Even the last few years in Vermont, out of the spotlight.

"I teach drama to elementary school children . . . am helping to organize a festival in honor of Calvin Coolidge . . . and perform a solo show for children and adults . . . consisting of Native American coyote stories."

Coyotes, children, and President Calvin Coolidge. Cool.

On June 6, Mr. Hayes, 58, of North Pomfret, Vt., program director at the Painted Bride Art Center in Old City from 1981 to 1992, died of prostate cancer at an assisted-living facility in Lebanon, N.H.

"He was really a foundation of Philadelphia's performance art and experimental theater," said Gerry Givnish, Painted Bride director from 1969 until 1999.

There was another arrow in Mr. Hayes' quiver.

Taking over from the two women who had founded the Wilma Project, Mr. Hayes ran that forerunner of the Wilma Theater from 1975 to 1981. Inquirer reviewer Douglas J. Keating noted that Mr. Hayes' productions had "an activist political and social agenda."

In Mr. Hayes' years in Philadelphia, Givnish said, there was "a blossoming of performance art and performer-driven theater, where you didn't have a playwright and actor, where the playwright was the performer.

". . . Chris brought that aesthetic to Philadelphia and brought performers who excelled in that, like Spalding Gray and Bill Irwin.

". . . We did something called the Bread Fest in June of '82" at the Bride, Givnish recalled, and Mr. Hayes "brought Bill Irwin to that."

Irwin is one of four stars finishing a Broadway run of Waiting for Godot.

Mr. Hayes "did a theater festival in '76 at Wilma, and he brought New York avant-garde theater artists, including Spalding Gray's first monologue - the first one he wrote, the first time he performed it in Philadelphia," Givnish said.

Gray's amusing, rambling self-revelations were Manhattan favorites. But in the performance space at Trinity Memorial Church at 22d and Spruce Streets, Givnish said, only 40 people were in the audience, and "it didn't get a warm reception."

But Mr. Hayes kept showing Philadelphia audiences what he thought they might - or should - enjoy. "Anything that was avant-garde," Givnish said, "Chris was involved with."

In 1984, Mr. Hayes married Holly Strahan, and in 1992 they moved to Vermont.

The couple had met at the former Ecology Co-op near Drexel University, Strahan said, and because she was working at Ecology's recycling center, "I like to say we met over a pile of garbage."

In 1982, 1983, and 1984, Mr. Hayes brought the Bread and Puppet Theater from its Vermont farm to the Bride, where he augmented the performances with "people off the street, no talent needed," Strahan said.

And he staged free performances by Bread and Puppet outside her co-op.

Mr. Hayes had performed occasionally in Philadelphia, his wife said, and in Vermont he became a performer in Bread's summer productions.

But it was education, through theater, that shaped his time in Vermont.

Last year, he earned a master's degree in education from St. Michael's College in Burlington, taking one or two courses a semester, which required a two-hour drive from his home a couple of times a week.

At the Waits River Valley School in East Corinth, Vt., his wife said, he would have children "learn a history lesson through theater."

Mr. Hayes had taught at the elementary school for the last seven years, and so, his wife said, "the eighth graders last year dedicated the yearbook to him."

Born in Duluth, Minn., Mr. Hayes graduated from Conestoga Senior High School in Berwyn and with Strahan had lived in an 18th-century farmhouse in Roxborough.

Besides his wife, he is survived by a son, Spencer; a daughter, Maya; his mother, Barbara; and two sisters.

A memorial service was held June 20 in Wilmington. A second memorial service is planned for 1 p.m. July 25 at the Hotel Coolidge in White River Junction, Vt.