In the weeks leading up to our Food Festival we have been busy adding spectacular guest chefs, unique demonstrations and other exciting events to the week’s schedule. Read our recent additions and don’t forget to purchase your festival tickets! Monday, Live cooking competitions in Bestor Plaza Don’t miss live cooking competitions in Bestor Plaza during the Chautauqua Food Festival, August 20-25. On Monday, August 25, the Festival Stage will host the Ultimate Cheeseburger Showdown, with Jacques Pépin as judge, as well as a trio of cooking competitions with Nickel City Chef. Described by many as Buffalo’s own version of Iron Chef, Nickel City Chef is as...
Chautauqua, NY – Chautauqua Theater Company (CTC), under the leadership of Artistic Director Andrew Borba and Managing Director Sarah Clare Corporandy, is proud to continue its support of new play development with the 2017 New Play Workshops, running August 1-5 at Bratton Theater. The 2017 New Play Workshops are Birthday Candles by Noah Haidle and Building the Wall by Robert Schenkkan. The New Play Workshop (NPW) Program is the arm of Chautauqua Theater Company dedicated to fostering important new American playwrights and providing a safe and stimulating playground for artists to develop new work for the theater. As such, it...
The award-winning novel The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, regarded as a seminal work of Chicano literature, is inspiring an original musical composition, inter-arts performance and an art exhibition at Chautauqua Institution this summer. The book tells the story of Esperanza Cordero, a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become. It is among 20 books featured as selections of the 2017 Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle and its Young Readers program. Mango Suite, composed by Derek Bermel, is a 45- to 50-minute symphonic work that reimagines Cisneros’s observations through...
Chautauqua Institution today announced the appointment of Atom Atkinson of Interlochen, Michigan, as the new Director of Literary Arts effective September 1, 2017. Atkinson is currently an instructor of creative writing at Interlochen Arts Academy and Summer Camp. As Director of Literary Arts, Atkinson will report to David Griffith, the incoming Vice President and Emily and Richard Smucker Chair for Education, and will serve as a senior member of the Department of Education and as an entrepreneurial and collaborative partner in strengthening and deepening the value of the literary arts program and experience for Chautauqua Institution stakeholders. The Director...
CHAUTAUQUA, N.Y. — Chautauqua Institution is delighted to announce The Fortunes (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) by Peter Ho Davies as the 2017 winner of The Chautauqua Prize. As author of the winning book, Davies receives $7,500 and all travel and expenses for himself and his family for a one-week summer residency at Chautauqua from July 8 to 15, 2017. A public reading will take place at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 12, on the Institution’s grounds. Davies said he first came across the term “Chautauqua” as a college student reading Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in a class...
Chautauqua Institution is pleased to announce six exceptional books as the 2017 finalists for The Chautauqua Prize, now in its sixth year: The General vs. The President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War, by H.W. Brands (Doubleday) The Fortunes, by Peter Ho Davies (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) Blood River Rising: The Thompson-Crimson Feud of the 1920s, by Victoria Pope Hubbell (Iris Press) Underground Airlines, by Ben H. Winters (Mulholland Books) American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good, by Colin Woodard (Viking) The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father, by Kao Kalia Yang (Metropolitan...
Chautauqua Institution today announced that Sherra Babcock, longtime vice president and Emily and Richard Smucker Chair for Education, will retire from her post in October 2017. A familiar figure on the Chautauqua grounds, Babcock is probably best known for her frequent appearances onstage as moderator at lecture and literary arts programming throughout each summer season. Over more than a decade of visionary leadership, she has shepherded Chautauqua’s signature and historic lecture and literary arts platforms to new levels of excellence and renown. She joined the Institution in 2007 as director of education and was appointed to her current position, the...
Chautauqua Institution today announced that the Rev. Robert M. Franklin Jr., director of religion, will step down from his post following the 2017 season.Franklin has served Chautauqua in his current capacity since 2014. He has been an active participant in the Institution’s religious programming since 2001, serving as lecturer, chaplain, theologian-in-residence, adviser to the Institution’s Abrahamic program, and as a member of the Institution’s board of trustees. His decision coincides with continued expansion of his responsibilities at Emory University, where he serves as a senior advisor to the president and James T. and Berta R. Laney Chair in Moral Leadership...