there was a race of people that if you heard him you would cure your own gills if you had a headache and you came up and whacked one of these guys in the head. Your headache would go away. And that was what is the that was the source of the star you know is just taking taking a premise and making a little bit.

Nice to dive into your mind there are you on that one. I mean associate are now two of your novels have been reprinted and actually come out with completely new titles. What's that about was that a publisher anyway. Yes Twilight is now like monsters and I'm saying well go are all all of my novels that were published in the late 80s and early 90s have been reprinted by the University Press and New England under their so-called hard scrabble line. That's a line that's devoted to just just doing one fiction and I was a little surprised that they picked up my stuff. I've got to I've got to tell you but they've done a beautiful job with the with the reprints they've got beautiful beautiful covers and books have come out looking just where I wanted them to look originally. Yeah because yeah yeah you see g fingers on top of chaps head there I don't know. Yeah. There were title changes for two would be the first one was called Shadow child and

folk both in the original and in the reprint and the second was called Guardian Angels and that was the same in the original in the reprint. But then they started revert into what were my original titles because publishers always changed the titles. That's the way one of the ways that they assert their domination over writers I think it takes is this thing that you've been laboring over for at least nine months. They said oh no you can't call it that you got to call it this. So they let me change the titles back to the original titles. Even I know you saw a couple of movie options but they haven't they haven't come this happens all the time that must be very frustrating with time yeah. Maybe with Newt I don't think I can I can show them to the same producers and get them optioned began your very popular author for readings and lectures etc.. What do you what do you like to tell would be writers is there. I thought I'm a messenger to him. Yeah I mostly finish what you start. I think I think I think what what scuttles. Lots and lots of prospective writers is that they will start a

project and then they'll realize what nobody has bothered to tell them and that his writing is really a lot of work they're doing. We're running out of time so I also want to tell us so stick with it. OK when when I didn't hear you when I can hear you. Yeah. Tonight is just Monday I thought the October 28. Monday October 28 I'll be speaking at the Springfield library of Springfield Vermont Tuesday October 29. Get the mom puter library right. And on holy night at Champlain College I will be delivering a lecture on American spiritualism and introducing people to some of the more colorful of the 19th century practitioners and somehow anybody here will really brothers that's how you will celebrate Halloween. It will be a great celebration. Thank you so much for coming thank you very much. Have a great home with you too. Yeah. Why.

Why. She's part of both the collegiate and equity theater scenes a professor and director at UVA royal Tyler theater. Sara Carlton is also a familiar face at St. Michael's playhouse. Join me in a conversation with stage actress and director Sarah Carleton next on profile. Sarah Carlton was raised in Wellesley Massachusetts and took her undergraduate degree at St. Michael's College. She has worked in professional theater since receiving an MFA in acting at

Catholic University in 1985 playing major roles in New York summer stock feeder and with international touring companies. Sarah has also made numerous appearances in television and film including a brief role in the soap opera One Life to Live but her real love is the stage and she's currently teaching at the University of Vermont and directing this fall's production of The Crucible which opens next week. Welcome. Thanks for having me great to have you here. Now did you always have a love of theatre growing up. I had a love of dance and then that evolved into theater. I was originally interested in dance and I studied dance growing up. And I went off to college to be a dancer. But then my path changed a bit and I got involved in theatre. Wow. So when did that you know you went to another college but you switched to St. Michael. I did. I actually I went I studied dance my whole life and I went I went to my guidance counselor high school and I said I was interested in dance and I wanted to get away from New

England. And so he suggested I go to apply to this college that Stevens college in Columbia Missouri and I went there and you know enrolled in the dance program but found it was a little it wasn't my cup of tea. And so I left the program and came back and my parents said you know you have to go to college sheriff and maybe you should stay closer to home. So my sister was actually a student at the University of Vermont and she had said to me there's a small school St. Michael's College near me. Why don't you know you should apply there so I did and I went there but they did then have a dance. No they don't. And another another. You know I hate to admit this but I actually assumed that all schools had dance majors like English and I just assumed. Well you know so when I got there I discovered they didn't have a dance program they you know you had they had the gym classes and my roommate was in theater. So I got involved in theater and. I could incorporate the dance into that and I actually found

acting to be for me personally more satisfying at that time than strictly dance. So I got involved in acting and and it just it just evolved. So that was it so. Where did you first go. After graduating. So you were going to be an actress. Well yeah I guess yeah. I. I did. I finished school and I went back to Boston and I started auditioning for shows and I did a few things in Boston. I did a show at the Charles play ouse. I did a show Simeon ASCO plays plays in the north end of Boston and then I auditioned for a children's tour and so they spent the next year touring with a children's company doing doing a tour and really like that. And then from there I had heard about the national players Shakespear tour which was a Shakespear touring company out of Washington D.C. and I decided I wanted to go away for tour do a more

extensive tour. And so I auditioned for the players tour in D.C. got cast in that production touring company. We did much ado for a year so we toured the country for a year while doing much ado and then what happened was I was offered a performance scholarship. Through because Catholic University was associated with the national player Shakespeare tour ends they offer me a performance scholarship to come into their graduate program which was what an opportunity it was. Yes because I wanted to you know continue studying and. So I ended up getting into the program a Catholic and then from from from that experience other other things opened up. Now you met Chuck Tobin Chuck Tobin my husband your husband's at St. mikes and did he follow you in this past week you know well. Well he sort of did he I mean we sort of we sort of worked it together and we were incredibly lucky. He we met a St. Michaels

and we started going out a lot. You know we started dating and then. I was in Boston he was finishing up. I was a semester ahead because I transferred in. And he he actually did the national player Shakespeare tour before I did it which is what you know I found out about it and then I went down to Washington and audition. You know so that travel together so we did travel together and then we went into the graduate program together which was great. And then he sort of branched off into more. He left the acting because he wanted to do producing directing. He wanted more control. That doesn't sound well but he just yeah and he western that side. So we actually have worked together in various capacities throughout. Now in 1982 as part of your graduate work you went to Poland. Yes. The United States Information

Agency agency. May I say. Yes USA. They had a program at the University of Posen where they would send teams of teams over to post to the university to teach there in the summer. And one of the teams was a theater team and we did. So I was interested in this and. I applied for an audition and what we did was there were six of us. Chuck was also on the team to grade ahead. We put together three shows and we performed in Poland and we also were in residence at the university and teaching there in the summer. What was what was the US idea about this I mean were these places. Was it propaganda oriented at all or I mean this is before the wall came down and the usual TO GO TO GO TO POLAND absolutely to go to Poland at this time. They there were there were also British teams British and American teams at this university and the university the students that were there were actually

they didn't want to be there they were sent there because they were told they were going to be teachers and so they had to go there in the summer. And they were very unhappy about it. This was like not they didn't want to be there but actually they had a wonderful time because the British team and it was it was all it was a wonderful experience but that was sort of a punishment for them or not punishment but just sort of you have to be a teacher because you not cut cut out for these other career up to this and so it was pretty a pretty interesting experience. So they were going to be drama teachers. No not necessarily. Okay not necessarily. That was just one part of the program. Are our part of the program. What was what was the most significant part for you. In that experience. Well I worked with students on. Interesting we put together a I had them. I put in put a show together with the students and I had them. Focus on their perception

of Americans. And specifically TV and their perceptions based on Television. And so we put together this the soap opera called a soap opera and it was their version of what was what was going on over here and it was pretty outrageous. I mean pretty was a very it was very different than what you would imagine an American would say was going on in this country. Yes. Yes. Is there a strength in such exchanges have you been involved in any others or do you think that these kinds of exchanges are important. Wonderfully. Yes absolutely. Absolutely. Let's go back to you being on the road with as a weather professional touring group What's that like. Well it's a get tiring after a while I always had a really interesting it's interesting because the easiest part is doing the show. You know you would think doing a show you know again but certainly doing Shakespeare's You know you can just see it. But the hard part of touring is being with a group of people and if you don't get

along you know in your you're in the you're in the same van with them and you know we had roommates you know. You know you go from hotel to hotel and. Just getting along. So it's that's that's a hard hard thing in touring for a whole year. But it's great to see all the different parts of the kind of sure and play to different audiences you know because they all respond they respond differently. People in the south people in the north some people have haven't seen much theater some people. So do you do you viscerally sense that when you're on stage or is it only afterwards that you find out what the reaction as they are. Oh no. It affects us it absolutely yes because there's there's an energy that happens between a performer and an audience you know in an audience and I mean absolutely it's happens. And it can affect your performance. Abs all sure. Yes. That must be interesting. There is a you kind of moved around but you lived in New York City for a while and did a number of things and that's where you did just a little bit of television and

film and did this week long stint on a so-so hour all right. Right. In life to live right. How are those mediums different from theater which clearly you have chosen as your career path. Well what's interesting about when I did that work on the soap was the fact that you spend all day doing you know this much. And. It's not because it's in front of a camera. And it's very staged in lights and you know. It's to me it wasn't very satisfying. It was you know it's just you can't build up your character. No I mean certainly certainly some of the roles I mean my role was was insignificant in the story but you know there's just. It just didn't have that same satisfying. Satisfying. Yeah that's that's OK to me to me. Right. You know what in theater you have to

memorize all those lines. Well in film you do too well but a piece at a time if you have well this is true because you want you to do it that way. And you began to return to St. Michael's actually in 1986 well before you moved back here to be a member of the playhouse you has a professional summer stock theater right. You were also involved in some other summer stock I think in manere. But could you explain I think a lot of people don't understand summer stock summer stock the summer stock is a theater in the summer. And you usually rehearse quickly a couple of weeks and a show runs for a few weeks. Summer Stock traditionally they do crowd pleasing Fund shows it's summer and. It's a great training ground for young young people in the business. But it's different from a college feeder situation it's not you know none of them know there are there are union summer stock companies and then there are union Equity summer stock companies same ice Playhouse is an equity summer stock

theater. And that means obsessional professional says yes and that means they hire they're under. Guidelines by the Actors Equity Union to hire a specific amount of equity actors and they have to adhere to performance rehearsal times and and you know you only get called a half hour before the show I mean there are certain guidelines and. Now is that what eventually got you to move back to Vermont. Well my house or was at UVM it was UVM because what happened was because of our undergraduate work at St. Michael's. Then when being a Catholic with players we kind of kept in touch and there was an opportunity. I got a call from the RAF cabs who were the prisoners up north at the delightful and mighty raft of St. Michael and there was a role an opportunity to come back and do a role they were interested in so that that started our returning to the playhouse. But strictly for the summer

and then what happened was we were I was in New York in New Jersey living in New Jersey right outside of the city. And I. Had the opportunity. Two I was freelancing looking for work auditioning and a friend of mine was teaching at Seton Hall University and she said to me. Would you like to teach. Make the money and I needed to make some money. And so I said why. I don't know how to teach you know what you know. She said No really it was teaching a speech class. And she said they. They like you know theater people because they can. You can get people to get up and speak all that and so I started teaching. And then I ended up teaching four courses at Seton Hall and Kane and I started to really like teaching. And. Decided I really wanted to be a part of be a part of a department and not coming in and teaching one or two classes. And. I have a daughter she's 16 next to into it should be 16. And so it was kind of hard to freelance and go in and out of the city

and teach. I mean it was just kind of crazy. It was get crazy. So you found out about a job at the University of Vermont Well actually what happened was they needed a year replacement. And so I had known the chair at the time and so he called me out of the blue and said I need you tomorrow and I said. Wow you know how can I refuse. Never thinking I would end up getting you know having a job full time and so and then actually to go back to to the RAF Gabs and that theater. Your husband chucked up and got a job there and after the RAF gabs who reigned a long and mighty and wonderful reign right there it's now run sort of by a triumph for it of your husband who's managing director right to artistic directors Cathy Cathy Hearst and Peter Harrigan. Are they giving the academic program of the playhouse a new flavor. I think they aren't. I think they are I think because it's

different and different. Different artistic directors their their their their season selection is a little bit different. They're doing they're doing some more controversial pieces picking shows in that area. And. Yeah it's just it's evolving audiences change too. That must be interesting are that are they open to I mean there was a play about abuse recently or a little while ago but what other place are the audiences responding to the more difficult place. Oh they are a lot of people are a lot of people some some of the subscribers are unhappy with when there's language and you know issues like you talk about how I learned to drive and yet some people really didn't didn't care for that. But for the most part people are very excited that. They're. Delving into issues and

that they hadn't before. And I would I would think the actors are more interested in challenge in that more or doesn't matter. Oh no no no no it's wonderful to work on on material that's relevant today issues. It's great. It's also really great to do fun Farson it's you know it's what's a favorite role. I did well I really like the ways in Patsy Cline which I did a couple summers ago with someone else I talk to their favorite of yours you know Patsy Patsy Cline's best friend. Yeah yeah I really you know when I was they asked me to do the part and I said. You know I wasn't sure about the part because it's sort of she's the southern you know fan and I thought oh it's going to be really kind of seems kind of silly but I loved working on that show it was really great and I actually. Go ahead. Well no I was just I was wondering if the audiences were different for that. They were. And interesting because sometimes the audience that.

They were familiar with Patsy Cline songs sometimes they would start singing and they would applaud and then other audiences though and though they all seem to enjoy it they weren't they didn't respond in a way that the ones that knew the music so it was it was. Did that surprise you when people when they start singing literally for they sometimes the audience did. Sometimes they did. Yeah and they would applaud like when she would sing when Chrissie would sing crazy whatever they said they would start applauding now some audiences wouldn't. So it just it just depended on the director. He had done the show in Texas and you know they were there big big or bigger Patsy Cline down there so he was he was I think was a little surprised that we didn't have quite the. Country country crowd here I guess we had to pull them out there a little bit. Yeah the usual playhouse crowd is a little staid and in a sense I think so yes. But you probably start a poem and some country people I

would think definitely because there's Country music is very popular here. It is actually you've been teaching acting at the University of Vermont since 1995 and directing all these main stage productions what are all of your students acting majors by the way or. What combination. It's a combination Yeah. In our program we have a lot Will. You mean we have about 50 majors right now 40 minors and then we have theater concentrators education majors concentrating in theaters. So hopefully they'll go on and teach theater what is important about acting for young people I mean what does it do for not only I'm sure the theater majors they know what they're doing but but for other people why do they why do they take your courses. I have what do you do for them. Well I think it's a way of first of all it teaches you to communicate you know communication skills. People have a fear of speaking giving presentations and in life you have to communicate so

there's that aspect also. I think dealing with. Human human issues in life you know portraying characters who experience things that we all experience and being able to act it out is really good for students they learn more about other people and other other ways of of of being I daily of even being with with problems in different situations interesting or even empathy. The learning learning empathy are there national trends in Feodor study for higher education now. Well interesting I think in the past 10 or 20 years there have been there's been a huge growth in graduate training programs and also in now they have in the under at the undergraduate level they have a BFA which is a Bachelor of Fine Arts. And then there's also the B.A. which is just the bachelor's bachelor's degree. We offer a B.A. So we teach a broadly based curriculum so they deal the

students just they don't just come in and do costume design or or performance they get they get all of it which makes them well-rounded. The BFA is where you you specialize in one area right away and. In the graduate training programs they're also specialized. Sure. That's interesting there's a bachelor's that can specialize in say custom design BFM you have say yes and we actually feel that it's better to get the well rounded approach and then when you go to graduate school you can focus in on one in one area because you have this this understanding of all the other all the other aspects. I think it's important. Yeah. Yeah. So you're about to open Arthur Miller's The Crucible Yeah. Some of kind of post Halloween which I just I just couldn't help. You know you know. It's so funny because were her so we've been rehearsing for three weeks and they're starting to wear costume pieces cloaks and the the big Puritan hats and

so I mean they come into rehearsal and it reminds me of Thanksgiving Halloween. I mean I yeah. Well me too. Now I would think it would be very challenging to direct college students in this play that's about 17th century America. And it's taken from the impulse of 1950s it was written in 1952 or 3 Arthur Miller. Are they able to relate hope to the hysteria and some of the other issues of the play. I think they they're getting there absolutely because first of all we have the most of the cast are there all of the students and again some majors and majors and I also have three actors who are from the community. Older older gentlemen who have been cast in the production who bring another bring age and experience to the production I don't know if you know the character Dan for the deputy governor is being played by

Ben Ashton. I don't know if you know Ben but he's a wonderful actor and he. That role is so important in the show I mean he's you know in the second act it's all it's all really easy and just for people I'm sorry that it's about the witch hunts in Salem. Yes. And it was written during the McCarthy era when there were a lot of accusations of people being communists Oh that's so. So continue. Yes but what I was going to say is been having these other other performers bring. Add another dimension. And bring the students to another level. We also have an equity guest artists playing Tituba in the show and Simone s'more she's from New York City. And I had worked at the same theater with Simone in the summer and I seen her work in this opportune this was a wonderful opportunity to get her to come here and work with our students and portraying this particular character. She.

She's she's just it's wonderful. So I have to do them to to work with professional actor Absolutely and we we it's just great because she brings she's actually living in New York now and pursuing work in New York and she has you know she's she's you know has all that. All those all that information for them. Two is is language a problem I know Arthur Miller tried to write this to make her use the old language but to make it ok you are fine actors. It's fine. It's not tripping them up. It is not no it's not. No. How do you get out of your actors what you need you are also a specialist in stage combat and the height you are a member of the Society of American fight directors which is I think it's must be an unusual specialty for a woman. Yeah. Actually let's let's just take a quick fire

line and what is that like to be a combat. As as a woman to specialize in in fights. Well first of all the society of marrying five directors is the organization which was founded I believe in the late 70s or early 80s in order to because stage combat for those people who don't know everything on stage is choreographed all the fighting everything has its hours and hours and hours are spent in rehearsing these fights in order to sort of establish safety and artistry and stage combat this organization was formed by a group of men. And right now there are 10 fight masters in the United States all men and for the moment. And I. So there's a rigorous training program that one goes through in order to learn more about this and work on it and my. Mum. It's definitely in my training for the training that I've had in Stage Combat every time I've gone to workshops and things it's pretty much pretty much a male dominated.

Do you we just have a few seconds left what do you use. The physical stuff that you get again in your directing absolutely here I'm up my Because I started as a dancer my interest really is in the physical the physicality of the speed of of of of a character and finding the body and the soul and the heart rate and the rhythm and the spine and so I do a lot of rigorous warmups with my students. OK. We've done we are done already I'm so sorry thank you for coming in we're going to talk another half hour thank you so much for having me. I see the crucible and thank you for joining us the crucible starts next week. Check it out.