Documentary Film Director - Fawn Yacker:
Fawn Yacker is a Producer/Director and a Director of Photography for film and video. Her cinematography credits include DEADLY DECEPTION (Academy AwardTM best short documentary, 1991); IN THE SHADOW OF THE STARS, contributing cinematographer (Academy AwardTM best feature length documentary, 1991); CHUCK SOLOMON:COMING OF AGE "...among the best documentaries dealing with AIDS." Kevin Thomas LA Times; and, CONFESSIONS OF A PRETTY LADY a one hour documentary about actress/ performer Sandra Bernhard produced for the BBC's Arena program.
Fawn's directorial debut in the dramatic narrative form, was as one of the twelve participants in the ninth cycle of the American Film Institute's Directing Workshop for Women. She completed, BEDTIME STORY; a thirty minute film about making choices based on love rather than fear. Yacker's directing credits also include CAN YOU SEE ME FLYING, a documentary about dancer/choreographer Terry Sendgraff, screened on PBS as well as The Learning Channel's Independent Series, (winner of the 1991 Bronze Apple at the American Educational Film and Video Festival); A LEAP ACROSS THE BAR LINES directed for the Women's Philharmonic (winner of the Bronze Apple,1993) and more recently a segment for “SPARK”, an arts program produced for PBS. She has also directed award-winning dramatic and comedic programs for corporate education and training.
THAT'S A FAMILY, which Fawn co-directed and co-produced with Academy AwardTM recipient Debra Chasnoff ("Deadly Deception"), was awarded the Master Cine Golden Eagle in 2000. Fawn was also the director of photography on this educational documentary.
More recent cinematography assignments include trips to Cambodia, India and South Africa on separate social issue documentaries. This summer 2006, Fawn is slated to be in Vietnam to film a documentary on land minds. Local assignments, currently in production, include a documentary about Babe Didrikson, (outstanding woman athlete of the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s), another looks at homophobia in sports and the third continues the diversity series with Debra Chasnoff in a film about stereotypes.
Ugly Ducklings Playwright - Carolyn Gage:
Carolyn Gage is an acclaimed lesbian playwright and performer. The author of five books and forty-eight plays, she has been the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, including the Oregon Book Award, national finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, and the national Women in the Arts Culture Award, whose roster includes Audre Lorde, June Jordan, and Nikki Giovanni. Her work has been endorsed by feminist authors Jewelle Gomez, Andrea Dworkin, and Phyllis Chesler, and she is on the roster of the national speaker's bureau Speak Out! Since moving to Maine in 1998, she has taught at the University of Southern Maine and at Bates College. This year, the American Theatre Critics Association nominated her play Ugly Ducklings for their ATCA/Steinberg Award, for the best new play produced outside of New York.
Executive Producer - Lauren Sterling:
Lauren Sterling has worked in Maine advocating for children and youth as a volunteer for over 10 years and professionally since 1998, first directing the Kennebec County Child Abuse & Neglect Council and now as staff to the Governor’s Children’s Cabinet in Maine. In 1993, Lauren returned to Maine after a fifteen-year professional career in theater and television acting in, and producing theatrical projects in Los Angeles and New York to benefit various charities back in Maine. She worked as a media consultant for the Maine Department of Corrections for whom she produced two documentaries: “Girls in Juvenile Corrections” and an educational film called “Choices” inspired by two lifetime inmates at the former Maine State Prison. As staff to the Children’s Cabinet, Lauren also works with the Governor’s Children’s Cabinet’s Sub-Committee on Youth Suicide Prevention.
Co-Producer - Lyn Mikel Brown:
Lyn Mikel Brown is Professor of Education at Colby College. She writes extensively on the social and relational life of girls; the influences of race, class, and gender on girls’ lives; as well as girls’ feelings of anger, self-knowledge, loss, hope, and desire. She received her Ed.D. from Harvard University's Graduate School of Education, and was a founding member of the Harvard Project on Women's Psychology and Girls' Development. She is the author of four books on girls’ social and psychological development including Meeting at the Crossroads: Women's Psychology and Girls' Development (with Carol Gilligan, 1992) and Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketers’ Schemes. She is co-creator of Hardy Girls Healthy Women, a nonprofit designed to provide girls with control, commitment, and challenge in their lives.
Stage Director - Cathy Plourde:
Cathy Plourde, M.A., Theatre and Social Change, is the founding and executive director of Add Verb Productions (AVP) Arts and Education. Based in Portland, Maine, she is a playwright and director focusing on works for social justice whose work travels nationally. Her plays The Thin Line and You the Man have been to 26 states with AVP, and have been seen by over 75,000 people since 2000. For her efforts using theatre for social change, she won the Maine Women’s Fund Award this fall (2004), and grant awards range from National Endowment for the Humanities, US Department of Justice’s Project Sentry, Maine Women’s Fund, Maine Community Foundation and several donor advised funds, as well as private patrons. She has been working with youth and communities, facilitating the development of collaborative, issue-based performance. Her workshops on arts and activism have included Crash Course on Being a Teaching Artist; Creating Collaborative Performance; Developing; Creating the One-Person Show; Playwriting as Activism. She has spoken and presented papers nationally and in Canada, is a member of the Association of Theatre in Higher Education, The Dramatists Guild of America, a volunteer for the Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival, and is an Honorary Artist in Residence at the University of Southern Maine.
