Experience Planner
Plan your perfect Chautauqua visit.
To plan your day, week or season at Chautauqua, select the dates of your visit below and choose your interests. Our experience planner will then provide personalized recommendations to make your time with us as rewarding as possible. We hope to see you soon!
Explore the events and destinations listed on our website and click the "star image" to save your favorites and create your Chautauqua itinerary.
Explore events and destinations here. Use the "star" to save your favorites to create your itinerary.
Episcopal Holy Eucharist
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Song, Prayer, Communion & Meditation.
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United Church of Christ Worship Service
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Episcopal Holy Eucharist
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Catholic Mass
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Unity Service
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Quaker Worship Service
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Unitarian Universalist Service
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August 30 @ 10:45 am Week Nine (August 22–30)
The Rt. Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton
Amphitheater | CHQ Assembly
The Rt. Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton
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The Rt. Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton is the senior pastor of Chautauqua Institution. Formerly the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland and Canon Pastor of Washington National Cathedral, where he directed the Cathedral’s Center for Prayer and Pilgrimage, Sutton has also served as a college chaplain, parish priest, and professor of homiletics and liturgy at Vanderbilt University Divinity School. Sutton is a frequent leader of retreats focused on spirituality, nonviolence, and social justice, including multiple missions to South Africa. He co-founded Contemplative Outreach of Maryland and Washington, an ecumenical network of churches and individuals committed to centering prayer and renewing the contemplative gospel for daily living.
Sutton is a prolific writer, and has contributed to multiple books, including The Diversity of Centering Prayer and Reclaiming the Gospel of Peace: Challenging the Epidemic of Gun Violence. Bishop Sutton has been named by the Center for American Progress as one of “Fourteen Faith Leaders to Watch” for his faith-led efforts to promote nonviolent solutions to conflicts.
Sutton is a prolific writer, and has contributed to multiple books, including The Diversity of Centering Prayer and Reclaiming the Gospel of Peace: Challenging the Epidemic of Gun Violence. Bishop Sutton has been named by the Center for American Progress as one of “Fourteen Faith Leaders to Watch” for his faith-led efforts to promote nonviolent solutions to conflicts.
This program is made possible by the generous support of the Marie Reid-Edward Spencer Babcox Memorial Fund.
Obon Community Celebration
Free for all
Gather in the amphitheater for a vibrant, one-hour celebration inspired by Obon, the Japanese tradition of honoring ancestors through dance, music, remembrance, and community. Led by 2025 NEA National Heritage Fellow Adrienne Reiko Iwanaga, one of the nation’s foremost Bon Odori teachers, and featuring reflections from Buddhist scholar George Tanabe and the powerful rhythms of New York City’s Soh Daiko, this joyful gathering invites everyone to join in traditional community dances regardless of age or experience.
With lanterns, fans, taiko drumming, and Japanese treats, we’ll celebrate the ties that bind us across generations. As we conclude Chautauqua’s Summer Assembly and reflect on America’s 250th anniversary, let us close the season with gratitude, joy, and the enduring spirit of togetherness.
In partnership with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.
CHQ Mystic Heart -Church of the Wild -Family Friendly
Kriss Young Miller and her husband Gary manage the Quaker House. Kriss is a 2022 graduate of Earlham School of Religion with her Master of Arts in Peace and Social Transformation. Kriss is currently a student of Victoria Loorz in the Seminary of the Wild Earth at the Center for Wild Spirituality. She has completed Wild Church Leadership training and is deeply grateful for the opportunity to work to build connections with Chautauquans in the sacred wild.
Department of Religion
EPIC
Elvis sings and tells his story like never before in a new cinematic experience from visionary filmmaker Baz Luhrmann featuring new-found footage of his Las Vegas residency. “One of the most thrilling musical experiences you can have at a cinema.” -Barry Levitt, Empire Magazine “A visual spectacle, almost a hallucinatory physical experience. The sheer vibrancy of the restored footage is stunning.” -Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service “It’s as if Luhrmann were conducting a séance, awakening Elvis from the afterlife with a raw vitality and outsize energy that are rare even among the living.” -David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter (PG-13, 96m)
August 30 @ 7:00 pm
Hebrew Congregation, Shirley Lazarus Sunday Evening Lecture Series
Smith Wilkes Hall
Hebrew Congregation, Shirley Lazarus Sunday Evening Lecture Series
ELEANOR THE GREAT
June Squibb brings to vivid life the witty and proudly troublesome 94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein, who after a devastating loss, tells a tale that takes on a dangerous life of its own. Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut is a comically poignant exploration of how the stories we hear become the stories we tell. Co-stars Chiwetel Ejiofor and Erin Kellyman. “A moving study of grief, loneliness and aging.” -G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle “A heartfelt, emotionally resonant story about the power of our lives and the capacity of our stories lingering on long after we’ve left this world. Take someone you love and see it.” -Kristen Lopez, The Film Maven (PG-13, 98m)
ELEANOR THE GREAT
June Squibb brings to vivid life the witty and proudly troublesome 94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein, who after a devastating loss, tells a tale that takes on a dangerous life of its own. Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut is a comically poignant exploration of how the stories we hear become the stories we tell. Co-stars Chiwetel Ejiofor and Erin Kellyman. “A moving study of grief, loneliness and aging.” -G. Allen Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle “A heartfelt, emotionally resonant story about the power of our lives and the capacity of our stories lingering on long after we’ve left this world. Take someone you love and see it.” -Kristen Lopez, The Film Maven (PG-13, 98m)
EPIC
Elvis sings and tells his story like never before in a new cinematic experience from visionary filmmaker Baz Luhrmann featuring new-found footage of his Las Vegas residency. “One of the most thrilling musical experiences you can have at a cinema.” -Barry Levitt, Empire Magazine “A visual spectacle, almost a hallucinatory physical experience. The sheer vibrancy of the restored footage is stunning.” -Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service “It’s as if Luhrmann were conducting a séance, awakening Elvis from the afterlife with a raw vitality and outsize energy that are rare even among the living.” -David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter (PG-13, 96m)
Indigo Girls
Released in 1989, Indigo Girls’ eponymous major label debut sold over two million copies under the power of singles “Closer to Fine” and “Kid Fears” and turned Indigo Girls into one of the most successful folk duos in history. Over a thirty-five-year career that began in clubs around their native Atlanta, Georgia, the multi-Grammy-winning duo of Emily Saliers and Amy Ray has recorded sixteen studio albums, sold over 15 million records, and built a dedicated, enduring following across the globe. Rolling Stone describes them as the “ideal duet partners.” Committed and uncompromising activists, they work on issues like immigration reform (El Refugio), LGBTQ advocacy, education (Imagination Library), death penalty reform, and Native American rights. They are co-founders of Honor the Earth, a non-profit dedicated to the survival of sustainable Native communities, Indigenous environmental justice, and green energy solutions.
Their latest record, Look Long is a stirring and eclectic collection of songs that finds the duo of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers reunited in the studio with their strongest backing band to date. “We joke about being old, but what is old when it comes to music? We’re still a bar band at heart,” says Saliers. “While our lyrics and writing approach may change, our passion for music feels the same as it did when we were 25-years-old.” “As time has gone on, our audience has become more expansive and diverse, giving me a sense of joy,” she adds. To hear those collective voices raise into one, singing along and overpowering the band itself, one realizes the importance Indigo Girls’ music has in this moment. In our often-terrifying present, we are all in search of a daily refuge, a stolen hour or two, to engage with something that brings us joy, perspective, or maybe just calm. As one bar band once put it, “We go to the doctor, we go to the mountains…we go to the Bible, we go through the work out.” For millions, they go to the Indigo Girls. On Look Long they’ll find a creative partnership certain of its bearings, forging a way forward.