THE TEAM
Carolyn Kennedy & Peter C. Graupner
Partners in Production
Background in Entertainment & Education:
Carolyn Kennedy and her husband, Executive Producer, Peter C. Graupner, are long time entertainment professionals. With more than 35 years of experience in production, Peter Graupner is an Emmy-winning member of The Directors’ Guild of America; a First Assistant Director/Production Manager in film and television with over 87 feature film, movies of the week, television series, sit-com and commercial credits including such productions as Andersonville, Nightmare on Elm Street, Walker: Texas Ranger, Chaplin, Seinfeld, Jake & The FatMan, Perry Mason, Hunter, Cheers, Moonlighting, and Clueless.
Carolyn has spent her life working in the film business, television, and theatre in all capacities of storytelling, including performance (in radio, on stage and on camera), production (as director/producer), writing, and production contract management and development. Kennedy is a second-generation entertainment ‘hyphenate’ whose dad Unit-Managed The Perry Como Show. Her writing career launched with awards from Scholastic and Atlantic Monthly before landing an editing job in London after college with internationally renowned Theatre Quarterly Magazine. Thereafter, she toured as an actress with The Cambridge University Repertory, performing at The Edinburgh Festival. She has been privileged to work as an actress and voice-over artist in Chicago, London, New York, Los Angeles, and in U.S. regional theatre. She is a 40-year member of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, Screen Actor’s Guild, and Actor’s Equity Association, a Chicago theatre Joseph Jefferson Award Best Actress nominee, and a recent nominee for Best Actress in Charleston, South Carolina.
In Los Angeles, she was a right hand to one of the most successful literary agents in Hollywood history, Evarts Zeigler, representing a roster of writers and directors including Terrence Malick, Robert Towne, Larry Gelbart, and Joan Didion. As a screenwriter, her television project, “Norman Rockwell’s Willie Gillis: The Series” partnered The Curtis Publishing Company (The Saturday Evening Post) and The Norman Rockwell Licensing Company (w/ Creative Artists Agency) and continues its development.
The Graupners went bi-coastal with a move to Connecticut to raise their kids, Carolyn’s original musical production, Greek to Me! generated 25K+ in funds for arts education programs. Accolades from the CT Department of Ed. followed. The show designated Easton’s a Higher Order Thinking school, earning it another 50K of state arts integration funding. Kennedy then certified as an English/Language Arts Educator through the CT Alternate Route to Certification Program. For Sacred Heart University, she created and directed the theatre curriculum for CT’s Federally-sponsored UPWARD BOUND program, and the Easton public schools. She is a co-founder of the Easton, CT, Arts Council. In 1999, she joined the faculty of Hamden Hall Country Day School and, there, taught writing composition and English in CT throughout five grade levels for a decade until her kids left for college.
Concurrent to her career in education, Kennedy, in the role of Executive Producer/ Co-Director created The Manhattan Producers’ Club in New York City and staged 18+ theatrical productions (featuring a new play readers’ series that included her original drama, Death of a Butterfly, with J.R. Weatherford). Throughout, she continued working as a script consultant, writing coach, director and acting teacher. Subsequently in Austin, TX, Peter and Carolyn launched The Austin Producers’ Club designed to teach Texas colleagues in entertainment how to expand their career options by becoming “hyphenates”.
Peter Exec-Produced the premiere of the team’s original 1940’s-inspired comedy with music, The Liberty Belles, in partnership with The Scottish Rite Theatre, Austin’s most historic landmark theatre. The Liberty Belles earned AUSTIN MONTHLY’s Pick of the Month and Week in June, 2014. Thanks to critical acclaim, Peter was awarded by The Senate of Texas, which issued Proclamation 930 distinguishing the production’s contribution to the arts. Meantime, Carolyn was an active member of Austin’s ScriptWorks, which premiered several of her short plays: The Green Room and Acceptable Incompatibilities among others during its Out of Ink Festivals in 2013-2015.
The Graupners relocated to Charleston and, in 2019, Carolyn returned to the stage for South of Broadway’s Lowcountry premiere of Albee’s Three Tall Women, portraying the lead role, “Woman A”. Carolyn was tapped to play the Gullah-Geechee “Cassie” in Moore’s local project-in-development, The Cigar Factory. She then joined Footlights Players as “Linda Loman” in their revival of Miller’s Death of a Salesman, which became their highest grossing production of the decade. Later in 2019, for Footlights, Carolyn directed the revival of the comic classic, Born Yesterday. 2020 launched with Carolyn playing “Ouisa” in Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation, completing its run before the Charleston Arts Community was shuttered by the pandemic. In 2022, Carolyn and Peter settled in Stuart, lured to Florida’s fine lifestyle and audiences who treasure comedy, heart-warming stories and the uplifting – and hummable – music of America’s great composers!
Chris Havens
Chief Technology Officer
Infrastructure Management & Strategic Planning
Chris Havens is the CEO of GoAccel.ai, a customer acquisition expert, and a software developer with 25 years of experience building growth systems for service businesses. He’s spent his career focused on what actually drives revenue – lead generation, conversion, follow-up, and retention—and turning that into repeatable, trackable processes that business owners can run without guesswork.
He founded GoAccel.ai to combine done-for-you digital marketing with an AI-powered Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and automation platform built specifically for service-based companies. The result is a single system that helps businesses generate demand, capture and qualify leads, stay on top of every opportunity, and consistently turn prospects into booked jobs and long-term customers.
Jim LeBon
Composer & Arranger
Musical Technologist & Digital Producer
Jim LeBon is originally from Pennsylvania. He received his bachelor’s degree from Florida State University in 1982, and his Master’s Degree in Music Education in 1993.
Mr. LeBon is in his fourth year of retirement after forty years of teaching high school and middle school band in Georgia and Florida. He writes and arranges music for band and jazz ensemble, teaches privately and mentors band directors who are working to become better teachers.
Mr. LeBon is published by C.T. Smith Publications. He has pieces on the Florida Bandmasters Association concert list, and solo and ensemble list.
Mr. LeBon is a Lifetime Florida Band Association Member and adjudicator and is also a member of the American School Band Directors Association.
Mr. LeBon conducts the Stuart Community Concert Band, which is an adult ensemble dedicated to the performance of great band literature. He plays clarinet and bass clarinet with the Treasure Coast Wind Ensemble and baritone saxophone with the Ambassadors of Swing.
Kelsi Fulton
Music Technologist / Digital Arranger-Producer
Musical Director
Kelsi Fulton is an award-winning music director, pianist, and vocal coach based in Nashville. Her Broadway and National Tour credits include & Juliet, SIX the Musical, Mean Girls, Wicked, Once Upon a Mattress, My Fair Lady, Disney’s The Little Mermaid, and Pretty Woman. Kelsi has worked on shows for Netflix (Blippi Live), The Grand Ole Opry (How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph, Cirque Dreams: Holidaze), and multiple cast recordings for Disney Theatrical Group (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Aladdin, Finding Nemo) as well as many regional theatres throughout the country.
Having spent many years in the world of academia, Kelsi holds a Master of Music in Classical Piano Performance from Belmont University, and is passionate about using music as a tool to invest in people. Learn more on social media at @kelsifulton and at kelsifulton.com