Charles Monette

Charles Monette was born in Manhattan December 10th, 1950. After a year of college, he was drafted in the 1st lottery, # 44, and sent to Vietnam to join C Co 2 & 5th 1st Air Cavalry Division as an infantry grunt, air mobile. He was wounded in battle, hit with shrapnel from a rocket-propelled grenade, June 15th, 1971 after spending 349 days in country. He was a Sergeant E-5. Upon returning, Charles worked as a printer at Crown Press in Oyster Bay and went full time to Nassau Community College at night. He switched to New York Institute of Technology the next semester to study to become a disc jockey. After running into a program where one professor was a drunk, and another hardly showed for class, He became disillusioned and headed west in search of America. Many stories along the way. In 1980, he moved to Brattleboro to work as a carpenter for Brattleboro Design Group, a passive solar design/build firm that was just beginning. A few years later, he worked on his own as a carpenter before joining Williams & Frehsee as their field foreman in 1987. Upon his arrival in Brattleboro, he became active in community theatre, acting in small roles. Small roles became larger roles and in ten years he had some leading roles. He then became the first president of Vermont Theatre Company VTC. In 1990, his new-found love of acting led he to NYU to pursue a career in theatre. He received his Bachelors in May of 1992 and a Master of Arts in Educational Theatre in 1995. He was then 45 years old. He returned to Brattleboro and began working at Landmark College, where he taught Acting, a film course he created, Intro to Communications, and Dialogue & Debate, the Art and Logic of Argumentation. Not all at the same time. He also produced and directed the student theatre productions in the Spring and Fall. In 2014, Charles wrote a full length play on the life and work of Vincent Van Gogh, which ran at the Hooker Dunham Theater in Brattleboro. He then wrote another play in 2019 that centered on the poetry of Robert Lowell, a production that also ran at Hooker Dunham Theater. Charles continues to write and work as a carpenter in Brattleboro.