Paleontologists O.C. Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope race against each other to uncover the secrets of the prehistoric world. Between them, they discover and named 136 new species of dinosaurs, including Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Coelophysis, and Allosaurus. Their rivalry also led to their professional and personal ruin. The Bone Wars brings to life the explosive true...
In the wake of an untimely prognosis, a father and son must relearn how to share space after years of estrangement. They pass the time with quiet rituals – making coffee, playing chess – navigating what is left to say and what is better left unsaid. Funny, tender, and deeply human, The Motions is an...
In a world that looks remarkably like ours, the National Agency of Literary Advisors gives writers “gentle advice” about what kinds of stories the world wants to see. And then, the advice gets less gentle. ERASERS is a bloodthirsty comedy about office supplies and fascism.
WORLD PREMIERE By Sharyn Rothstein Directed by Oliver Butler Bratton Theater Best for Baby and its devilishly funny emcee takes audiences inside Johnson & Johnson’s decades-long and still evolving baby powder scandal. A Big American Play ripped straight from the headlines, this world premiere is equal parts showbiz spectacle and intimate human storytelling, brought to...
Dolly Parton’s Threads: My Songs in Symphony features Dolly’s songs and the stories behind them in an innovative multimedia symphonic experience featuring Dolly on screen, leading audiences in a visual-musical journey of her songs, her life, and her stories. Guest vocalists and musicians bring new and innovative orchestrations of Dolly’s hit songs together into a...
The Rev. Anna Carter Florence is the Peter Marshall Professor of Preaching at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Ga and an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church. She is also...
Hosted by the Friends of CVA, Art in the Park is an open art fair with 70+ vendors held in Miller Park, showcasing art by members of the Chautauqua community,...
WORLD PREMIERE By Sharyn Rothstein Directed by Oliver Butler Bratton Theater Best for Baby and its devilishly funny emcee takes audiences inside Johnson & Johnson’s decades-long and still evolving baby...
Join us at the Arts Quad where visitors are invited to step inside our 6-week resident artists' studios, learn more about their processes, and engage with the residents before gathering...
Stuart Chafetz, Conductor Natalie Merchant, Composer and Vocals American singer-songwriter, recording artist, and activist Natalie Merchant will be in residence at Chautauqua Institution this summer (July 25-August 2, 2026) for...
We are excited to announce the culmination of the Chautauqua School of Art's 6-Week Residency Program with an opening reception, following our open studios event. Over the course of six...
Chautauqua Writers' Center Faculty Reading — Featuring John Hoppenthaler (Poetry) and Roy Hoffman (Prose) John Hoppenthaler’s books of poetry are Night Wing Over Metropolitan Area, Domestic Garden, Anticipate the Coming...
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...
Join us for lemonade and cookies at the Orientation for new Chautauquans, where we warmly welcome you to our vibrant community. This event is designed to introduce you to the...
Join us for the Newcomers Reception, a welcoming gathering open to all first-time and new visitors to Chautauqua Institution. This lovely event is a chance to meet fellow newcomers, connect with...
WORLD PREMIERE By Sharyn Rothstein Directed by Oliver Butler Bratton Theater Best for Baby and its devilishly funny emcee takes audiences inside Johnson & Johnson’s decades-long and still evolving baby...
Sensei Dhara Kowal- Kowal is Dharma Successor to Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede, who sanctioned her as a Zen teacher in 2022 and gave her Dharma Transmission in 2025. As a resident...
Monte Thompson was a professional dancer, and also spent years as a restauranteur. His life was spent on his feet. Now retired, he is interested in continuing to be able...
The Rev. Anna Carter Florence is the Peter Marshall Professor of Preaching at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Ga and an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church. She is also...
Celebrating the United States semiquincentennial, Chautauqua presents Week Six, “America at 250: In Partnership with The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.” The milestone anniversary offers an opportunity to survey the previous quarter...
Enjoy paddling while learning about ecological info along the shores of Chautauqua Institution during this hour-long guided kayak tour. The tour begins and ends at the Sports Club. The cost...
Join us for “Conversations with Kyle”, an open, drop in conversation for members of the entire community. These informal gatherings offer the opportunity to ask questions and engage directly with...
Rosemarie Zagarri is Distinguished University Professor and professor of history at George Mason University. A specialist in Early American political and women’s history, she is the author of a numerous...
Join Ken Burns for an in-depth conversation about his latest work, "The American Revolution." A filmmaker for almost 50 years, Burns will expand upon his morning lecture on the Amphitheater...
Experience the electrifying energy of Ruckus, a boundary-pushing baroque ensemble redefining early music performance. With virtuosic flair and a fresh, improvisatory spirit, Ruckus brings 17th- and 18th-century works vividly to...
Join Chautauqua Travels for an hour of wine and conversation at 5 p.m. this evening on the porch of the Athenaeum Hotel. This informal travel information session offers an opportunity...
Chautauqua School of Dance presents an outstanding mixed repertoire evening of new and established works, masterfully performed by the Music Student Festival Orchestra. This performance will feature the most exceptional...
Sensei Dhara Kowal- Kowal is Dharma Successor to Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede, who sanctioned her as a Zen teacher in 2022 and gave her Dharma Transmission in 2025. As a resident...
The Rev. Anna Carter Florence is the Peter Marshall Professor of Preaching at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Ga and an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church. She is also...
Chautauqua Science Group Weekly Lecture Judi Greenwald is the President and CEO of the Nuclear Innovation Alliance. Ms. Greenwald has over 35 years of energy and environmental policy leadership experience...
Celebrating the United States semiquincentennial, Chautauqua presents Week Six, “America at 250: In Partnership with The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.” The milestone anniversary offers an opportunity to survey the previous quarter...
Bird, Tree & Garden Club lunchtime lecture series Sigrid Jakob is a freelance marketing strategist during the day and mycophile in her spare time. She’s an avid member and president...
Sensei Dhara Kowal- Kowal is Dharma Successor to Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede, who sanctioned her as a Zen teacher in 2022 and gave her Dharma Transmission in 2025. As a resident...
Manisha Sinha is the Draper Chair in American History at the University of Connecticut and immediate Past President of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. She received...
A National Geographic documentary film inspired by Andri Snær Magnason’s 2019 non-fiction On Time and Water, directed by Sara Dosa, premiered at the Sundance Festival on 27th January 2026. Facing...
Old First Night is Chautauqua’s birthday party, and all are invited! In the early years of Chautauqua, the season's first night was not in late June but early August. Therefore,...
As Seen on America's Got Talent, Puppy Pals Live is a family fun action-packed show where adopted and rescued dogs perform spectacular stunts and breathtaking feats. Watch as Puppy Pals...
Enjoy the beauty of the lake during our sunrise paddle. This is not a guided tour but an opportunity to rent a kayak, SUP or canoe for an enjoyable hour...
Sensei Dhara Kowal- Kowal is Dharma Successor to Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede, who sanctioned her as a Zen teacher in 2022 and gave her Dharma Transmission in 2025. As a resident...
Monte Thompson was a professional dancer, and also spent years as a restauranteur. His life was spent on his feet. Now retired, he is interested in continuing to be able...
The Rev. Anna Carter Florence is the Peter Marshall Professor of Preaching at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Ga and an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church. She is also...
Continuing Chautauqua’s weeklong commemoration of “America at 250,” two of the country’s pre-eminent historians present a mainstage conversation about the moral foundations of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution,...
Enjoy paddling while learning about historic sites along the shores of Chautauqua Institution during this hour-long guided kayak tour. The tour begins and ends at the Sports Club. The cost...
Kim Hehr is a lifelong Chautauquan and a certified level 2 teacher of Kundalini Yoga and Meditation. She has been a yoga and meditation practitioner for 30 years and has...
Chautauqua Dance Circle-Anita Lin alin@chqdancecircle.org
Programmed by Unity of Chautauqua
The Chautauqua School of Art proudly welcomes Susan Lichtman as a member of our 2026 visiting faculty. Susan Lichtman will participate in the School’s Summer Lecture Series, sharing insights and...
Alonzo King LINES Ballet is a celebrated contemporary ballet company that has been guided since 1982 by the unique artistic vision of award-winning choreographer Alonzo King. Since 1982, LINES Ballet...
Chautauqua’s own award-winning singer-songwriter and recording artist Sarah James from Scottsdale, AZ, brings her trio to our late-night series at the Roe Green Theater. From Pittsburgh, PA, accompanying Sarah will...
Sensei Dhara Kowal- Kowal is Dharma Successor to Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede, who sanctioned her as a Zen teacher in 2022 and gave her Dharma Transmission in 2025. As a resident...
The Rev. Anna Carter Florence is the Peter Marshall Professor of Preaching at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Ga and an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church. She is also...
Melody Barnes is the founding executive director of the University of Virginia’s Karsh Institute of Democracy, where she leads the Institute on an action-oriented path to realizing the promise of...
Theater Chats (formerly known as Brown Bags) On selected Thursdays at 12:15 p.m., bring lunch to Smith Wilkes Hall and join special guests, including actors, designers, playwrights and more, for...
Sensei Dhara Kowal- Kowal is Dharma Successor to Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede, who sanctioned her as a Zen teacher in 2022 and gave her Dharma Transmission in 2025. As a resident...
Don't have a partner? One will be provided. Game managed by Shelley Dahlie. $10/person.
David Waldstreicher is a distinguished historian of early America and the nineteenth-century United States whose scholarship focuses on political and cultural history, slavery and antislavery, and the American Revolution. He...
Chautauqua Opera Company will host the first workshops of two new works by GRAMMY Award nominated composer Luna Pearl Woolf. Toronto’s Against the Grain Theatre has commissioned a new adaptation...
Ages 6+ are invited to run the color sprint. $13 fee includes white t-shirt. Powdered paint tossed at participants as they run from the children's beach to Heinz beach.Great photo...
Location Hold
Rossen Milanov, conductor Aubree Oliverson, violin Experience an evening of myth, melody, and modernity with The Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra and guest violinist Aubree Oliverson. Missy Mazzoli’s Orpheus Undone reimagines the...
CTC's 2026 Acting Conservatory student Mengwe Wapimewah performs for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange
Enjoy the beauty of the lake during our sunrise paddle. This is not a guided tour but an opportunity to rent a kayak, SUP or canoe for an enjoyable hour...
Sensei Dhara Kowal- Kowal is Dharma Successor to Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede, who sanctioned her as a Zen teacher in 2022 and gave her Dharma Transmission in 2025. As a resident...
Monte Thompson was a professional dancer, and also spent years as a restauranteur. His life was spent on his feet. Now retired, he is interested in continuing to be able...
Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and director of the James Madison program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. Currently, he also chairs the New Jersey Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. George is general editor of New Forum Books, a Princeton University Press series of interdisciplinary works...
Jumu'ah introduction for visitors is at 12:30 PM. Jumu'ah Service is at 1:05 PM
Following last year’s lecture presentation, Just the Right Climate for Metaphors, Caitlyn Kamminga returns to premiere The Age of the Imaginals. With music by Adam Walters, and poetry by Kamminga, this chamber work blends music and spoken word to explore transformation on a metamorphosing planet. This performance offers an accessible entry point for audiences of...
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle – Rebellion 1776 by Laurie Halse Anderson and Be Easy: New & Selected Poems by Adrian Matejka Laurie Halse Anderson and Adrian Matejka will join us in conversation in a joint CLSC Author Presentation on Friday, August 7, 2026, in the Hall of Philosophy. Reading Be Easy: New & Selected...
In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead Grammy award-winning composer and librettist Herschel Garfein has created the first ever operatic adaptation of a play by Tom Stoppard. Chautauqua Opera Company’s young artists will be joined by internationally heralded baritone Keith Phares and the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra for a ten-day workshop of the complete opera, which concludes...
By August Wilson Directed by Jade King Carroll Bratton Theater August Wilson’s celebrated classic solo piece is an autobiographical tour de force that follows Wilson’s journey through the streets of Pittsburgh’s Hill District — through artistic awakenings, odd jobs and heartbreaks — capturing the moments that forged his identity. From the hustle of his early...
Two hundred and fifty years ago, a handful of visionary minds gathered in Williamsburg, Virginia to do something few had ever dared – they declared their independence, and in doing so, changed the course of human history. Flame of Revolution is an immersive, multimedia journey into the birth of the Declaration of Independence – the...
