Jay Craven, Artistic Director
	Bess O'Brien and Jay Craven Jay Craven is the Artistic Director of Kingdom County Productions. He directs the Fledgling Films Summer Institute and teaches Film Studies at Marlboro College. His award-winning films include A Stranger in the Kingdom (1998) starring Ernie Hudson, David Lansbury, and Martin Sheen, and Where the Rivers Flow North (1994) starring Rip Torn, Tantoo Cardinal, and Michael J. Fox. Craven founded and directed Catamount Arts (1975-1991), one of New England most prominent performing arts presenters and producers. He also co-founded Circus Smirkus (1986-88) and was an artist-in-residence with Vermont Young Playwrights (1994-98). He is the recipient of the 1998 Vermont Governors’ Award for Excellence in the Arts, a 1991 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Media Arts Production Grant, two NEA Regional Film Fellowships, a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, and the 1995 Producers’ Guild of America NOVA Award (with Bess O’Brien) for Most Promising New Motion Picture Producers of the Year.
	Sarah Ream, Associate Artistic Director
	Sarah Ream has worked extensively as a scriptwriter and director at Playwright's Horizons, Manhattan Theater Club, American Conservatory Theater, Royal National Theater, Viceroy Theater, and many other venues throughout the U.S. and Great Britain. She has taught directing, acting, and improvisation at The Royal National Theater, University of London Queen Mary and Westfield College, and the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Sarah is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Yale currently teaches English and Drama at Phillips Exeter Academy.
	Bess O'Brien, Institute Artistic Director
	KCP's Institute Artistic Director, Bess O'Brien, has produced theater and film for twenty years in New York and Vermont. She co-founded Kingdom County Productions in 1991 with Jay Craven. Her award-winning documentaries include Where is Stephanie? (1998) and Journey Into Courage (1996). A Theater Studies graduate of Mt. Holyoke College, Bess founded the Vermont Ensemble Theater (1985-88) where she produced more than a dozen shows, including the world theatrical premiere of Federico Fellini's LaStrada.
	Hathalee Higgs, Producing Director
	KCP's Producing Director Hathalee Higgs directed the 1999 and 2000 Fledgling Films Summer Institutes, producing thirteen short films in the process. A 1994 graduate of The University of Virginia, Hathalee returns to co-direct the 2001 Institute with Bess O'Brien.

Workshop leaders will be drawn from film and theater artists linked to KCP, along with guest artists, to be announced. Recent workshop leaders include actors Mark Nash, Donny Osman, Bill Raymond (12 Monkeys, Where the Rivers Flow North, A Stranger in the Kingdom, The Crow), Rusty DeWees (Rivers, Stranger, Black Dog, The Logger), director John O'Brien (A Man With a Plan), cinematographer Jamie Yerkes (Spin the Bottle), singer-songwriter Jon Gailmor, storyboard artist Greg Crawford, production designer Terry Sylvester, and Vermont Film Commissioner Loranne Turgeon.

Fledgling Films Summer Institute

Personnel