Sticking the wicket:  America's first co-ed sport returns to Brooklyn

Featuring Gabriel Vaughan and Piper Goodeve, with Lauren Fortgang and Andrew Bakonyi
Recorded:  June 2014, Brooklyn, NY
Original Music:  Larry May

In 2013, Gabriel Vaughan and Piper Goodeve set upon a singular mission:  to revive the sport of croquet in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, where it once thrived.  Their Brooklyn Croquet and Hunt Club intended to draw players from every side of the park, which is to say, from all walks of life.

Read more about the Brooklyn Croquet & Hunt* Club.  Check out the July 8, 2014 New York Times article about the club.  Read about Madera Trade, the company fashioning the Club's mallets out of locally-sourced and sustainable wood.

Gabriel Vaughan is from Western Massachusetts and wears a lot of hats in addition to his croquet boater. A professional stage and film actor for over 15 years, a senior casting studio manager at Endeavor Studios and a founding member of the Tennessee Shakespeare Company, Gabe is also a photographer, audiobook narrator and diehard Red Sox fan.

Piper Goodeve is from the Live Free Or Die state of New Hampshire. A graduate of the MFA program at Brown/Trinity Rep, Piper is a professional actress and audiobook narrator of over 50 titles. When not acting, narrating or curating the social media of the Brooklyn Croquet & Hunt* Club, she can be found planning her wedding and using the internet for its true purpose: posting photos of her cat on instagram #mycatcaroline.

Larry May (Original music).  From numerous airings on network and cable TV shows All My Children, One Life to Live, The Young and Restless, NCIS, Parenthood, Melrose Place, 90210, America’s Prom Queen, Caroline in the City, Party of Five, Summerland, DeGrassi: The Next Generation, Teen Cribs, Sunday’s Best, True Life, Laguna Beach, Harper’s Island, Co-Ed Confidential, Dogs in the City and Hollywood Heights to a finalist in international songwriting contests, Mr. May, a native New Yorker, has been writing, recording and performing in the U.S and abroad for a number of years.

Click on images below to enlarge.  Hover over image to read the caption.  To scroll through images, click your left or right arrow button.

HOW IT HAPPENED

On April 27, 2014. my son and I were walking through Prospect Park one day when we came across a merry band of 20- and 30-somethings dressed in white, playing croquet near the Picnic House.  We stopped and stared.  One of the band, a fellow in a straw boater, trotted up to me and asked me if I wanted to play.  I told him I couldn't at the moment, but inquired as to what was going on, and who the people were.  The fellow explained that this was the Brooklyn Croquet & Hunt Club, and showed me the board of photos (see photo above).  He handed me a business card and told me they'd be there every Sunday.  I returned with friends a few weeks later, handed the fellow my card, and asked if they'd had any press coverage.  He said they hadn't -- not yet, anyway.  By the time we'd set up an appointment to talk in June, the New York Times had come calling.