Muriel Stockdale ’79 was a theatre person when she arrived at UVM - and she was a theatre person when she graduated as a nutrition major.
Now, above all, Stockdale is a maker. Whether it’s puppetry, sculpture, painting, drawing, costumes, novels, or screenplays, there seems no media or creative outlet the New York resident has not taken on.
For decades, this unwavering passion would land her in plum roles, such as designing for Jim Henson Productions and teaching at NYU’s Graduate Design program.
These days, rather than resting on her laurels, Stockdale is charging ahead into the world of digital media -- though maintaining art as her principal focus.
Her time in Vermont and at UVM would lay the groundwork for a bounteous creative life.
INTO THE WOODS
Stockdale was born in Yorkshire, welcomed into the world by the dales and moors of northern England often associated with the Brontë sisters and wind-swept rose gardens.
With her family, she eventually moved south -- first, to Kent, at age seven; then, Windsor Castle. In 1967, at age 13, the family would journey longer, settling into the stretches of Long Island, NY where she’d attend her first American school.
In high school, Stockdale found theatre and fostered her love for the form.
“I worked for a year to save money for college,” she shares. “I did one year at a SUNY college and dropped out.” That same year, she stage-managed sixteen shows while tending to coursework.
Instead of returning to SUNY that fall, Stockdale started a theatre company in rural Vermont with the help of a federal grant to introduce kids to live theatre. Alongside a few of friends, Stockdale ran this theatre company for a full season and spent the next couple of years “living the hippy life in Vermont woods."
TO THINE OWN SELF
An English native, UVM was not the assumed avenue for Stockdale, as it might be for other children of Catamounts.
Still, UVM had its pull on her. A combination of scholarships and a work-study job made it possible.
In choosing a major, she felt conflicted about pursuing the arts. “I have always felt that art is super important,” she shares, “but battled within myself because of cultural programming regarding art as frivolous or unworthy of real salary.”
“When I was little, my mother once said ‘Muriel, your art is your thing, but you can’t make a living with art.’ That programming is so incorrect, but it took me years to grapple with it, and I still do.”
"Careful the things you say, children will listen..." so goes the famous finale of Sondheim's Into the Woods. Stockdale listened at first. Thankfully, she did not ultimately obey.
Stockdale enrolled at UVM as a nutrition major – but she couldn’t leave theatre behind. She sought out a work-study position in the theatre department, which kept her passion alive and skills growing.
There, she met lifelong mentors and friends, including the late Professor Emeritus Edward J. Feidner (1931 – 2008), then head of the UVM theatre department and director of Champlain Shakespeare Festival (1959-1989). The Festival had such close ties with the University, it was at times informally known as the ‘UVM Shakespeare Festival.’
“Ed was a wonderful teacher, mentor and leader of the Department and the summer theatre program. I feel honored to have known him.”
During the academic year, Stockdale designed and built costumes for departmental productions; during the summer, for the Champlain Shakespeare Festival.
“Those were, I think, some of my best days in the theatre.”
Her theatre work has taken her from shop to stage, and back again.
Though Stockdale never declared a double major, she took many classes in theatre and received a Phi Beta Kappa key for a dual degree.
“My time at UVM was truly wonderful, I loved working in the costume shop and creating for all the shows. I loved my classmates many of whom I keep in touch with today.”
One such colleague is Polly Smith, whom Stockdale met in the basement shop of the theatre, where Smith worked as a costume designer for the Champlain Valley Shakespeare Festival. It was also where Smith invented the JogBra - the first sports bra - alongside Lisa Lindahl and Hinda Miller, which they patented in 1979.
Smith and other visiting costumers were alumni of the NYU Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Design Program and encouraged Stockdale to pursue her passions and believe in her talent.
She did just that, earning her MFA in 1982 from NYU, where she would go on to teach for fourteen years. Several of her students have won or received nominations for Emmys, Oscars, and Tonys.
Stockdale and Smith would go on to work together for many years at Jim Henson Productions.
“We are lifelong friends,” Stockdale shares.
THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM
After her MFA, Stockdale quickly learned lessons of mastery in the costume shop for the first Muppet Live Show, her first gig at Jim Henson.
“The people [at the Jim Henson Company] are wonderful, true friends," Stockdale reflects.
"Talented, hardworking, and fun. Every day was a delight, drafting and making tiny dresses and wigs for rats, or suits for Kermit, gowns for Piggy was always inspiring."
"The Master Draper Ray Diffen," she shares, "was creating bird costumes from miles and miles of tulle. They were stacks and stacks of tutus. Days of sewing went into one bird. After the first fitting, all the birds came back to the shop and were ripped down to complete restart. I learned that a master is willing to start again from square one to make the perfect product. Whereas the journey man that I was at the time would try to fix it or get around an error and be satisfied with an OK result.”
She set her own mastery forth, spending twenty-one more years designing costumes for Jim Henson Company projects, including CityKids, ABC's Aliens in the Family, and the Disney Channel's Out of the Box.
Alongside that work, and teaching, came more theatre (including the Public Theater and the Vineyard Theater), operas and ballet, daytime soaps and commercials, film and television (including Law & Order).
Over the past forty years, Stockdale has stage managed, crewed backstage, directed, produced, performed onstage, designed and painted scenery, designed and built costumes, managed costume shops, and taught aspiring designers.
As if that weren't enough, inspiration also drives Stockdale to fine arts and writing.
TURNING THE PAGE
In the early aughts, Stockdale began to lose interest in theatre design. After some self-examination, she took some courses in TV development and script writing.
In 2000, she wrote and produced a screenplay, Gabriel's Flight. The script won an award at the 2010 Los Angeles Cinema Festival of Hollywood. She adapted it into a novel, retitled as Gabriel Born, published in 2016. Now available as a podcast on Apple and Spotify.
The novel follows geneticist Sheila Jensen who is desperate for a cure for her rare and terminal nerve disorder. When she breaks the law and attempts a cure from animal and human DNA, the decision destroys her relationship and her career. With nothing but her short life left to lose, Sheila engineers her last ovum. From this, Sheila bears a child, who grows up in ways that defy her expectations.
Ever curious, Stockdale continued to study world cultures and religions throughout her career. This encompassed classic texts and various classes, workshops, seminars, retreats, and much travel. This has led to other projects.
She was recently commissioned to write the book for a new musical version of the classic Hindu scripture, The Ramanaya, based on Rama's wife, Sita. She is also currently shopping around a new television show based on the life of Josephine Bonaparte and her cousin Aimée Dubuc de Rivery. Recently she produced and directed the short film New York City Spirit.
Stockdale also spends her time oil painting and experimenting with other mixed media through the E Pluribus flag series she began in 2003, informed by her own immigrant experience.
Last month, she was invited to the New York Court of Appeals Hall for the Law Day Assembly, to honor their use of the image of one of her flags, "Out of Many, One" for the event. Her flags have been displayed at Harvard, several SUNY colleges, New York libraries, as well as many art galleries, and multiple solo and group shows.
One flag in the series is owned by the New Britain Museum of American Art, while another is on presently on display at the US embassy in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
UVM's own Colburn Gallery in Williams Hall featured E Pluribus just this past February, which brought Stockdale back to campus.
The exhibit coincided with the 50th anniversary of Royall Tyler Theatre. "It was great to see so many of my former cast mates," she shares.
These days, she is collaborating with her sister Sharon on a YouTube channel called Abracadabra Sisters, which will be delving into topics of creativity and the creative process.
Besides curiosity and a hunger for creation, her endurance keeps her looking and moving forward.
"As you may be able to see," Stockdale says, "I'm all over the place, I love creating things, I love supporting people with their dreams. When one door closes, I find another to open, where I can keep myself and others entertained, informed, and inspired."
Keep up with Muriel Stockdale's work at www.murielstockdale.com.
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UVM Alumni are living rich lives, doing astounding and impactful work in many fields, in communities around Vermont, across the US, and around the world. Here are just a few of the stories we've gotten to share recently:
Alumni Spotlight: Muriel Stockdale '79
Lisa Wartenberg Vélez
Jul 2, 2025