about vpl

Who We Are

David Snyder and Sara Coffey met as students at Marlboro College and returned to Southern Vermont after nearly 15 years of working in the arts in New York City. Sara has been working primarily in the field of dance as a producer, project manager and curator, while Dave is a professionally trained musician who has toured nationally and internationally. He has most recently been operating Jarvis Productions, a music-recording studio in New York City. With the creation of the Vermont Performance Lab the duo merge their experience in music and dance to work with performing artists in developing and managing new projects.

Sara has been working in the performing arts field as a manager, programmer, producer and fundraiser for 15 years. From 1998 - 2001 she worked with MASS MoCA in curating its performing arts program and developing its dance residency program. Sara has managed the companies of David Rousseve and Bebe Miller, and performance projects for David Gonzalez, Martha Bowers, and Laurie McLeod. At 651/Arts Center, she managed programs and projects in 651's Neighborhood Arts Network (which included the Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Ifetayo Cultural Center and El Puente), oversaw all of the arts and humanities publications and coordinated works produced in collaboration with other presenting organizations. Immediately out of graduate school, Sara was hired by Arts International to produce the INROADS/AFRICA conference, an international conference on the performing arts of Africa presented by Arts International, 651/Arts Center and the Ford Foundation. Sara holds an M.A. in Performance Studies from New York University and a B.A. in Anthropology and International Studies from Marlboro College and the School for International Training.

Dave is currently overseeing the construction of a 5,000 square foot recording studio in Guilford, Vermont. From 1998 - 2004 he owned and operated Jarvis Productions, Inc., a recording facility in New York City. Jarvis mainly catered to local or independent acts (The Lilys, Jesse Malin, Ethel, Paul Schneider, Greta Gertler, Scout), and hosted more notable acts such as Los Lobos, Patti Smith, Angelique Kidjo, Bill Frisell with Don Alias, among many others. Dave also backed the power trio, Ruth Ruth, on drums from 1994 - 1996, recording two albums and touring the US and UK with the then up-and-coming bands, Everclear, No Doubt, Eve’s Plum and Spacehog. Dave studied in the jazz program at Manhattan School of Music from 1992 - 1994.