BRATTLEBORO — “This ain't Uncle Stevie's swan song.”
So promises Stephen Stearns, founder of New England Youth Theatre (NEYT), who wants to make it clear that while he is stepping down as artistic director, he's not heading out the door.
Now 70, Stearns is handing off his administrative responsibilities to free up time to write about his life's work - and to pour more into NEYT as a teacher, director, and board member.
He also will work with alumni to develop a new generation of teachers so future students here can learn the fundamentals he founded the organization with in 1998.
“As artistic director, I had so many responsibilities,” he says: “I had to supervise the faculty, plan and create courses, and decide on each season's theatrical presentations at NEYT. I had also to choose the appropriate directors for our staged productions, which [might] include myself.”
And not just supervise faculty, but recruit them as well. Of that, he says, “It takes more than a person's résumé or curriculum vitae to find out if that instructor will be aligned with our philosophy of teaching at NEYT.”
Consequently, Stearns often found himself spending a lot of time trying to get to know applicants, vetting new instructors, and observing them in classes.
“Besides that, there are the nuts and bolts of keeping a nonprofit as large as ours afloat, something people [tend to] forget,” Stearns continues.
He worked on the budget with NEYT's board, and often was called upon to raise substantial funds in the community - especially when the institution faced deficits.
“Last, but hardly least, I am the person on call when NEYT finds itself facing children who have emotional and other pressing personal issues,” he concludes. “In short, I am here to keep harmony.”
A key to his success: he's worked to keep the school out of what he calls “the ego zone.”
“I didn't want NEYT to slip into what I call 'founder-itis,' nor did I want to hold the reins too tightly. We are excited to bring in fresh blood to give NEYT new energy and vision that will complement our own,” he says.
He explains he wanted to make sure NEYT “functions horizontally,” and not top-down as a kind of “Stephen Stearns Show.” He credits many, past and present, for the organization's success.
Stearns says that, over the past 15 years, NEYT has touched the lives of thousands of students and has put on more than 150 shows. Powering that: five full-time, in-house instructors, 15 roving instructors, many other talented instructors as needed, and a full administrative staff.
He says he intends to remain dedicated to the mission of the school he founded.
“I have been grandfathered on the board of directors as long as I am alive,” he explains, “and I will be there so that the ship of state sails in the right direction.”
Nonetheless, Stearns is delighted to see some of his duties eased in this change, as now he'll have more time for teaching. Returning to Clowning 101 - “which is central to everything we do here” - is tops on his list:
“Folks have complained that many courses I used to teach are no longer available. Our alumni have told me that those very basic instructions have remained as an important foundation for all they do, and now those students are all over New England and beyond.”
And Stearns says that alumni have also requested that he teach master classes for those already graduated so that they can brush up on the skills they learned at NEYT.
Stepping up where Stearns stands down: Sandy Klein, NEYT's costume director, mentor advisor, and head of faculty, is now interim artistic director. Finding a permanent replacement could take a year, Stearns suspects:
“I will not be the only one deciding who will follow me, although I will be part of the search committee. I do not know if the position will be filled by a man or a woman, or if he or she will be in their 20s or 40s. We just hope that person will bring their special expertize and worldview that can attune itself to the heart and soul of our vision at NEYT.”
Always a clown
Stearns has taught and directed, and performed as a professional clown, mime, and actor, for 38 years. He has a postdoctoral degree in acting from London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and took his master's in directing, and doctorate in Elizabethan and Scandinavian drama, from the University of Washington.
He taught college theatre at Pennsylvania's Bucks County Community College from 1970 to 1973, then went to England for actor training. He returned to perform Shakespeare at festivals in Oregon and Vermont.
Stearns worked as an Equity actor in New York and trained with master mime Tony Montanaro at Celebration Barn, a theater/school of mime, improvisation, storytelling, and other performing skills, in the mid-1970s.
He left New York City, where he had been living, in 1975.
“I was rather depressed with the way my life was going. When a voice teacher noticed how low I seemed, she asked what was it I really wanted to do. I told her I'd like to go back to the country, like where I grew up. She suggested Vermont.
And so he settled in Vermont. Here, he helped start a commune on a location that had hosted a drama camp in the 1940s and 1950s.
He stayed five years, but when he suggested the commune focus on theater arts - in respect of the location's heritage - the other founders held out for a focus on organic gardening.
Stearns left, he says, “with the idea of starting some kind of a theater school of my own.”
After teaching first- and second-graders at Dummerston School for a couple of years, Stearns thought he was ready to start that school in 1980. Instead, he met writer Peter Gould. Together they formed Gould & Stearns, the celebrated “Clown Jewels of Vermont,” and toured for nearly two decades.
They covered 42 states and five other countries. Their play “A Peasant of El Salvador” has won several national awards, including the Denver Global Peace and Justice Award, and has been performed worldwide.
The duo also have been awarded grants from the Vermont Arts Council, and have been sponsored by the Lincoln Center Institute, which commissioned their play “Gould & Stearns in the Sweet Dreams Motel.”
“Touring with Peter, I made mistakes and learned a lot,” says Stearns. “And then when I was 55, he told me he wanted to go back to school and earn his doctorate, so he was leaving our duo. I realized ... that if I ever would start the school that I had been dreaming about, I should do it [then].”
Finally, the time was right. Stearns founded New England Youth Theatre in 1998.
“I wanted the right name to help us become successful, something that wouldn't limit us too much. My ambition might have had me call it the Intergalactic Youth Theatre, but I figured I'd better settle for New England.”
He also says he believed it important that the name of the place say “youth” - not “children” - to reach a wider range of students.
From this experience, Stearns found himself able to give others useful advice.
“I told Elsie [Smith] and Serenity Smith [Forchion] to follow my lead when they were starting their school. I told them to call it the New England Center for Circus Arts, for the same reasons I did,” he says.
“I also suggested they establish themselves as a nonprofit. When they said they were doing fine as a for-profit institution, I explained that although they might be all right for now, they needed to … plan on the growth of their institution. And, of course, look at NECCA now.”
A moveable feast, NEYT built its first theater in a former Chinese restaurant on Main Street in the Latchis block.
“Our first production with 35 kids was Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' at Landmark College,” Stearns recalls. “To my shock and delight, 500 people came to that performance. Then we did the Charlie Brown musical [“You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown”] at the Green Street School auditorium. After that, we performed wherever we could get the space.
“Later, Spiro Latchis gave NEYT a permanent home for four years in the Chinese restaurant in the Latchis for free. The only thing he wanted in exchange was that I give him tennis lessons.”
Constantly expanding, NEYT outgrew this location, but it was not until the Latchis complex sold to new owners that the school finally moved.
“We already had our eye on a new property by then,” says Stearns.
NEYT undertook a massive fundraising effort to buy the former Tri-State Automotive building on Flat Street, which in 2006 became the site for a new theater and school.
Stearns recalls the new building cost $1.7 million to build, which he estimates would cost more than $3 million today, given the cost of materials.
“And I must say that we got a lot of deals because people wanted to help us, besides the fact that we were building in Brattleboro - and not Manhattan or Boston.”
And NEYT had great foresight in building its theater with flood doors, as it stood in the Whetstone Brook floodplain. The structure was left unharmed by Tropical Storm Irene's wrath.
Telling his story
Stearns has been enjoying a remarkable life even beyond NEYT, including his defeat of prostate cancer, his arts-related trips to Russia, and his solo clown show, “Right Under Your Nose,” which teaches children to transmute their handicaps into opportunities.
Indeed, one trip to Russia in particular will feature in his memoirs, which he's excited to write: That was the time he found himself out on the street in the middle of the night - in full clown regalia - and four policemen surrounded him with machine guns. What are you doing out at this hour? What is in your backpack? Stearns recalls he was terrified.
What he did next was by instinct: He took off his red, rubber nose, and before the police knew what happened, he produced 20 similar noses - and began juggling them.
Relief: The police just shook their heads and walked away.
Stearns also plans to write about his friendships with celebrities such as the late folk icon Pete Seeger and doctor and fellow clown Patch Adams, the subject of the 1998 movie of the same name starring Robin Williams.
Seeger was an especially dear friend and role model whom Stearns says he had the pleasure of working with for 30 years.
“He had the ability to speak directly to the people, each and every one, even in a large auditorium. His death [in January] is a great loss. He'd recently told me that between numbers, minutiae, and meetings, 'Here I am in my 90s doing more than I did 25 years ago.'
“I replied, 'Tell me about it.'”
Stearns is dedicating a garden to Seeger at NEYT, and joining with others, such as Gould and Brattleboro musician and teacher Peter Amidon, to map out a memorial concert for Seeger at NEYT on May 2, which will benefit the school's scholarship program.
Just another example of Stearns looking ahead: “With more than 35 performers promising to be onstage the entire show, this should be a memorable evening,” he says.