It may be the end of another season for Chautauqua, but for the Institution’s senior administrative staff, it’s just the beginning of nine months spent brainstorming, planning and programming for summer 2015.
At 10:45 a.m. today in the Amphitheater, Patrick Griffin, chair of the history department at Notre Dame University, will kick-start Week Five’s theme of “The American West” with a lecture titled “America as Frontier: A View Of Our Past.”
The world’s preeminent scholar on the American Revolution is visiting Chautauqua Institution to offer context for the current political climate in Egypt.
Colonial Williamsburg, the “living history” museum that comprises the historic district of Williamsburg, Virginia, has a simple goal.
One of Chautauqua’s closest collaborators — and one of its biggest fans — will kick off the Week Four examination of “Emerging Citizenship: The Egyptian Experience” at 10:45 a.m. today in the Amphitheater.
Almost two years ago, we began our discussions with Colonial Williamsburg about an ongoing series on the subject of emerging democracies. We felt that our two organizations could combine our resources to build a long-term public dialogue about the challenges to the emergence of democratic societies in our time.
Hearing the voice of Thomas Jefferson recite the Declaration of Independence through an iPhone can be described only as surreal.
The soothing, gentlemanly Southern drawl belongs to character interpreter Bill Barker, who has played Jefferson in Colonial Williamsburg, Va., for the last 20 years.
A common misconception is that after former President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, everything became suddenly easier for slaves. But 10 actor-interpreters from the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation disproved that theory in the performance “Promises of Freedom” at the Interfaith lecture at 2 p.m. in the Hall of Philosophy Wednesday.
Many slaves were skeptical of the legitimacy of Lincoln’s offer. They had been promised freedom before and had it taken away. Other slaves were left without families because their children and spouses had been sold. For some slaves, the Emancipation Proclamation did not even apply to them.
The first Chautauquans arrived for Tuesday’s 2 p.m. Interfaith Lecture almost two hours early, said Maureen Rovegno. By 1:30 p.m., the seats were packed for “Storm on the Horizon,” a character-interpretation by members of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Rovegno, the assistant director of the Department of Religion, did not seem surprised by the large turnout, though. When other members of the Foundation performed at Chautauqua in 2009, the event was just as popular.
When Richard Josey was 10 years old, Rex Ellis, a deacon at Josey’s church, encouraged him to get involved with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation as a child actor-interpreter.
Fifteen years later, Josey and Ellis both are actor-interpreters and will perform together at Chautauqua. At 2 p.m. today in the Hall of Philosophy, Josey will take the form of Peter, an enslaved man during the Civil War. In this performance, “Promises of Freedom,” Josey has the star role. But 10 other members of Colonial Williamsburg also will give their reflections of slavery as interpreters of other enslaved people.
