Nantucket Young Playwrights founder and project director Jay Craven is an award-winning filmmaker and teacher whose eight feature films include Where the Rivers Flow North (with Rip Torn, Tantoo Cardinal, Michael J. Fox); Disappearances (with Kris Kristofferson, Gary Farmer, Geneviève Bujold); Northern Borders (w/ Bruce Dern, Geneviève Bujold, Jessica Hecht) — and two Nantucket-based films, Peter and John (with Jacqueline Bisset, Christian Coulson, Diane Guerrero) and Wetware (with Jerry O’Connell, Morgan Wolk, Cameron Scoggins).  His films have played more than 400 venues worldwide, including Sundance, Lincoln Center, The Smithsonian, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, The Cinémathèque Française, and the Constitutional Court of Johannesburg. Awards include two Emmys, selection for the National Endowment for the Arts’ American Masterpieces initiative, and selection into the first-ever AFI:Project 20/20 international cinema exchange curated by the American Film Institute and the Presidents Committee for the Arts and Humanities. 

 

Craven has also led numerous innovative arts-based learning projects including Circus Smirkus, Vermont Young Playwrights, Nantucket Film Festival's Teen View, Nantucket Youth Circus, Peacham School, Fledgling Films, and Movies from Marlboro where 24 professionals mentor and collaborate with 32 students from a dozen colleges, to make an ambitious feature film for national release.  More information at jcraven@marlboro.edu.