Our Story

It all started when

Kingdom County Productions (KCP) was established in May 1991 by arts activists Jay Craven and Bess O’Brien. Impresario and filmmaker Craven had previously founded and directed St. Johnsbury’s Catamount Arts (1975-91) and co-founded (with Rob Mermin) Vermont’s Circus Smirkus. O’Brien had worked as a producer at Catamount and she led Middlebury’s Vermont Ensemble Theater (1985-88) where she produced, among others, acclaimed environmental theater productions of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town and Federico Fellini’s La Strada.

Together, Craven and O’Brien set out to make films rooted in New England. They’ve produced ten award-winning dramatic films, eleven documentaries, a radio variety show, a touring musical theater production, and an Emmy-winning television comedy series. KCP films have played in 53 countries, 352 U.S. cities and towns, and 43 international festivals including Sundance, Seattle, South by Southwest, Avignon, Vienna, Vancouver, and AFI Fest. Special screenings include The Smithsonian, Lincoln Center, Harvard Film Archive, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Cinemateca Nacional de Venezuela, and the Constitutional Court of Johannesburg. More than 300,000 videos and DVD’s of KCP films are in circulation and television exposure includes Sundance Channel, Disney Channel, Starz, Encore, Showtime, more than 200 local commercial TV outlets, and PBS affiliates in ten states.

In 2009, Kingdom County Productions launched its KCP Presents performing arts series, staging world-class music, theater, dance and circus events in St. Johnsbury and Lyndonville, VT. In 2015, we initiated a new partnership with Catamount Arts in order to expand and sustain the series. Together, Catamount and KCP program produce, and market this ambitious annual performance season for the surrounding region of North Country Vermont and New Hampshire.

In 2010, KCP launched Arts, Voices, Action (AVA) to produce film and theater productions that grow out of issues that affect Vermonters. Through AVA Producer Bess O’Brien has produced the award-winning films Here today focused on families struggling with the heroin epidemic of the early 2000’s, Where is Stephanie? about a young girl’s murder and how her family copes with the aftermath, The Hungry Heart a film focused on the lives of Vermonters grappling with the opiate epidemic, Ask Us Who We Are about the foster care system, All of Me about body image and eating disorders, Coming Home focused on folks coming out of prison and entering into the innovative COSA program, and I am From Here highlighting stories of BIPOC youth talking about their experiences in VT schools. In addition Bess has produced two state wide theatre projects based on the lives of Vermont teens, The Voices Project in 2005 and The Listen Up Musical in 2021. Both these projects are available in film versions. O’Brien also produced and directed the feature film Shout it Out --the screenplay adaptation of The Voices Project.

In 2011, KCP launched its biennial Movies from Marlboro film intensive program, where 24 professionals mentor and collaborate with 35 students from multiple colleges, to make an ambitious feature film for international release. In 2018, after making three films in association with Marlboro College (Northern Borders, Blood Brothers, and Wetware), this program moved to Sarah Lawrence College and produced Martin Eden, based on Jack London’s autobiographical novel. In 2022, it became the independent Semester Cinema and produced Jay’s most recent film, Lost Nation, which is now touring across Vermont. Click HERE for more information on the program.

This year, KCP launched a new documentary theater project with the production of, THE SAME MOON, produced with The Telling Project. The play highlighted the stories of a fabulous group of new Vermonters who have come here from Somalia, Madagascar, Nepal, Sudan, Ghana, Jamaica, Congo and Mexico. Among them, Sahra is a writer; Derek is a chef; Tsimba is just starting out as a cook; Mika and Marcie are gifted musicians; Emmanuel teaches phys. ed. to Montpelier elementary school kids; Amal works at our local hospital; and Rabin counsels teens while studying at UVM.

KCP’s films, theater pieces, on-stage events and experiential learning projects work to showcase this region’s vitality – and diversity. We are committed and excited to be doing this work.