J. Lucinda Kidder

1944 - 2024

J. Lucinda (Cindy) Kidder passed away on November 2nd, 2024, at her home in Bothell, WA, after a years-long struggle with colon cancer. She was surrounded by family in her favorite heirloom four-poster bed.

Lucinda was born on October 8th, 1944, in Troy, NY, to Wilbur Elwyn and Martha Leland (Clark) Kidder. She graduated from Northfield School for Girls in 1962 and went on to attend Swarthmore College. While there, she became very active in Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Civil Rights Movement. She traveled around the segregated South with the Freedom Riders, attended the March on Washington, and participated in many protests. She was also active in the anti-war movement. She received her Bachelor's degree in Psychology in 1966.

After graduation, she traveled extensively abroad, including a few years teaching English and living in India with her siblings. That experience helped to expand her worldview even more.

Lucinda received her first Master's in Theater Education from Emerson College in 1970 and subsequently founded the Charles Playhouse Children's Theater, taught classes for the Charlestown Children's Theater, and became business manager of the Strolling Players. Over the years she started or joined many different theater groups including The Buckminster Players, the Framingham Civic League Theater, the Renaissance Center Theater Company, the Youth & Shakespeare Program, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum Theatre, and the Hampshire Shakespeare Company amongst others. Her passion for directing blossomed into countless theatrical and musical productions in Massachusetts, California, New York City, and Bangalore, India.

Lucinda went on to further her education with an MFA in Theater (Directing) with an emphasis on Shakespearean studies in 2002, and completed classwork toward a Doctorate in Renaissance Drama in 2010, all from UMass Amherst.

In 2014 she co-founded Silverthorne Professional Theater Company in Greenfield, MA, which she was particularly proud of. Many professional productions are staged yearly at Hawks & Reed Performing Arts Center. Silverthorne is Cindy's legacy and continues to bring thought-provoking and diverse plays mostly written by minority, disenfranchised, and unheard playwrights. Giving a voice to those who are oppressed is something she felt passionately about her whole life. Her final act of community generosity was to open the LAVA (Local Access to Valley Arts) Center in Greenfield MA. It lives on as a new arts incubator, a black box theater, and a community space.

Lucinda is survived by three children, Benjamin Wilkins, Charles Wilkins, and Emily Wilkins Clark-Walton; five grandchildren, Quentin Clark, Cole Walton, Alex Clark, Owen Wilkins, and Spencer Wilkins; her brothers David Kidder and Robert Kidder; her sister Janet Kidder; as well as many cousins, nieces, nephews and other family members; plus countless friends who were impacted by her loving and generous spirit.

There will be a memorial gathering in the spring of 2025, with a date and exact location (Western Mass) to be announced. Her wishes were to be cremated and to have her ashes spread at the family lake house in Sand Lake, NY where they will mingle with her sister-in-law, Alice, and her Mother and Father. A place where she could breathe her soul into the air.