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Our Team​
LINDSAY PONTIUS
Co-Founder and Director
Lindsay Pontius has been a professional actor, director, and teacher working both regionally and internationally for over 25 years. Pontius is Co-Founder and Director of Education of Courageous Stage, and also serves as Education Director of Town Hall Theater (THT) in Middlebury, Vermont. Over the last seven years, Pontius developed the THT Education Program, which annually serves more than 20 schools and a thousand children in Vermont.
Pontius is a founding member of Shakespeare & Company’s nationally award-winning Fall Festival of Shakespeare that involves 10 high schools and thousands of students (grades 7-12) every year. She has a doctorate in Leadership and Policy Studies from the University of Vermont.
CRAIG MARAVICH
Co-Founder and Artistic Director
Craig’s work as an actor and theatre-maker spans a professional career of 20 years and includes credits with leading theatres across the country. He is the Founding Program Director of Beyond the Page (BtP) at Middlebury College. BtP uses the practices of theatre and performance to develop curricula for classrooms, professional development for faculty, and community engagement in student learning spaces across Middlebury College. Also at Middlebury, Craig has served as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre, he is on the faculty at The Bread Loaf School of English, and a company member of the Bread Loaf Acting Ensemble since 2010.. His work as a teaching artist in Vermont includes the development of several classes and community initiatives with The Flynn Center for the Arts, The Town Hall Theater, and The Community Engagement Lab. Craig is a recipient of a Vermont Thriving Communities Grant and the A. Bartlett Giamatti Award for Professional Development: bringing creative practices into Bread Loaf and Middlebury classrooms and, through that work, cultivating inclusive learning and teaching environments.
GIANNA KIEHL
Director of Operations and Associate Artist
Gianna Kiehl has worked as a professional actor, producer and educator in Vermont, New York and London (UK) for over 10 years. Her acting career has spanned television, radio and theater. Local credits include Lauren in Circle Mirror Transformation (MACo) and Becky is Slowgirl (Vermont Stage). Her TV credits include Hanna (Amazon Prime) and The Diplomat (Netflix). She works as an associate producer for Ferodo Bridges, an international artist’s collective helmed by Alexander Raptotasios, and as an independent producer specializing in theater. She holds a BA (Hons) in Professional Acting from England’s leading drama school, The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. Also a longtime student of classical music, Gianna has been a private violin teacher for 15 years. As a performer and teaching artist, Gianna was introduced to the vital and transformative work of Courageous Stage through Lindsay’s mentorship.
Associate
Artists
Courageous Stage partners with a network of internationally acclaimed Associate Artists, who bring their extensive expertise to bear in the classroom. Our turnkey model, and its teachers, travel to schools and cultural institutions across Vermont. Vermont-based Associate Artists include:
Clint Bierman
Clint Bierman is a band leader, studio engineer, songwriter, producer, and composer. He has created numerous albums, played guitar for the NBC show, Smash, and co-wrote I'm on My Way, which was featured on the Shrek 2 soundtrack. He has extensive music education experience, including leading Rock-It Science music camps.
Scott
Gibbs
After graduating from Shimer College, Scott Gibbs taught high school English and humanities for thirty five years, two at Duluth Cathedral High School and the remainder at Westport Central School on Lake Champlain in New York. While at Westport, he received two NEH summer scholarships to study writing and literature at Harvard University and at Bard College. Since his retirement, Scott works as a teaching artist in the Shakespeare, It’s Elementary program, among other interests. Scott lives in Westport with his wife, Margaret.
Brandon
Haynes
Bio coming soon!
Phin
Holzhammer
Phin Holzhammer is a local musician, poet, storyteller, and alternative educator, with training and background focusing on working with neurodivergent youth and youth struggling with mental illness. He is passionate about bringing the performing arts to rural and underprivileged communities, and using theater as a tool to discover our voices, break barriers, and create a stronger sense of community for students and teachers alike.
Ralph
Johnson
Ralph Johnson is from Montgomery, Alabama. He attended Oberlin College undergrad, and holds an MFA from Brown University in Acting. Most notably he’s been acting and teaching at Bread Loaf School of English since 2012, and is in love with the great state of Vermont.
Jessica
Ko
Jessica is an actor and teaching artist. She has spent several seasons at the renowned Oregon Shakespeare Festival, starring as Rosalind in As You Like It, Dou Yi in Snow In Midsummer, and the Shapeshifter in the world premiere of Jiehae Park’s Hannah and the Dread Gazebo. As a multi-hyphenate artist and educator, she co-founded her own company, Random Access Theatre, which partnered with Brooklyn Bridge Park to bring free Shakespeare to its outdoor programming. More recently, she helped launch a BIPOC-focused actor training & educational arts program called The Blueprint. She earned her MFA in Acting from Brown University/Trinity Rep. She is currently based in Los Angeles.
Louis
Reyes McWilliams
Louis Reyes McWilliams is an actor, writer, and teaching artist based in Los Angeles. He is a recent graduate of the Brown/Trinity Rep MFA Program in Acting & Directing. Louis’ theater credits include Off-Broadway, Shakespeare in the Park with The Public Theater, and regional productions with Berkeley Rep, Bread Loaf Acting Ensemble, Dallas Theater Center, the Huntington, The Old Globe, and Trinity Rep, among others. As a writer, his plays and screenplays have placed highly in various competitions, including the ScreenCraft Stage Play Competition and the Garry Marshall New Works Festival. He holds a BA in Theater & Performance Studies and Political Science from Stanford University.
Jude
Sandy
Jude Sandy is a Trinidad & Tobago-born, Philadelphia-based theater artist and teacher. In New York City, he was in the original Broadway company of War Horse at Lincoln Center, and has performed at theaters off-Broadway and around North America. As a resident artist with Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, RI, he has appeared in eight seasons, playing Othello in Othello, Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors, and Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, directing Marcus Gardley's black odyssey and August Wilson's Radio Golf, and choreographing for seven productions. A graduate of Brown University, Jude is an adjunct assistant professor in theater at Connecticut College and has guest taught at The National Theater Institute and numerous universities. He is a co-creator since 2016 for DenizenArts, a multi-disciplinary, African diasporaand queer-inspired performance collaboration alongside his life partner, dance and performance artist yonTande Whitney V. Hunter.
Paul
Schnabel
Paul Schnabel is an actor/producer and co-founder/President of Off Center for the Dramatic Arts, an incubator performance venue in the Old North End of Burlington. Paul is a longstanding member of the internationally acclaimed Riot Group in NYC and of the Screen Actors Guild.
Haley
Schwartz
Haley Schwartz is an actor, writer, filmmaker, and teaching artist based in New York City. She is a lover of both classical and contemporary texts, and is especially drawn toward work that celebrates queerness, grapples with environmental apocalypse, and/or investigates grief and loss in all its absurd and unpredictable forms. She holds a B.A. in Political Theory from Brown University (’17) and received her MFA in Acting from Brown/Trinity Rep (’20) where she was awarded the Antonio Cirino Memorial Scholarship, a Shubert Foundation Award, and the David Wickham Prize in Playwriting. She has been working as an actor and teaching artist with Middlebury College and Bread Loaf School of English since the summer of 2019.
Stephen
Thorne
Stephen Thorne is an actor, director, teacher and writer. He has been a member of the Resident Acting Company at Trinity Rep since 2000 and the Bread Loaf Acting Ensemble since 1999. Trinity Rep credits include Iago in Othello and Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath. Film/TV credits include Invitation to a Bonfire, The Holdovers, Boston Strangler and Don’t Look Up. He has written two plays: The Completely Fictional, Utterly True, Final Strange Tale of Edgar Allan Poe and Veronica Meadows. Stephen holds a BA in Theater Arts from Loyola Marymount University and an MFA in Acting from the University of Iowa. He is an adjunct professor at Clark University (MA).
Theo
Wells-Spackman
Theo Wells-Spackman currently studies English, music, and journalism at Princeton University. He's been involved with Town Hall Theater education since age 6. He spent a year as an intern with Courageous Stage, and has been an assistant director/coach for several iterations of the THT Young Company. With Princeton's music department, he's been a coach for the Trenton Youth Singers program, and has sung roles in several opera productions as well as various jazz and classical voice ensembles.
Alice
Wills
Alice Wills, better known as Ali, is an on-screen actress from North Philadelphia. Ali started out studying improv, acting, hosting fashion /Film Award shows and can be seen in upcoming commercials, films and TV. Ali is currently learning the ropes as an entrepreneur living in New York in the midst of auditioning and honing her craft. When Ali isn't acting she can be found exasperatedly studying Business, running long distances slowly, creating cocktail recipes and all out having fun.