THE HISTORY OF GREEN STAR PLAYHOUSE

When I was a child in the 60’s in Jericho, Vermont, our family got together with several other families in the community and started a summer theater called, Green Star Theater under the supervision of mostly three amazing mothers, DeeDee Jameson, Willy Cochran, and my own mother, Jean Archibald. One of the older children, Clint Cochran, directed the plays and my brother Jeff and Ginger Jameson, possibly with the help of others, wrote the scripts to adapt the story for our summer cast of all children.

*This is the barn in Jericho Vermont where the* Green Star Theater took place in 1965 - 1967. There is a green star painted on the sliding door (not shown; photo coming!) that gave our theater its fitting name. Update: We had the good fortune to be able to visit the home and take a few pictures and have learned that a bear tore the barn door off with the green star on it! Luckily, it turns out that there is another barn on the property that had a sliding door with a green star painted on it. Thanks to Danielle for letting me visit and take some pictures!

The original “green star” on a farm in Jericho, Vermont. Apparently, a green star on a barn signifies, “"fertility and hope for growth on the farm" which is equally fitting to my use which implies young or novice stars in the making.

*That’s me (Sarah) in the center of the photo! I was playing the role of Tweedledee in* Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

After this ended, I created and directed a summer theater for a couple of years in my family’s barn in Jericho using the same green velvet curtains from the Green Star Theater that came from my grandparents in Connecticut. We called it Sunset Theater and wrote some of our own plays. I managed to fill the second story of our chicken barn with oodles of costumes. We filled the barn with hay during the winter and tons of creative play making in the summer. Those were great days!

As an adult, when my children were very young, I started a puppet making and daycare business in our home in Woodbury, Vermont in 1988. Because I still had the green velvet curtains and wonderful memories, I decided to call my business Greenstar Playhouse which seemed a fitting heading for all of the play, music, theater, and art projects I had going between myself and my children, and children in the community.

*At the time my name was Sarah Hotchkiss Rossano. I also had begun to teach violin lessons around the same time.*

*This was the cover of the business rack sheet in those days.*

*This is the inside of the rack sheet possibly typed on my grandfather’s vintage typewriter!*

*Sarah Hotchkiss circa 1990 (then Sarah H. Rossano) with a handful of her puppets.*

*This is a sample of one of the many storybook kits that Sarah made, complete with puppets and hand painted backdrops, that also served as a carrying case for the puppets.*

This is a five-year-old’s theater club wearing costumes created mostly from gauze squares. Green Star Playhouse had a small stage built in the playroom that also doubled as play space. Other activities included story telling with felt boards and many creative art projects.

*This poster was created by Sarah for an impromptu puppet making workshop on an island in Maine in 1990.*

*Participants made puppets out of found objects on the beach and put together a backdrop and puppet performance the very same day.*

By 1998 Sarah’s children were in school and the daycare and puppet business had been replaced by a full-time job working as a youth counselor for the Washington County Youth Services Bureau in Montpelier, Vermont (now currently Elevate Youth Services) while teaching violin and fiddle on the side. Sarah was receiving so many calls to teach music that she left her post with the Youth Service bureau and began teaching music full time under the business name of Woodbury Strings. Sarah became Chair of the Strings Department of Monteverdi Music School, also in Montpelier; viola teacher at the Lake Champlain Waldorf School, and taught K-12 Strings in Northfield Vermont. For several decades she has led and taught at numerous string camps for youths and adults.

She met her second husband, John Mowad, in 2000 and together they moved the Woodbury Strings business to Montpelier, Vermont where they both served countless private students on fiddle, banjo, guitar, mandolin, and ukulele. Sarah founded and directed, with the assistance of her husband John, the Vermont Fiddle Orchestra in 2003. A documentary of their decade long development of the VFO premiered in 2014 created by Sarah’s daughter, Elizabeth Rossano: No Audition Required. Also in the orchestra was her son, Vince and her son-in-law, Griffin who worked the camera in the film. The documentary culminated with the 2013 Tenth anniversary performance where Sarah also retired. This concert was dedicated to the three woman whose children started the Green Star Theater (DeeDee Jamesion, Willy Cochran, and Jean Archibald) in 1965 and who also were responsible for a multitude of other community buildings and events in Chittenden county which served as Sarah’s main inspiration throughout her life. Sarah was also on the faculty of Northeast Heritage Music Camp (until 2019) and taught at Young Tradition Vermont events on several occasions. The couple played together in several bands and duos including the Damn Yankee String Band, Cariad Wedding Duo, High-Low-Jack, and Les Oignons Sauvages.

Upon Sarah’s retirement with the Vermont Fiddle Orchestra in 2013 the couple decided to move to the Burlington area. First, they rented a studio at the Vermont Green Offices in Burlington’s Old North End until they purchased a home with a studio in Winooski in 2018 where they continue teaching private lessons today. The couple are both semi-retired, and both have several private students spanning the ages from preschool to seniors.

Now, in 2024, the business is returning to its original name of Green Star Playhouse with a similar function as the original home business that began in 1989. Sarah and John are focusing on their legacy and will be devoting spare time to producing tune collections, music instruction videos, products to aid young musicians and families artistically and musically. Sarah will also be resuming some of her puppet making and other art and craft related activities as time allows. “Stay tuned!”