VFTE Chautauqua Scholars
Ilene Evans
Ilene Evans is the artistic director of Voices From the Earth, Inc., an educational touring theater company that uses storytelling and theater to promote social justice. After receiving her B.A. from Trinity College in Deerfield, Illinois, Ms. Evans completed her Master’s Degree at East Tennessee State University in the department of Education with an emphasis in Storytelling. She has spent the last 20 years as the artistic director of Voices From the Earth, an educational touring theater company that uses storytelling and theater to promote social justice. In 2009, Ilene was selected by the United States Embassy to tour Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Columbia to share her work in the history and culture of African Americans through arts education, literature, and music.
Charles Everett Pace
Charles Everett Pace has undergraduate and graduate degrees from The University of Texas at Austin (B.A., biology) and Purdue University… Charles Everett Pace has undergraduate and graduate degrees from The University of Texas at Austin (B.A., biology) and Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana (M.A., American studies: history and anthropology). As well as being a Program Advisor at the Texas Union, University of Texas at Austin, Charles has taught at The University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Purdue University, and most recently at Centre College in Kentucky. His research area is the anthropology of performance, experience and visual communications. He has performed and conducted workshops in hundreds of cities across the United States, as well as, in London, England. Pace has also conducted performance-based public diplomacy work for the United States Information Agency (USIA) in dozens of cities in nine countries across east, west and southern Africa.
Karen Vuranch
Karen Vuranch, weaves together a love of history, a passion for stories and a sense of community. Her acclaimed performance of her original production, Coal Camp Memories, has been presented nationally and internationally. Celebrating the history of the West Virginia coal fields, Karen’s storytelling drama has been hailed as a significant memorial to the men and women who labored in the coal fields. She completed five performance tours of Wales and England including the Dylan Thomas Festival in Swansea, Wales, with Coal Camp Memories. Using the techniques of dramatizing oral history that she honed in Coal Camp Memories, Karen then collected stories from women on the American homefront in WWII.She regularly performs in Chautauquas, which are summer performances presented by state Humanities Councils featuring scholar/actors portraying historical characters. She has participated troupes from across the country. Karen also teaches at Concord University, where she has been the Director of the Theatre Department.
Joey Madia
Joey Madia is a playwright, teaching artist, director, and actor. He is the Artistic Director/Resident Playwright of Seven Stories Theatre Company, Inc. and Resident Playwright at Youth Stages, LLC. He has appeared in or directed over 80 plays. He specializes in social justice theater and participatory plays for youth with17 original plays for young audiences. He has written and performed pieces about Civil War captains Louis Emilio and Thomas Maulsby. He has worked with organizations including The Epilepsy Foundation of NJ and Camp NOVA to bring theater to students with disabilities and has won three writing awards from VSA of NJ. His poetry, essays, and short stories have been widely published and have earned him several awards. His first novel, Jester-Knight, was published in 2009. His second novel, Minor Confessions of an Angel Falling Upward was published in 2012 (Burning Bulb Publishing).
Fanny Crawford
Fanny Crawford grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania learning family stories and political and cultural history from an extended circle of storytelling relatives and friends. An undergrad degree from the University of Chicago in The History & Philosophy of Religion, followed by a move to Maryland nearly 50 years ago and an MS from Hood College.
Dr. J. Holmes Armstead
Dr. J. Holmes Armstead is a retired professor of Strategy and International law from the US Naval War College. He has taught international law, strategy and national security policy for nearly 40 years. Professor Armstead has served on faculties at Stanford University, Pepperdine University, the University of California, The University of Nevada, Southern University the US Naval Postgraduate School, Lewis University, the Virginia Military Institute and Washington and Lee University. He has also lectured at the British Joint Services Staff College and taught as a visiting professor at the Universite d’Pau in France and as an exchange professor at Richmond College in the University of London. He has lectured at senior staff colleges in Poland, Austria, Germany, Slovenia, and Malawi.as well as the US Army War College, at the United States Military Academy and the South African Military Academy Counsel to the American bar Association Office of Human Rights, Dr. Armstead lectures on International law at the Austrian Academy of Higher Military Studies in Vienna.
