Warren’s Phantom Theater celebrates 40 years of creative magic

July 2, 2025  |  By Dan Eckstein

Phantom Theater’s Edgcomb Barn in Warren. Courtesy photo

Forty summers ago, a Broadway actress, a local architect, and a shared vision for creative collaboration planted the seeds of what would become one of Vermont’s most distinctive theatrical ventures.

Cat Carr had just wrapped filming a 1983 remake of Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew” and completed her run in the Broadway hit “Barnum” starring Glenn Close when she found herself in Warren, Vermont. There, she met architect Jim Sanford, and together with Carr’s acting-school friend Susie Jordan, they hatched an ambitious idea to create a summer theater that would blend New York’s professional talent with Vermont’s artistic community.

“We talked about maybe it could be a great thing to invite some New York theater colleagues up to a beautiful place to spend the summer,” Carr recalled. “We would find them a place to sleep and maybe a car to drive. We would pay them little or nothing. They would get to collaborate with like-minded, talented colleagues on avant-garde, unusual, appealing theater projects.”

And so, Phantom Theater was born.

Finding voice through creative risk

The cast of Phantom Theater's first production in 1985, Beth Henley’s 1981 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “Crimes of the Heart,” performed at Waitsfield's Oddfellows Hall—now home to the Valley Players Theater. Courtesy photo

The company’s first production in 1985 was Beth Henley’s 1981 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “Crimes of the Heart,” performed at Waitsfield’s Oddfellows Hall—now home to the Valley Players Theater. But it was “Air Brains,” developed and performed in 1988, that truly set Phantom’s creative compass.

David Esbjornson, a then-recent MFA graduate from New York University, created an audacious mash-up of T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” the musical “South Pacific,” and Christopher Durang’s one-act play, “The Actor’s Nightmare.”

“No one claimed to know what it was about,” Esbjornson has famously stated. “What we loved was that it had a freedom to it.” That freedom has served Esbjornson well—he has since built a storied career as a stage director, including the Broadway production of “Driving Miss Daisy.”

This experimental spirit crystallized Phantom’s mission: to bring together professional theater artists from across the country each summer to explore theatrical, musical, and dance ideas, focusing on original works while serving as both a venue for polished performances and a laboratory for developing new pieces.

Building a creative community

Word spread organically through artistic networks. Early performers invited friends, who invited their friends. The combination of creative freedom and Vermont’s idyllic setting proved irresistible, drawing actors, directors, writers, and dancers from Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

Josh Broder’s journey to Phantom illustrates this magnetic pull. The storyteller, actor, and director, who had a memorable small role opposite Anthony Hopkins in “The Silence of the Lambs,” first arrived as a last-minute substitute.

“My friend Molly Hickok had led a workshop for Phantom and was scheduled to do another that winter. She couldn’t, and I subbed for her,” Broder explained. “On arrival in Warren, a complete stranger, I was handed the key to the town hall, the workshop venue, and was told not to lose it—it was the only copy. It was a culture change from New York City.”

He returned a year or two later to direct and star in “The Wondrous Life and Tragical Fall of King Strang,” which he developed with Joe Cunningham.

Some visitors, like dancer and actor Tracy Martin, never left. Martin arrived from New York City in the late 1980s to perform in “Air Brains” and has served as the company’s creative director since the early 1990s, first collaborating with Annie Wattles and more recently leading solo.

Evolution and growth

“Phantom initially only did one show per season, developed over a six- or eight-week timeframe and performed over a weekend or two at the summer’s end,” Martin explains. Early productions included more experimental mash-ups as well as reimagined classics—“Rip Van Winkle” became “RIP! The Twenty-Year Night” in 1991, while a Kafka work inspired “Amerika” in 1993.

Over time, Phantom broadened its scope, producing existing works by friends and colleagues alongside original creations. The multi-event season eventually grew to include as many as 16 separate shows spanning theater, dance, music, and contemporary circus arts.

This expansion became possible in the 1990s when Phantom found its permanent home at the Edgcomb Barn in Warren, ending years of moving between different performance spaces.

A landmark anniversary season

For this summer’s 40th anniversary, Martin has designed a season that honors Phantom’s commitment to fostering original work through creative residencies in theater, dance, and music, allowing performers dedicated time and space to develop new pieces.

The season opens on Friday-Saturday, July 11-12, with an experimental theater piece by Martine & the Innocents—a homecoming for acclaimed actor, artist, and dancer Martine Gutierrez, a Mad River Valley native who is now a Guggenheim fellow and breakout star of HBO’s “Fantasmas.”

Burlington-based ANIMAL Dance has a residency with Phantom Theater this summer, conducting dance and movement workshops and performances Aug. 8-10. Courtesy photo

August 8-10 features ANIMAL Dance, a Burlington-based company directed by Hanna Satterlee, presenting “This is Also Possible”—a reflection on rapid change in our modern world. The residency includes three public dance and movement workshops.

The final residency fills the barn with music August 28-30, as Lincoln Center performing artist and cellist Miranda Henne—equally comfortable with Bach and bluegrass—brings together an eclectic group of musicians for her fifth Phantom appearance.

Additional highlights include saxophone virtuosos Peter and Will Anderson exploring Richard Rodgers’ catalog on July 13, Susan Edsall’s multimedia solo show “Buon Camino” about her 540-mile trek through Spain on July 25-26, uplifting dance by Bosse DeBelina Dance on Aug. 22-23, and a season finale of Moth-inspired storytelling on Aug. 31.

Celebrating four decades of creativity

The anniversary celebration’s centerpiece comes July 18-19 with “Phantom Turns 40!”—a cavalcade of performers from Phantom’s four-decade history returning for a mash-up of memorable scenes, songs, dances, reflections, improvisational comedy, and surprises.

Josh Broder will return from New York to participate, though he admits uncertainty about what to expect from the gathering of so much talent. 

“When they were about to turn on the [world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator] for the first time, there was at least a theoretical concern that smashing subatomic particles against each other could create a black hole that would swallow the solar system,” Broder said with dramatic flair. “You’ve got a lot of amazing talent fast converging on the same spot. I don’t think it’s likely the end of life as we know it, but probably best to have your affairs in order.”

For complete season information and tickets, visit phantomtheater.org. See a preview of the season’s opening weekend shows here. Dan Eckstein is a member of Phantom Theater’s Board of Directors.