Chautauqua Institution

Catholic Mass
2026-08-17 08:15, 2026-08-14 08:15, 2026-08-13 08:15, 2026-08-12 08:15, 2026-08-11 08:15, 2026-08-10 08:15, 2026-08-07 08:15, 2026-08-06 08:15 (America/New_York) and 8 more dates | Hurlbut Church sanctuary, Hurlbut Church sanctuary

Daily Word Meditation
2026-08-17 08:00, 2026-08-14 08:00, 2026-08-13 08:00, 2026-08-12 08:00, 2026-08-11 08:00, 2026-08-10 08:00, 2026-08-07 08:00, 2026-08-06 08:00 and 7 more dates | Hall of Missions, Hall of Missions
(Programmed by Unity of Chautauqua)

Episcopal Holy Eucharist
2026-08-17 07:45, 2026-08-16 09:00, 2026-08-16 07:45, 2026-08-14 07:45, 2026-08-13 07:45, 2026-08-12 07:45, 2026-08-11 07:45, 2026-08-10 07:45 and 13 more dates | Chapel of the Good Shepherd, Chapel of the Good Shepherd

CHQ Mystic Heart - Larry Terkel, Judaism/ Kabbalah Meditation
2026-08-17 07:45 | Presbyterian House, Presbyterian House
Larry Terkel, along with his wife Susan, founded The Spiritual Life Society, an inter-denominational center for spiritual and holistic studies, where he teaches yoga and meditation and gives weekly talks. As its licensed minister, Larry has officiated at over 2,000 weddings for couples of all faiths. He is also the founder of Temple Beth Shalom, in Hudson, Ohio. Larry and Susan are co-authors of the book, Small Change: It’s the LITTLE Things in Life That Make a BIG Difference! (Tarcher/Penguin) a finalist for the 2004 National Books for a Better Life Award.

Feast on Film- CHEF
2026-08-16 21:30 | Chautauqua Cinema, Chautauqua Cinema
As the evening continues, the celebration of food and community moves to the screen. Feast on Film pairs great food with great storytelling for a relaxed, movie night at the CHQ Cinema.
Guests are invited to join us for a free movie, grab a snack, and settle in for a film screening connected to food—whether through culture, memory, creativity, or the shared human experience of gathering around the table. These films are thoughtfully selected to complement the spirit of the Food Festival and extend the evening’s sense of connection. Films will be announced in the coming weeks, but tickets will be available starting April 15th.
Together, Weekly Feast with Friends and Feast on Film create a meaningful way to open each week of the festival—bringing the community together through flavor, story, and the simple joy of sharing an experience.

Sacred Song Service
2026-08-16 20:00, 2026-08-09 20:00, 2026-08-02 20:00 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater

Palestine Park Tour
2026-08-16 19:00, 2026-08-09 19:00, 2026-08-02 19:00 | Palestine Park, Palestine Park

Hebrew Congregation, Shirley Lazarus Sunday Evening Lecture Series Amit Taneja
2026-08-16 19:00 | Smith Wilkes Hall, Smith Wilkes Hall

Chautauqua Theater Company Presents How I Learned What I Learned
2026-08-16 18:00, 2026-08-16 14:00, 2026-08-14 18:00, 2026-08-13 18:00, 2026-08-12 18:00, 2026-08-11 18:00, 2026-08-09 18:00, 2026-08-09 14:00 and 1 more date | Bratton Theater, Bratton Theater
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 days to the love affair that almost got him killed, Wilson weaves his youth into a series of deliciously compelling stories. With his trademark wit, lyricism, and truth-telling, he invites audiences into the dynamic world that shaped both the man and the master storyteller he became.

Blessing of the Animals (weather permitting)
2026-08-16 17:15 | Hall of Philosophy Grove

Newcomers Reception
2026-08-16 17:00, 2026-08-09 17:00, 2026-08-02 17:00 | 3 Taps
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 members of the community, and learn more about all that Chautauqua has to offer. Guests will enjoy light refreshments while taking in the beautiful lake views, making it a perfect way to begin your Chautauqua experience. We look forward to welcoming you!

Feast with Friends: Smokin Dicks Community BBQ
2026-08-16 17:00 | Bestor Plaza, Bestor Plaza
Where food builds community. Weekly Feast with Friends invites guests to gather around the table together in Bestor Plaza and kick off each week of the Chautauqua Institution Food Festival with a warm, welcoming shared meal. Designed to bring people together, this communal dining experience celebrates the joy of connection, conversation, and exceptional food.
Guests will delight in thoughtfully prepared dishes from some of the region’s best caterers, showcasing the flavors, care, and creativity that define our local food community. On Sunday, August 16, the evening will feature Smoking Dick’s BBQ, a beloved regional catering company known for bold flavors and generous hospitality.
More than a meal, Weekly Feast with Friends is an opportunity to slow down, share space, and connect with our community, fellow guests, chefs, and community partners. Whether you arrive with friends or sit down with someone new, the experience reflects a simple truth at the heart of the Food Festival: food is one of the most powerful ways we come together.
Smokin Dicks BBQ
Standard:
Pulled pork sandwich
Smoked mac and cheese
Coleslaw
Ear of corn
Dietary Restriction Menu:
Pulled BBQ Jackfruit with gluten free bun
Coleslaw (Vegan)
Bang Bang Cauliflower
Ear of corn

New Visitors Orientation
2026-08-16 16:00, 2026-08-09 16:00, 2026-08-02 16:00 | Hultquist 101, Hultquist 101
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 rich history, diverse programs, and unique experiences that Chautauqua offers. Meet fellow newcomers, engage with staff, and learn about the array of cultural, educational, and recreational opportunities available. Whether you’re here for a day, a week, or the entire season, this orientation will help you make the most of your visit and feel right at home.

CHQ Mystic Heart -Church of the Wild -Family Friendly
2026-08-16 16:00, 2026-08-09 16:00, 2026-08-02 16:00 | Outdoor Classroom
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.

Laura Marris and Nishant Batsha
2026-08-16 15:30 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
Chautauqua Writers’ Center Faculty Reading — Featuring Laura Marris (Poetry) and Nishant Batsha (Prose)
Laura Marris is an essayist, poet, and translator. Her work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Believer, Harper’s, The New York Times, The Paris Review Daily, The Yale Review, Words Without Borders, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships and grants from MacDowell, a Katharine Bakeless Fellowship from the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, and the Robert B. Silvers Foundation. Her translations include Albert Camus’s The Plague, Paol Keineg’s Triste Tristan (co-translated with Rosmarie Waldrop), and To Live Is to Resist, a biography of Antonio Gramsci. Her work has been shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize, the Scott Moncrieff Prize, and the French-American Foundation Translation Prize. Her first book, The Age of Loneliness, was published by Graywolf 2024. She teaches creative writing at the University at Buffalo.
Nishant Batsha is the author of the novels A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2025) and Mother Ocean Father Nation (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2022). He holds a doctorate in history from Columbia University, where he was a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow. Originally from Northern California, he now lives in Buffalo, NY with his family.

Masters Series Culinary Masterclass: Chef Nyesha Arrington
2026-08-16 15:30 | Norton Hall, Norton Hall
See culinary mastery up close as acclaimed chef, restaurateur, and television personality Nyesha Arrington — one of the most influential voices in food today — presents an exclusive Masters Series experience that blends refined techniques, creative storytelling, and soulful flavor.
Designed for curious cooks and serious food lovers alike, this intimate Masters Series program offers live demonstration, real-time Q&A, and rare insight into the techniques, mindset, and creative process of a chef shaping modern cuisine. The unforgettable experience kicks off Arrington’s multiday Chautauqua residency during Week Eight, “The Future of Food: Climate, Technology and the Next Agricultural Revolution.”
For a greater look into the role of food in telling our personal and collective stories, Arrington joins the Chautauqua Lecture Series on Tuesday, August 18, 2026. Later that evening, she hosts an exclusive Guest Chef’s Dinner, providing patrons an elevated dining experience at the historic Athenaeum Hotel.

Sara Jones
2026-08-16 15:00 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
The first-place winner of the Billie Holiday Vocal Competition and semi-finalist in the American Traditions Competition, jazz vocalist Sara Jones has toured 49 states and performed in numerous concert halls across the country.
Jones has performed as a soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, and Ravinia Festival Orchestra, under the batons of Emil de Cou and Erich Kunzel. An additional highlight includes a solo performance on the Esplanade with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops Orchestra. In the Baltimore/Washington area, Jones was a featured vocalist with the Jazz Ambassadors and has graced the stages of the Hippodrome Theater, Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, Strathmore Mansion, and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Jones, who began her musical career as a pianist, received her Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and her Master of Music in Piano Accompanying at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. After graduation, she chose to pursue a professional vocal career with the Soldiers’ Chorus of the U.S. Army Field Band, where she served for six years. Now a civilian, Jones maintains an active performing schedule and has a CD recording, Daydream A Little on Petite Musique Records. A collection of beloved jazz standards and bossa novas, it features Jones and major Brazilian Jazz Group, Trio Da Paz. Jones’ schedule can be found on her website, sarajones.com.
Also a former educator, Jones was a professor at Towson University where she taught Jazz and Commercial Voice and directed the Towson Vocal Jazz Ensemble. Recent engagements for Jones include a performance by the Sara Jones Trio at the 2024 Monterey Jazz Festival in Monterey, CA, and a guest artist appearance in 2025 with the Buffalo Symphony and Chesapeake Symphony Orchestra. In 2026, Jones will appear with the Columbia Orchestra and the Spokane Symphony.
In partnership with the African American Heritage House

Twelve Step Meeting
2026-08-16 12:15, 2026-08-14 12:15, 2026-08-12 12:15, 2026-08-09 12:15, 2026-08-07 12:15, 2026-08-05 12:15, 2026-08-02 12:15, 2026-07-31 12:15 and 1 more date | Hurlbut Marion Lawrance

Week Eight: Reimagined Food Festival
2026-08-16 12:00 - 2026-08-22 20:00
Savor a week of elevated culinary experiences with our reimagined Food Festival. With only 80 packages per week, enjoy intimate moments across the grounds, from two Masters Series classes and five Bestor Plaza demos to a lively Weekly Feast of Friends. Your package also includes a Premium Chef’s Dinner, family‑friendly Feast on Film, a Craft Beverage Tasting and the flavor‑packed Taste Caravan featuring five lunches and two dinners. Cap your experience off with the high‑energy Battle of the Bites and the celebratory Taste of Chautauqua.
Package includes:
2 Master Series Classes
Sunday Feast with Friends Ticket
1 Premium Chef’s Dinner
Feast on Film Event
1 Premium Craft Beverage Tasting Event
Experience Taste Caravan
Battle of the Bites Tasting Event
Taste of Chautauqua
Plus, a limited merch package, $50 in food truck tickets for the taste caravan and a popcorn and soda for Feast on Film.
Package price: $505
Only 80 packages are available each week. Purchase by calling 716-357-6250.
*Packages available for week’s eight & nine. Packages do not provide standalone access to Chautauqua’s grounds and must be purchased in addition to your gate passes.

The Rev. Natalie Hanson
2026-08-16 10:45 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
The Rev. Natalie Hanson has been a longtime presence at Chautauqua; with her husband, the Rev. James Paul Womack, pastor of Hurlbut Memorial Community United Methodist Church, she has co-hosted the United Methodist Missionary Vacation Home at Chautauqua for several years. Hanson has also served Chautauqua as interim senior pastor in 2022, crafting, planning and evaluating worship services alongside members of the Department of Religion.
She is a clergy member of the United Methodist Church, now retired after 40 years of ministry. Much of that ministry was focused in urban parishes, with eight years serving as a District Superintendent in the Western, then Upper New York Annual Conference. On behalf of the Conference and as an adjunct for Wesley Seminary’s Course of Study, Hanson for several years taught classes on preaching and worship development. She was also Co-Convener and worship developer for the NE Jurisdiction’s Clergywomen’s Convocation. Hanson was educated at Wesleyan University and the Harvard Divinity School.

Unitarian Universalist Service
2026-08-16 09:30, 2026-08-09 09:30, 2026-08-02 09:30 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy

Quaker Worship Service
2026-08-16 09:30, 2026-08-09 09:30, 2026-08-02 09:30 | Quaker House

Unity Service
2026-08-16 09:30, 2026-08-09 09:30, 2026-08-02 09:30 | Hall of Missions, Hall of Missions

United Church of Christ Worship Service
2026-08-16 09:00, 2026-08-09 09:00, 2026-08-02 09:00 | Randell Chapel, UCC Headquarters

Song, Prayer, Communion & Meditation.
2026-08-16 08:30, 2026-08-09 08:30, 2026-08-02 08:30 | Hurlbut Church sanctuary, Hurlbut Church sanctuary

The Music of Billy Joel with Tony DeSare and the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra
2026-08-15 20:00 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
Stuart Chafetz, conductor
Tony DeSare, piano & vocals
Tony DeSare’s signature vocal and robust piano style pay tribute to the iconic songs of Billy Joel. Generations of Billy Joel fans will experience full symphonic orchestrations with Tony DeSare’s unique take on some of his most beloved hits including “Only the Good Die Young,” “Piano Man,” “New York State of Mind,” “You May Be Right,” “Movin Out,” “My Life,” “Vienna,” and many more.
Billy Joel does not appear on this program.

Chautauqua Theater Company Presents How I Learned What I Learned (Live Audio Descriptions & Pick-Your-Price)
2026-08-15 18:00 | Bratton Theater, Bratton Theater

Catholic Mass
2026-08-15 17:00, 2026-08-08 17:00, 2026-08-01 17:00 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy

Contemporary Issues Forum: Jonathan Deutsch
2026-08-15 15:00 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
Jonathan Deutsch, Ph.D., Drexel University

Chautauqua Theater Company Presents New Play Workshop 3: As You Like It by William Shakespeare (a musical adaptation)
2026-08-15 14:00, 2026-08-14 14:00, 2026-08-13 14:00 | Bratton Theater, Bratton Theater
As You Like It
by William Shakespeare
Adapted by Peter Andersen
Original score by Bandits on the Run
Shakespeare’s most musical comedy springs to life in a playful and vibrant new adaptation by Peter Andersen, featuring original music by indie-pop-folk trio and Chautauqua favorites Bandits on the Run. Two lovers meet in the Forest of Arden, but all is not as it seems in this sweet and subversive classic brought to life by the full 2026 CTC Acting Conservatory and professional guest artists. This exciting workshop explores Shakespeare’s text alongside those of his queer contemporaries, riffing on the play’s original lyrics with newly composed music by Bandits. All the world’s a stage!

Shabbat Service, Rabbi Zalman Vilenken
2026-08-15 09:30, 2026-08-08 09:30, 2026-08-01 09:30 | Chabad Jewish House

Food Donation Drop Off Outside Turner Community Center
2026-08-15 09:00, 2026-08-08 09:00, 2026-08-01 09:00 | Turner Lobby
Every Saturday during season the Chautauqua Climate Change Initiative and Chautauqua Property Owners Association are collecting unopened non-perishable food items for donation to local food pantries. Outside front entrance of Turner Community Center. Help reduce waste and feed our neighbors in need.

CHQ Mystic Heart: Centering Prayer with Carol McKiernan
2026-08-15 07:15, 2026-08-08 07:15, 2026-08-01 07:15 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
Carol McKiernan grew up at Chautauqua and says that her love of mystical practices began here on the grounds. She was formally introduced to meditation many years ago at an off-season yoga and meditation retreat led by Subagh Singh Khalsa and has been practicing Centering Prayer daily ever since. She has attended many seminars, workshops, and retreats offered by Contemplative Outreach, founded by the late Father Thomas Keating, a Trappist Monk who was instrumental in the creation of Centering Prayer. Carol practices Centering Prayer with weekly groups in Campus Ministry at Villanova University and at St. David’s Episcopal Church outside of Philadelphia. She has led and participated in many Centering Prayer workshops and groups in the areas surrounding her hometown of Philadelphia. She is a member of the Augustinian Affiliates, the lay order of the Augustinian Friars and volunteers for the Friars in the Villanova Province. Carol is a past board member and treasurer of the Chautauqua Catholic Community.

Chautauqua Theater Company Presents Bratton Late Night
2026-08-14 22:00 | Bratton Theater, Bratton Theater
CTC’s favorite late-night talent showcase! An evening of sketches and songs featuring the extraordinary talents of our 2026 conservatory.

The Revivalists with Olivia Barnes
2026-08-14 20:00 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
The Revivalists return to the road with the same electrifying swirl of indie rock, soul, folk and groove-driven musicianship that has made the band a festival favorite and one of the most compelling live acts touring today. Formed in New Orleans and known for powerful, high-energy performances and emotionally charged songwriting, the multi-platinum group has spent nearly two decades building a sound that feels both expansive and deeply lived-in — the kind of music made for a summer night at Chautauqua.
The band’s forthcoming album, Get It Honest, marks its first full-length release in more than three years and finds The Revivalists leaning into themes of perseverance, grace and facing the future with clarity and conviction. Led by the anthemic single “Heart Stop,” the album showcases the band’s signature intensity while revealing a more mature and magnetic side of its songwriting.
Anchored by soaring vocals, tangled guitars, powerful drums, rich harmonies and the energy of an eight-piece lineup, The Revivalists create the kind of concert experience that grows from deeply personal moments into full-on celebration. It’s music rooted in connection, honesty and the joy of gathering together.
The Revivalists have partnered with PLUS1 so $1 per ticket goes to Rev Causes, a fund that supports the essential work of organizations dedicated to reviving and investing in our communities, our health, and our environment. By allocating a portion of our ticket sales, and through fan donations and a variety of fundraising efforts, we aim to assist these exciting organizations in building a better future.

Kabbalat Shabbat Service
2026-08-14 17:00, 2026-08-07 17:00, 2026-07-31 17:00 | Miller Park, Miller Park

Generational Voices Masterclass with Claudia Catania
2026-08-14 16:00 | Fletcher Music Hall, Fletcher Music Hall
Join acclaimed vocal coach and educator Claudia Catania for a public masterclass featuring emerging vocal artists. Known for her insightful teaching and commitment to developing expressive, authentic performers, Catania will work directly with singers on vocal technique, interpretation, and communication. This engaging session offers audiences a unique opportunity to observe the artistic process and gain a deeper appreciation for the craft of vocal performance.

CHQ Dialogues
2026-08-14 15:30, 2026-08-07 15:30, 2026-07-31 15:30 | Christian Science House

CHQ Dialogues
2026-08-14 15:30, 2026-08-07 15:30, 2026-07-31 15:30 | Episcopal Cottage, Episcopal Cottage

CHQ Dialogues
2026-08-14 15:30, 2026-08-07 15:30, 2026-07-31 15:30 | Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

Rebecca Nagle
2026-08-14 14:00 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle — By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land
An “impeccably researched” (Washington Post) work of reportage and American history that braids the story of the forced removal of Native Americans onto treaty lands in the nation’s earliest days, and a small-town murder in the 1990s that led to a Supreme Court ruling reaffirming Native rights to that land more than a century later.
Before 2020, American Indian reservations made up roughly 55 million acres of land in the United States. Nearly 200 million acres are reserved for National Forests—in the emergence of this great nation, our government set aside more land for trees than for Indigenous peoples.
In the 1830s Muscogee people were rounded up by the US military at gunpoint and forced into exile halfway across the continent. At the time, they were promised this new land would be theirs for as long as the grass grew and the waters ran. But that promise was not kept. When Oklahoma was created on top of Muscogee land, the new state claimed their reservation no longer existed. Over a century later, a Muscogee citizen was sentenced to death for murdering another Muscogee citizen on tribal land. His defense attorneys argued the murder occurred on the reservation of his tribe, and therefore Oklahoma didn’t have the jurisdiction to execute him. Oklahoma asserted that the reservation no longer existed. In the summer of 2020, the Supreme Court settled the dispute. Its ruling that would ultimately underpin multiple reservations covering almost half the land in Oklahoma, including Nagle’s own Cherokee Nation.
Here Rebecca Nagle recounts the generations-long fight for tribal land and sovereignty in eastern Oklahoma. By chronicling both the contemporary legal battle and historic acts of Indigenous resistance, By the Fire We Carry stands as a landmark work of American history. The story it tells exposes both the wrongs that our nation has committed and the Native-led battle for justice that has shaped our country.
Rebecca Nagle is an award-winning journalist and a citizen of Cherokee Nation. She is the writer and host of the podcast This Land. Her writing on Native representation, federal Indian law, and tribal sovereignty has been featured in the Atlantic, the Washington Post, the Guardian, USA Today, Indian Country Today, and other publications. She is a Peabody Award nominee and the recipient of the American Mosaic Journalism Prize, Women’s Media Center’s Exceptional Journalism Award, and numerous honors from the Native American Journalist Association. Nagle lives in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.
Indigenous communities deserve the same standard of journalism as the rest of the country, but rarely receive it from non-Native media outlets. Nagle’s journalism seeks to correct this.

English Lawn Bowling Tips
2026-08-14 13:00, 2026-08-13 13:00, 2026-08-12 13:00, 2026-08-11 13:00, 2026-08-10 13:00, 2026-08-07 13:00, 2026-08-06 13:00, 2026-08-05 13:00 and 6 more dates | Sports Club, Lawn Bowling Green

Introduction to Jumu'ah Muslim Prayer
2026-08-14 12:30, 2026-08-07 12:30, 2026-07-31 12:30 | Hall of Christ: Sanctuary
Jumu’ah introduction for visitors is at 12:30 PM. Jumu’ah Service is at 1:05 PM

CHQ Dialogues
2026-08-14 12:30, 2026-08-12 18:30, 2026-08-07 12:30, 2026-08-05 18:30, 2026-07-31 12:30, 2026-07-29 18:30 | Lutheran House, Lutheran House

Robert Kagan
2026-08-14 10:45 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
Robert Kagan is a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. He is a contributing columnist at The Atlantic and was an editor at large for The Washington Post. His latest book, Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart — Again, was released April 2024.
He is also the author of The Ghost at the Feast: America and the Collapse of World Order, 1900-1941. The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World; Return of History and the End of Dreams, Dangerous Nation: America’s Place in the World from its Earliest Days to the Dawn of the 20th Century, Of Paradise and Power, and A Twilight Struggle: American Power and Nicaragua, 1977-1990.
For his writings, Politico Magazine has named Kagan one of the “Politico 50,” the top “thinkers, doers and visionaries transforming American politics.” His latest essays, featured in The Atlantic, include “Checkmate in Iran;” “America Is Now a Rouge Superpower;” “America vs. the World;” “The Beginning of the End of NATO;” and “American Democracy Might Not Survive a War with Iran;” and “Why Trump is Giving Putin Everything He Wants.”
He served in the State Department from 1984 to 1988 as a member of the policy planning staff, as principal speechwriter for Secretary of State George P. Shultz, and as deputy for policy in the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs. He is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and holds a doctorate in American history from American University.

Service of Blessing and Healing
2026-08-14 10:15, 2026-08-13 10:15, 2026-08-12 10:15, 2026-08-11 10:15, 2026-08-10 10:15, 2026-08-07 10:15, 2026-08-06 10:15, 2026-08-05 10:15 and 6 more dates | Randell Chapel, UCC Headquarters

Ecumenical Communion Service
2026-08-14 09:15, 2026-07-31 09:15 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy

Chautauqua Prays for Peace though Compassion
2026-08-14 08:55, 2026-08-13 08:55, 2026-08-12 08:55, 2026-08-11 08:55, 2026-08-10 08:55, 2026-08-07 08:55, 2026-08-06 08:55, 2026-08-05 08:55 and 6 more dates | Hall of Philosophy Grove

Movement and Meditation with Monte Thompson
2026-08-14 08:30, 2026-08-12 08:30, 2026-08-10 08:30, 2026-08-07 08:30, 2026-08-05 08:30, 2026-08-03 08:30, 2026-07-31 08:30, 2026-07-29 08:30 | Hall of Philosophy Grove
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 to move easily and gracefully while using breathing and stretching techniques to help quiet his mind and prepare him to face each day with purpose and joy.

CHQ Mystic Heart - Kainat (Felicia) Norton and Muinuddin (Charles) Smith, Sufi Meditation
2026-08-14 07:45, 2026-08-13 07:45, 2026-08-12 07:45, 2026-08-11 07:45 | Presbyterian House, Presbyterian House

Sunrise Paddle - Kayak/SUP
2026-08-14 06:00, 2026-08-12 06:00, 2026-08-07 06:00, 2026-08-05 06:00, 2026-07-31 06:00, 2026-07-29 06:00 | Sports Club, Waterfront
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 at sunrise. Reservations accepted one day in advance at the Sports Club. Contact sportsclub@chq.org with questions.

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2
2026-08-13 20:30, 2026-08-13 14:45, 2026-08-12 17:30, 2026-08-11 20:30 | Chautauqua Cinema, Chautauqua Cinema
Twenty years after making their iconic turns as Miranda, Andy, Emily and Nigel–Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci return to the fashionable streets of New York City and the sleek offices of Runway Magazine. “David Frankel’s keenly awaited follow-up to his 2006 fashion industry critique wickedly defies the sequel formula of going bigger and sillier. It’s smaller, darker and funnier than its pre-iPhone predecessor.” -Peter Howell, Toronto Star “Buoyant entertainment.” -Peter Bradshaw, Guardian “Revels in pleasure: the pleasure of fashion, of luxury, of power and ambition. It’s also a tremendous pleasure to watch.” -Dana Stevens, Slate (PG-13, 119m)

Josh Groban: Stage, Screen & Symphony
2026-08-13 20:00 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
Tony®, EMMY®, and five-time GRAMMY® Award-nominated singer, songwriter, actor and philanthropist Josh Groban possesses one of the most outstanding and instantly recognizable voices in music. With a career spanning chart-topping albums, global tours and acclaimed stage and screen performances, he has sold more than 35 million albums worldwide and headlined legendary venues across multiple continents.
His catalog includes a series of chart-topping blockbuster albums, including Josh Groban (5x platinum), Closer (6x platinum), Noël (7x platinum), Awake (2x platinum), Illuminations, All That Echoes, Stages — his first U.K. No. 1 album — Bridges, Harmony and Gems.
A dynamic presence on Broadway, Groban earned Tony® nominations for his roles in Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 and the 2023 revival of Sweeney Todd, which also garnered him a GRAMMY® nomination and widespread critical acclaim. His versatility extends to film and television appearances ranging from Glee and The Office to Crazy, Stupid, Love and Netflix’s The Good Cop, as well as starring as the Beast in ABC’s Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration.
Beyond performance, Groban remains an active arts education philanthropist and advocate. His Find Your Light Foundation helps enrich the lives of young students through arts education and cultural awareness.
Groban will release his new album, CINEMATIC, on May 8 via Reprise Records. Produced by Greg Wells and recorded in Los Angeles and London, the 10-track collection pays tribute to iconic songs from beloved films including The Godfather, Casablanca, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Stand by Me.
Groban recently launched his GEMS World Tour with sold-out performances across Asia and Australia before continuing through Europe this spring. He will also tour North America this summer alongside special guest Jennifer Hudson. In the fall, he returns to The Colosseum at Caesars Palace for Josh Groban: GEMS — The Las Vegas Residency. With new music and performances throughout the year, Groban continues to connect with audiences through his unmistakable voice and timeless repertoire.

CHQ Dialogues
2026-08-13 18:30, 2026-08-06 18:30, 2026-07-30 18:30 | Disciples of Christ House, Disciples of Christ House

BROADWAY AND BEYOND The Music of Jason Robert Brown
2026-08-13 18:00 | Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall, Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall
BROADWAY AND BEYOND
The Music of Jason Robert Brown
Featuring the Generational Voices Artists
The Denyce Graves Foundation proudly presents Broadway and Beyond: The Music of Jason Robert Brown, an exhilarating evening celebrating one of the most influential and beloved musical theater composers of our time.
Performed by the artists of Generational Voices, this special concert explores the extraordinary music and storytelling of Jason Robert Brown, the award-winning composer, lyricist, conductor, arranger, orchestrator, and performer whose work has helped redefine contemporary American musical theater.
Hailed as “one of Broadway’s smartest and most sophisticated songwriters since Stephen Sondheim,” Brown has created some of the most iconic and enduring works of the modern stage, including Parade, The Last Five Years, The Bridges of Madison County, 13, Honeymoon in Vegas, and the groundbreaking song cycle Songs for a New World. His music is known for its emotional depth, dazzling complexity, unforgettable melodies, and profound ability to capture the hopes, dreams, heartbreaks, and triumphs of the human experience.
From Broadway stages to concert halls around the world, Brown’s songs have been performed by some of the most celebrated artists of our generation, including Audra McDonald, Kristin Chenoweth, Billy Porter, Ariana Grande, Jennifer Nettles, Brandi Carlile, and Renée Fleming. His Tony Award-winning scores and extraordinary body of work continue to inspire performers and audiences alike.
This exciting concert will feature selections spanning Brown’s remarkable career, from beloved Broadway favorites and powerful ballads to lesser-known gems that showcase the full breadth of his artistry. Through these unforgettable songs, the artists of Generational Voices will bring to life stories of love, ambition, resilience, hope, and transformation.

IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT
2026-08-13 17:45, 2026-08-12 20:30, 2026-08-12 14:45, 2026-08-11 17:45 | Chautauqua Cinema, Chautauqua Cinema
What begins as a minor accident sets in motion a series of escalating consequences in Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s most bluntly political film yet, a defiant rebuke of authoritarianism that still delivers the entertainment value of a gripping thriller. “Panahi doesn’t make statement films; he makes question films, designed to instigate soul-searching and debate.” -Janice Page, Washington Post “An endlessly fascinating and extraordinarily powerful work.” -Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture “You will never forget it. This is essential viewing and essential filmmaking.” -Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News (PG-13, In Farsi and Azerbaijan with subtitles. 105m)

Play CHQ: Paper Chain Challenge
2026-08-13 16:00 | Heinz Beach, Heinz Beach

CHQ Dialogues
2026-08-13 15:30, 2026-08-06 15:30, 2026-07-30 15:30 | Baptist House, Baptist House

CHQ Dialogues
2026-08-13 15:30, 2026-08-06 15:30, 2026-07-30 15:30 | United Methodist House, United Methodist House

Wes Granberg-Michaelson
2026-08-13 14:00 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
Wes Granberg-Michaelson served as general secretary of the Reformed Church in America for 17 years, from 1994 to 2011. Previously, he held the position of Director of Church and Society at the World Council of Churches in Geneva. Earlier in his career, he served as Executive and Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Mark O. Hatfield (1968-1976) and then as the Associate Editor of Sojourners magazine when it was founded. He is currently a contributing editor to Sojourners where he previously served as Board Chair.
He played a leading role in establishing Christian Churches Together in the USA and presently helps guide the development of the Global Christian Forum. Over the course of his ministry, his ecumenical work has taken him to all corners of the world. His forthcoming book is The Soulwork of Justice: Four Movements of Contemplative Action. His other books including Without Oars: Casting Off into a Life of Pilgrimage, From Times Square to Timbuktu: The Post-Christian West Meets the Non-Western Church, and Future Faith: Ten Challenges for Reshaping Christianity in the 21st Century.
In the fall of 2012, Granberg-Michaelson was appointed as a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the John W. Kluge Center of the Library of Congress. While there he researched and wrote the book From Times Square to Timbuktu. The book deals with the effects of the shift in world Christianity to the Global South and impact of global migration on congregational life and society in the Global North. It was selected to be part of the 2013 National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.
Granberg-Michaelson is a graduate of Hope College and Western Theological Seminary, both in Holland, Michigan, and was ordained as a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Reformed Church in America in 1984. He currently serves on the governing boards of Church Innovations and the Global Christian Forum. His wife, Kaarin Granberg-Michaelson, is an ordained minister in the Reformed Church in America, and they have two children. He and Kaarin live in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Duplicate Bridge ABCL Sanctioned
2026-08-13 12:45, 2026-08-06 12:45, 2026-07-30 12:45 | Sports Club, Sports Club
Don’t have a partner? One will be provided. Game managed by Shelley Dahlie. $10/person.

CHQ Dialogues
2026-08-13 12:30, 2026-08-11 15:30, 2026-08-06 12:30, 2026-08-04 15:30, 2026-07-30 12:30, 2026-07-28 15:30 | Everett Jewish Life Center, Everett Jewish Life Center

CHQ Mystic Heart - Kainat (Felicia) Norton and Muinuddin (Charles) Smith, Sufi Meditation, seminar and practice
2026-08-13 12:30 | Hall of Missions, Hall of Missions

Is the US losing its edge in global clean energy leadership? With Clint Wilder
2026-08-13 12:30 | Alumni Hall Ballroom, Alumni Hall Ballroom
Clint Wilder is editor at large at Clean Edge, a pioneering clean-tech analysis and research firm, and has covered the high-tech and clean-tech industries as a business journalist for more than three decades. He is the co-author of two books, The Clean Tech Revolution and Clean Tech Nation, both published by HarperCollins.
A recognized expert on current trends in clean energy technology, policy, and finance, Clint is a frequent speaker and panelist at industry events. He is a Northern California chapter director of E2, a non-profit advocating for the economic benefits of environmental and energy legislation, and a board member of RE-volv, a non-profit that finances solar installations for community-serving organizations across the U.S.
A lifelong Chautauquan, Clint graduated from Yale University with a BA in History and studied environmental and energy policy at the University of Colorado Boulder

CTC Theater Chats
2026-08-13 12:15, 2026-08-06 12:15, 2026-07-30 12:15 | Smith Wilkes Hall, Smith Wilkes Hall
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 a look at our upcoming productions and discussions on the craft of theater-making. Free and open to the public.

Play CHQ: Tape Name Painting
2026-08-13 12:00 | Bestor Plaza, Bestor Plaza

Miles Yu
2026-08-13 10:45 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
Miles Yu is a senior fellow and director of the China Center at Hudson Institute. He is also a professor of East Asia and military and naval history at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Yu specializes in Chinese military and strategic culture, U.S. and Chinese military and diplomatic history, and U.S. policy toward China. He joins Chautauqua’s weeklong exploration of “Global Power and Our Evolving International Order” to offer an up-to-the-minute assessment of the global ambitions and actions of China and other East Asian countries, and how the U.S. and the West are responding.
Previously, Yu served in the first Trump administration as the China policy adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. In that capacity, he advised the secretary on all China-related issues, helped overhaul U.S. policy toward China, and participated in key U.S. government interagency deliberations on major policy and government actions with regard to China and other East Asian countries, including Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
From 2011 to 2016, Yu wrote the weekly column “Inside China” for The Washington Times; since 1996, he has been an editorial consultant to Radio Free Asia, and a contributor to various media outlets including The Wall Street Journal and “PBS News Hour.” His books include OSS in China: Prelude to Cold War and The Dragon’s War: Allied Operations and the Fate of China, 1937–1947. Yu’s numerous awards include the U.S. Naval Academy’s top researcher award, U.S. Navy Special Action Awards, and U.S. Navy Meritorious Service Award. He received a doctorate in history from the University of California, Berkeley, a master’s degree from Swarthmore College, and a bachelor’s degree from Nankai University.

The Rev. Frank A. Thomas
2026-08-13 09:15 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
The Rev. Frank A. Thomas currently serves as the Director of the Compelling Preaching Initiative and the Nettie Sweeney and Hugh Th. Miller Professor of Homiletics at Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, Indiana. For many years, Thomas has also taught preaching to doctoral and master’s level students at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, Memphis Theological Seminary in Memphis, Tennessee, and United Theological Seminary of Dayton, Ohio. With a long history of excellence in preaching and preaching method, Thomas was inducted into the prestigious Martin Luther King Jr. Board of Preachers of Morehouse College in 2003. Thomas also serves as a member of the International Board of Societas Homiletica, an international society of teachers of preaching.
Thomas is the author of several books including, The God of the Dangerous Sermon, Surviving a Dangerous Sermon, How to Preach a Dangerous Sermon, and Introduction to the Practice of African American Preaching. He also co-edited the anthology Preaching with Sacred Fire: An Anthology of African American Sermons 1750 to the Present. Thomas is also the author of several other books on subjects from matters of prayer to spiritual maturity.
Previously, Thomas served with distinction as the senior pastor for two remarkable congregations: New Faith Baptist Church of Matteson, Illinois and Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church of Memphis, Tennessee.
Thomas holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Communications from the University of Memphis, a Doctor of Divinity from Christian Theological Seminary and Doctor of Ministry degrees from Chicago Theological Seminary and United Theological Seminary. He also holds a Master of Fine Arts from Alma College, Master of Divinity from Chicago Theological Seminary and a Master of Arts from Northeastern Illinois University.

Bandits on the Run
2026-08-12 22:00 | Roe Green Theater Center
Bandits on the Run are a musical trio from the Brooklyn-Queens border. Born from a chance encounter busking on the subway, Adrian Blake Enscoe, Sydney Shepherd, and Regina Strayhorn defy convention with an impressive trade-off of lead vocals and instruments. The Bandits marry acoustic, electric, and bass guitar sounds with cello, accordion, suitcases-turned-kickdrums, and (if you’re lucky) sometimes even a megaphone.
The Bandit’s three-part harmonies have been heard filling iconic venues while opening for The Wood Brothers’ 2025 East Coast tour, on the main stages at Colorado’s Rocky Mount Folks Fest and Michigan’s Blissfest, and in a sold out residency at Manhattan’s Bowery Electric. Their songs have been featured by NPR’s Tiny Desk and The Moth Story Slam, as well as in Netflix’s Ask the StoryBots and the feature film The Same Storm. The Bandits tour nationally and internationally, with appearances at Cambridge Folk Festival, Floydfest, Summerfest Milwaukee, Americanafest, F1 Singapore Grand Prix, Mile of Music, and more. Their theatrical indie-folk lends itself quite well to storytelling and their work adapting text for a musical production of As You Like It later became their EP The Shakespeare Tapes.
In addition to all their touring and recording work, Bandits on the Run are also in the business of writing musicals, sometimes as a trio and sometimes with collaborators. They are currently creating the stage musical adaptation of the novel What’s Eating Gilbert Grape with actor-musician-longtime friend Christopher Sears and newfound friend Academy Award Nominee Peter Hedges, supported by MCC Theater. Bandits on the Run are also developing an original musical, Yukon Ho, about a group of Black prospectors in the Alaskan gold rush, Yukon Ho was researched on the ground in Skagway, Alaska with support from the NEA, and has been workshopped with support from Prospect Musicals. They are alumni of several musical theater writing development programs, including Berkeley Rep Ground Floor, Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, and the Johnny Mercer Songwriters Grove at Goodspeed Musicals.
Adrian, Sydney, and Regina bring their individual corners of the creative universe into the room when they collaborate. Adrian Blake Enscoe made their Broadway debut in The Avett Brothers’ Swept Away in 2024 and can be seen playing Austin Dickinson in the Apple TV+ Series Dickinson. Sydney Shepherd was most recently seen in the 2025 world premiere of The Ruins at the Guthrie Theater. Regina Strayhorn also works in casting, bringing to life shows for HBO, Amazon, Apple TV, CBS & Hulu, as well as a freelance photographer.
The Bandits will be on the run again soon, touring behind their new full length album “Rough Magic”.
They hope to see you there.

School of Dance: Student Gala II
2026-08-12 20:00 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
Chautauqua School of Dance presents an outstanding mixed repertoire evening of new and established works featuring the most exceptional young talent in the country. Under the leadership of Sasha Janes,
Bonnefoux McBride Artistic Director of Chautauqua School of Dance, the school continues its long tradition of excellence as a top-tier summer training program focused on bringing the next generation of dance stars from the studio to the stage.

Unity's Positive Path for Spiritual Living
2026-08-12 18:30, 2026-08-05 18:30, 2026-07-29 18:30 | Turner Conference Room, Turner Conference Room
Programmed by Unity of Chautauqua

CHQ Mystic Heart - Therapeutic Gong Meditation with Kim Hehr
2026-08-12 16:45, 2026-08-05 16:45, 2026-07-29 16:45 | Hall of Christ: Sanctuary
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 been teaching Kundalini Yoga and Meditation for 25 years. A retired hospice nurse, she is presently the coordinator of the CHQ Mystic Heart Meditation Program. Kim specializes in healing addictive patterns through yogic technology. Passionate about teaching meditation, performing Gong Baths, and pranayama (breath work), her objective is to help others with their anxiety and everyday stress. Her goal is to facilitate bringing more peace and self-acceptance into people’s lives.

Play CHQ: Pupper Puppets
2026-08-12 16:00 | Miller Park, Miller Park

Corporate sustainability, from big goals to community impact: lessons for Chautauqua.
2026-08-12 15:30 | Alumni Hall Ballroom, Alumni Hall Ballroom
Tamara Brown is an executive who has spent her career futureproofing. Versatile across a broad set of industries and functions, she is known for always adding value, developing for the future, and looking far ahead at emerging concerns to minimize risk and promote long-term success. A strategic leader across Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) areas, Brown most recently led a world class, high performing sustainability program globally for one of the world’s largest chemical companies.

CHQ Dialogues
2026-08-12 15:30, 2026-08-05 15:30, 2026-07-29 15:30 | Catholic House, Catholic House

UU Cultural Ethics Series: Fish Stark, Executive Director of the American Humanist Association
2026-08-12 15:30 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
“HUMAN RIGHTS AS RELIGION”
Fish Stark is Executive Director of the American Humanist Association. Previously, Fish was the Head of Program + Curriculum at Legends, an educational technology startup. Fish also served as the Director of Programs at Peace First, a global nonprofit that provides training and funding to youth social justice activists, where he led a global team of organizers who empowered thousands of youth grantees in 140+ countries to make lasting change in their communities. A self-proclaimed developmental psychology nerd who is passionate about giving everyone the tools to live lives of meaning, service, and self-determination, Fish holds a Master’s in Education with a concentration in child development and psychology from Harvard University, and a Bachelor’s from Yale University with a certificate in Education Studies.
Fish lives in Annapolis, Maryland, where he is President of the Speaker Mike Busch District 30 Democratic Club, is a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis, and serves on several nonprofit boards. He moonlights as an award-winning stand-up comedian and has performed in 13 states.

"Setting the Table: CVA Members Exhibition" Opening Reception
2026-08-12 15:00 | Fowler-Kellogg Art Center: 1st Floor
“Setting the Table: CVA Members Exhibition” opening reception. Exhibition runs August 12 – August 26. Once again, we will feature works by the 2026 CVA Members, who will interpret week eight’s theme, The Future of Food, Climate Technology and the Next Agricultural Revolution. A variety of styles, mediums, and techniques will be shown by these talented artists with their personal thoughts on the future of food.

Naaborle Sackeyfio
2026-08-12 14:00 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
Naaborle Sackeyfio is an associate professor of global and intercultural studies at Miami University of Ohio. She focuses on energy and resource politics, gender and sustainable development in Sub-Saharan Africa and is the author of Energy Politics and Rural Development: The Case of Ghana.
Her publications have appeared in the journals such as New Political Science and African Affairs. She was a Science Communication Fellow with The University of Rhode Island’s Metcalf Institute, Michigan State University’s Knight Center for Environmental Journalism, and the URI Science and Story Lab in 2023.

Chautauqua Theater Company Presents How I Learned What I Learned (Live Audio Descriptions)
2026-08-12 14:00 | Bratton Theater, Bratton Theater

Guided Kayak Historic Tour
2026-08-12 12:45, 2026-08-05 12:45, 2026-07-29 12:45 | Sports Club, Waterfront
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 is for rental of single or tandem kayak plus $12 per person for the tour guide. Limited spots so please reserve one day before the event. For more info, please contact sportsclub@chq.org.

CHQ Dialogues
2026-08-12 12:30, 2026-08-11 12:30, 2026-08-05 12:30, 2026-08-04 12:30, 2026-07-29 12:30, 2026-07-28 12:30 | Presbyterian House, Presbyterian House

Women In Ministry
2026-08-12 12:15, 2026-08-05 12:15, 2026-07-29 12:15 | Hall of Missions, Hall of Missions

Play CHQ: Suprise!
2026-08-12 12:00 | Bestor Plaza, Bestor Plaza

"Setting the Table: CVA Members Exhibition" August 12–26
2026-08-12 11:00 | Fowler-Kellogg Art Center: 1st Floor
“Setting the Table: CVA Members Exhibition” runs August 12-August 26. Once again, we will feature works by the 2026 CVA Members, who will interpret week eight’s theme, The Future of Food, Climate Technology and the Next Agricultural Revolution. A variety of styles, mediums, and techniques will be shown by these talented artists with their personal thoughts on the future of food.

Robert Chatterton Dickson
2026-08-12 10:45 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
Robert Chatterton Dickson is an international affairs consultant based in London. Until June 2026 he was a senior member of the British Diplomatic Service. His 36-year career combined leadership in complex and dangerous environments with London-based appointments at the heart of U.K. foreign policy and national security. His remarks as part of Chautauqua’s probe into “Global Power and Our Evolving International Order” will provide “a view from across the Atlantic,” and in particular on the state of relations among geopolitical powers including the U.K., U.S., European Union, Russia and NATO.
Chatterton Dickson served overseas as ambassador to the Republic of North Macedonia, consul general in Chicago, deputy ambassador in Afghanistan during the Afghan Republic, high commissioner in Bangladesh and chargé d’affaires of the U.K. Mission to Afghanistan following the return of the Taliban. In London, he was head of the Foreign Office Counter Terrorism Department and a director in the Cabinet Office National Security Secretariat. In all these roles he worked closely with American colleagues.
Chatterton Dickson’s early diplomatic career included working at HQ on Iraq, NATO, UN peacekeeping, arms exports and nuclear arms control and postings to the British embassies in Manila and Washington. Before joining the Diplomatic Service, he worked in investment management and was educated at Cambridge University.
Chatterton Dickson knows the U.S. well: besides diplomatic postings in Washington and the Midwest he has been married to an American artist for over 30 years and has four dual-citizen children and family across the country. He first experienced the U.S. at 19, when a cross-country road trip in an unreliable car introduced him to American kindness and hospitality. At Chautauqua he is speaking in a strictly personal capacity.

The Rev. Frank A. Thomas
2026-08-12 09:15, 2026-08-11 09:15, 2026-08-09 10:45 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater

Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra: Fate and Fury
2026-08-11 20:00 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
Hannah Schendel, conductor
Under the baton of Hannah Schendel, The Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra presents a night of symphonic drama. Wagner’s Flying Dutchman Overture surges with storm-tossed intensity, capturing the restless seas and legend of the cursed mariner. Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 follows, unfolding from brooding introspection to triumphant resolve in an emotionally compelling journey. Together, these masterworks showcase the passion, grandeur, and expressive force of the Romantic era.
Program:
Wagner: Flying Dutchman Overture
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5

Generational Voices Masterclass with Denyce Graves
2026-08-11 16:00 | Fletcher Music Hall, Fletcher Music Hall
Join internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves for a public masterclass featuring emerging vocal artists in an engaging and educational performance setting. Audiences will gain a rare behind-the-scenes look at the artistic process as Graves shares her insights on vocal technique, musical interpretation, and stage presence. Whether you are a performer, educator, or music lover, this inspiring event offers a unique opportunity to witness artistry in development under the guidance of one of opera’s most respected voices.

Play CHQ: Candle Painting
2026-08-11 16:00 | Miller Park, Miller Park

Jeremy Ben-Ami
2026-08-11 14:00 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
Jeremy Ben-Ami is the president of J Street, bringing to the role both deep experience in American politics and government and a passionate commitment to the state of Israel. Ben-Ami’s family connection to Israel goes back 140 years to the first aliyah when his great-grandparents were among the first settlers in Petah Tikva. His grandparents were one of the founding families of Tel Aviv, and his father was an activist and leader in the Irgun, working for Israel’s independence and on the rescue of European Jews before and during World War II.
Ben-Ami’s political resume includes serving in the mid-1990s as the deputy domestic policy advisor in the White House to President Bill Clinton and working on seven presidential and numerous state and local campaigns, including helping to manage a mayoral campaign in New York City in 2001. For nearly three years in the late ’90s, he lived in Israel, where he started a consulting firm working with Israeli nonprofit organizations and politicians. Ben-Ami received a law degree from New York University and is a graduate of the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Athenaeum Hotel History Lecture - "Past, Present, and Future of the Athenaeum Hotel."
2026-08-11 13:00, 2026-07-28 13:00 | Athenaeum Parlor, Athenaeum Parlor

CHQ Mystic Heart - Kainat (Felicia) Norton and Muinuddin (Charles) Smith, Sufi Meditation, seminar and practice
2026-08-11 12:30 | Hall of Missions, Hall of Missions
Kainat Felicia Norton and Muinuddin Charles Smith are senior Sufi teachers, retreat guides, and interfaith ministers within the Inayati Sufi Order. Together they founded and facilitate the Light of Guidance Center for Sufi Studies in New York City. Charles teaches leadership and sustainability studies at Hofstra University and Felicia teaches at the United Nations International School. They are married and live in New York City. Felicia has been touring the solo dance/theatre piece ‘NOOR’, depicting the life of Noor Inayat Khan, Sufi WW2 heroine, in London, Edinburgh, UK, France, and NYC. Together Felicia and Charles co-authored the book, ‘An Emerald Earth–Cultivating a Natural Spirituality and Serving Creative Beauty in Our World.’ Their book offers basic practices, poetry, and wisdom teachings from the Sufi tradition with the theme of joining inner cultivation and sacred ecology. They travel and offer retreats and workshops throughout the US, Canada, Asia, and Europe.

Jessamine Finch, Atlanta Botanical Garden: "Wild Seeds in a Warming World"
2026-08-11 12:30 | Smith Wilkes Hall, Smith Wilkes Hall
Bird, Tree & Garden Club lunchtime lecture series
Jessamine Finch is a Research Scientist in the Conservation Seed Bank at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. She has over fifteen years of experience working with public gardens in many capacities including horticulture, curation, education, conservation, and research. Prior to her work with ABG, she managed the seed bank of the New England Plant Conservation Program with Native Plant Trust. She holds a PhD in Plant Biology and Conservation from Northwestern University and the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Play CHQ: Tissue Popsicles
2026-08-11 12:00 | Bestor Plaza, Bestor Plaza

Nazanin Boniadi, Karim Sadjadpour and Amna Nawaz
2026-08-11 10:45 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
Continuing Chautauqua’s exploration of “Global Power and Our Evolving International Order,” “PBS News Hour” co-anchor Amna Nawaz hosts a special onstage conversation between actress and activist Nazanin Boniadi and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace senior fellow Karim Sadjadpour. Both have Iranian roots and Nawaz will engage them on their lives and their families, their respective areas of work, and, whatever the status of world events at that moment, their perspectives on the state of Iran, the Iranian people, and what comes next.
Nazanin Boniadi is an Iranian-born, SAG and AACTA Award-nominated actress, producer and human rights advocate. Her television credits include “Homeland,” “How I Met Your Mother,” “Counterpart,” and the first season of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.” In film, Boniadi won acclaim for her memorable role in “Bombshell” and leading role in “Hotel Mumbai.” Her producing debut, “A Mosquito in the Ear,” in which she stars alongside Jake Lacy, won the Panavision Spirit Award at the 2026 Santa Barbara International Film Festival. She is most recently seen in “The Saviors,” opposite Adam Scott and Danielle Deadwyler.
As an activist, Boniadi has campaigned for the rights of the Iranian people since 2008, with a focus on the unjust conviction and treatment of youth, women and political prisoners. She is also a Council on Foreign Relations member and serves on the board of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center. Appointed an Amnesty International UK ambassador in 2020, Boniadi has spoken at esteemed institutions, including the Oxford Union, Munich Security Conference and World Economic Forum, and she has addressed the U.S. Capitol, the U.K., German, Australian, Canadian parliaments and the U.N. Her numerous recognitions include the 2023 Sydney Peace Prize.
Karim Sadjadpour is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he focuses on Iran, Gulf security, and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, a CNN Global Affairs Analyst and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He has testified numerous times before Congress for both Democratic and Republican leadership.
Sadjadpour is currently writing a book on radicalism for Random House/Knopf and appears frequently on media outlets such as the “PBS News Hour,” NPR and CNN. Recognized for his sharp analytical prose, his work was selected as a Foreign Affairs “Best Essay of the Year” in both 2025 (for “The Autumn of the Ayatollahs”) and 2024 (on the battle between Saudi “Vision 2030” and Iran “Vision 1979”). In 2023, he received an Emmy Award as consulting producer for the HBO documentary Hostages. Previously an analyst with the International Crisis Group based in Tehran and Washington, he has lived in Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. He speaks Persian, Italian and Spanish, and is proficient in Arabic.
Karim holds degrees from the University of Michigan and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
Amna Nawaz is an Emmy, Peabody and Cronkite award-winning journalist who currently serves as co-anchor and co-managing editor of the “PBS News Hour.” In addition to anchoring PBS News’ flagship national news broadcast, Nawaz co-hosts the podcast “Settle In,” featuring thought leaders from all walks of life. She has also hosted a primetime arts show and documentaries on everything from America’s childcare crisis to global plastic pollution to life after incarceration.
Nawaz’s reporting ranges from politics and foreign affairs, to immigration and education, to culture and sports. She has anchored the show from the U.S. Southern border, Israel after the Oct. 7 attacks and Kyiv, Ukraine, during its war with Russia. Nawaz has interviewed presidents and heads of state, White House officials and lawmakers, professional athletes and musicians, and citizens around the world in the communities they call home.
Prior to joining PBS, Nawaz was anchor and correspondent at ABC News, anchoring breaking news coverage and leading the network’s livestream coverage of the 2016 presidential election. She also hosted the “Uncomfortable” podcast and reported a documentary on the Texas county with the highest rate of support for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. Before ABC, Nawaz was a foreign correspondent and Islamabad Bureau Chief for NBC News, where she regularly reported on the war in Afghanistan and the broader region.

What will Chautauqua’s future climate look and feel like? Locally specific climate projections for the Chautauqua region
2026-08-11 09:15 | Hurlbut Church sanctuary, Hurlbut Church sanctuary
Chautauqua Science Group Weekly Lecture
Meghan Collins is an Associate Research Scientist, Science Communication, at the Desert Research Institute at University of Nevada Reno.
Meghan joined DRI in June 2015. There are two dimensions to her work: the first is to advance the ways that science and scientists meaningfully translate the results of research to society, and the second is to create partnerships to involve people in DRI science. As faculty of science communication, she has one foot in research and one foot in practice. Her work is synergistic with scientists in many fields, and she looks for ways to elevate science and engage students and community members meaningfully in DRI’s work through internships, citizen science, and other immersive experiences.

CAROLINA CAROLINE
2026-08-10 20:30, 2026-08-10 15:15, 2026-08-09 20:30, 2026-08-08 20:30, 2026-08-07 20:30 | Chautauqua Cinema, Chautauqua Cinema
Desperate to escape her small West Texas town, Caroline Daniels runs away with a charismatic con man who takes her on a romantic crime spree through the American South in Director Adam Carter Rehmeier’s gothic thriller. “Samara Weaving and Kyle Gallner, two fine actors rarely granted the glow that comes with a proper star vehicle, positively bask in it here.” -Guy Lodge, Variety “The movie is good from its first shot.” -Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle “It’s a rip-roaring, tragic, joyride.” -Zachary Lee, RogerEbert.com (R, 105m)

Music School Festival Orchestra
2026-08-10 20:00 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
Comprised of top-tier students from conservatories and universities in the U.S. and abroad, Music School Festival Orchestra members participate in a variety of musical activities during their summers at Chautauqua including chamber music and private lessons along with their meticulous orchestral training. Alumni from the MSFO can be heard in many of the world’s top orchestras and chamber ensembles and can be found on music faculties worldwide. The MSFO is led by Artistic Director Timothy Muffitt, who serves as Music Director of the Lansing Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Laureate of the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra.

Taize and Tea Meditation Worship
2026-08-10 19:00, 2026-08-03 19:00 | Randell Chapel, UCC Headquarters

MINIONS & MONSTERS
2026-08-10 18:00, 2026-08-09 18:00, 2026-08-09 15:30, 2026-08-08 18:00, 2026-08-07 18:00 | Chautauqua Cinema, Chautauqua Cinema
The Minions bring their penchant for mayhem to Hollywood history in this affectionate and charming sendup of moviemaking magic. “Very funny and often insightful as it zooms through what amounts to a crash course in the early days of Hollywood moviemaking.” -Soren Andersen, Seattle Times “A pure throwback to the early days of cinema.” -Kristen Lopez, The Film Maven “The viewer leaves really believing that those little dandelion CGI blobs had a blast making their movie, and they can’t wait for the next one.” -Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post (PG, 90m)

Chautauqua Chamber Music: JACK Quartet
2026-08-10 16:00 | Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall, Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall
Join the groundbreaking JACK Quartet for a concert of fearless innovation and extraordinary musicianship. Renowned for their precision, passion, and adventurous programming, JACK champions new works that redefine the possibilities of the string quartet. Their performances are both intellectually bold and emotionally gripping, inviting listeners into the cutting edge of contemporary music. Experience why JACK Quartet is hailed as one of the most influential ensembles of its generation.

Play CHQ: Penny Spinners
2026-08-10 16:00 | Heinz Beach, Heinz Beach

"Courageous Conversation on Death and Dying" Shahid Aziz
2026-08-10 15:30, 2026-08-03 15:30 | Presbyterian Chapel

Kevin Rudd
2026-08-10 14:00 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
The Honorable Dr. Kevin Rudd AC is a leading international authority on China. He currently serves as Global President and CEO of Asia Society. Asia Society was established in New York in 1956 and now operates across 16 centers with more than 250 staff around the world. Dr. Rudd is also Founding President of the Asia Society Policy Institute, a “think-and-do tank” focused on U.S.-Asia relations, and the Founding Chair of its Center for China Analysis. Dr. Rudd returned to lead Asia Society in March 2026 following three years as Australia’s Ambassador to the United States under the Trump and Biden Administrations. He previously served as Australia’s 26th Prime Minister from 2007 to 2010 and as Foreign Minister from 2010 to 2012, before returning as Prime Minister in 2013. He has published two books on U.S.-China relations, On Xi Jinping (2024) and The Avoidable War (2022), which have been translated into more than seven languages. Dr. Rudd is professionally proficient in Mandarin Chinese. In 2022 he was awarded his DPhil from Oxford University for his dissertation on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ideological worldview. Over the years, he has been extensively cited on China relations, appearing frequently on U.S. network television, in print media including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and the Financial Times, and across the major outlets in India, Japan and across Europe.

Guided Kayak Eco Tour
2026-08-10 12:45, 2026-08-03 12:45 | Sports Club, Waterfront
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 is for rental of single or tandem kayak plus $12 per person for the tour guide. Limited spots so please reserve one day before the event. For more info, please contact sportsclub@chq.org.

Play CHQ: Pom Pom Caterpillars
2026-08-10 12:00 | Bestor Plaza, Bestor Plaza

Nancy Youssef
2026-08-10 10:45 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
Nancy Youssef is a staff writer at The Atlantic. Before that, she was a longtime national security correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and also worked at BuzzFeed News and The Daily Beast. Youssef spent much of her career at McClatchy Newspapers where she served as national security correspondent and Middle East bureau chief based in Cairo covering the Middle East and the Islamic world. Prior to that she was McClatchy’s chief Pentagon correspondent, focusing on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She traveled frequently to those two nations to see how the policies crafted in Washington reached Afghans, Iraqis and the troops alike. She is also the founder of the Pentagon Press Association.
Before covering the Pentagon, Youssef spent four years covering the Iraq war, including a stint as Baghdad bureau chief. Her pieces focused on the everyday Iraqi experience, civilian casualties and how U.S. military strategy was reshaping Iraq’s social and political dynamics. She began her career at the Detroit Free Press, covering legal issues. While at the Free Press, she traveled throughout Jordan and Iraq for Knight Ridder, covering the Iraq war from the time leading up to it through the post-war period. Her journalism career started at The Baltimore Sun.
A Washington, D.C.-area native, Youssef earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from University of Virginia and master’s degree in security studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Youssef’s parents are from Egypt, and she speaks Arabic. Throughout her life, she has been a frequent visitor to the region. She is currently based in Washington, D.C. and is an advocate for supporting neurodiverse children.

Thr Rev. Frank A. Thomas
2026-08-10 09:15 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater

CHQ Mystic Heart - Kainat (Felicia) Norton and Muinuddin (Charles) Smith, Sufi Meditation
2026-08-10 07:45 | Presbyterian House, Presbyterian House

Hebrew Congregation, Shirley Lazarus Sunday Evening Lecture Series- Lindsey Cormack
2026-08-09 19:00 | Smith Wilkes Hall, Smith Wilkes Hall

Deborah A. Miranda and A. J. Eversole
2026-08-09 15:30 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
Chautauqua Writers’ Center Faculty Reading — Featuring Deborah A. Miranda (Poetry) and A. J. Eversole (Prose)
Deborah A. Miranda is a writer and enrolled member of the Ohlone-Costanoan Esselen Nation in California, with Santa Ynez Chumash ancestry. Her hybrid project, Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir, won the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award; the 10th anniversary edition of Bad Indians was released in 2023 as a hardback with 50+ additional pages of material. Miranda is also the author of four poetry collections (Indian Cartography, The Zen of La Llorona, Raised by Humans, and Altar for Broken Things) and co-editor of the Lambda finalist Sovereign Erotics: An Anthology of Two-Spirit Literature. Her scholarship focuses on California Indian experiences within and after Missionization and California Indian storyteller and culture bearers such as Isabel Meadows. She is Thomas H. Broadus, Jr. Professor of English emerita at Washington and Lee University, where she taught Native American Literatures and Creative Writing, and was an affiliate of the Shepherd Poverty Studies Program and the Women and Gender Studies Programs. She and spouse Margo Solod now live in Eugene, Oregon.
A.J. Eversole grew up in rural Oklahoma where the wide open spaces fed her imagination. An enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, she works across adult and children’s literature to explore themes of cultural reclamation, resilience, and the ways ancestral knowledge persists in modern worlds. Her stories appear in Legendary Frybread Drive-In (Heartdrum/HarperCollins), Beyond the Glittering World (Torrey House Press), and the forthcoming Never Whistle At Night Part II. When not writing, she reports on Native Voices in literature for Cynsations News Website. Visit her on socials: @ajeversole

Bandits on the Run
2026-08-09 15:00 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater

Alonzo King LINES Ballet with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra
2026-08-08 19:30 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
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 has collaborated with noted composers, musicians and visual artists from around the world to create performances that alter the way we look at ballet today. Its unique artistic vision adheres to the classical form — the linear, mathematical and geometrical principles that are deeply rooted in the pre-existing East-West continuum. The Company brings two separate programs to the Amphitheater, with Saturday’s program featuring live music from the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra under the baton of music director Rossen Milanov.

Chautauqua Theater Company Presents How I Learned What I Learned (Pick-Your-Price)
2026-08-08 16:00 | Bratton Theater, Bratton Theater

Contemporary Issues Forum: Jim Rasenberger
2026-08-08 15:00 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
Jim Rasenberger, Author and Journalist

Flame of Revolution: A Colonial Williamsburg 250th Commemoration
2026-08-07 20:00 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
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 debates that nearly derailed it, the courage that carried it forward and the timeless ideals that continue to challenge and inspire us today.
As the nation’s foremost living history museum, Colonial Williamsburg has spent nearly a century helping Americans not merely remember their founding but truly understand it. Through engaging storytelling, rigorous scholarship, and transformative civic programming, Colonial Williamsburg has educated generations of students, teachers, and lifelong learners on the enduring principles that shaped our nation so that the future may learn from the past.

School of Music: Percussion Ensemble Concert
2026-08-07 16:00 | Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall, Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall

Chautauqua Opera Company Orchestral Workshop: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
2026-08-07 15:15 | Norton Hall, Norton Hall
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 with a public presentation of excerpts and panel discussion with Garfein and Phares. Reviewing excerpts presented at Fort Worth Opera’s Frontiers Festival, the Wall Street Journal said, “composer-librettist Herschel Garfein set the diamond-bright dialogue of the Tom Stoppard play with clarity and wit, heightening the comedy through skillful ensemble writing and characterization.”

Laurie Halse Anderson and Adrian Matejka
2026-08-07 14:00 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
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 Poems by Adrian Matejka alongside Rebellion 1776 by Laurie Halse Anderson creates a powerful conversation about race, resistance, and the meaning of freedom in America. Together, the books highlight how the promises of liberty in 1776 were unevenly distributed and how the struggle for dignity and self-definition continues across centuries. In dialogue, they invite readers to question who freedom was—and is—for, and how rebellion can be both a public act and a deeply personal one.
Rebellion 1776
From New York Times bestselling author Laurie Halse Anderson comes an “thoroughly researched, emotionally resonant” (Booklist, starred review) historical fiction middle grade adventure about a girl struggling to survive amid a smallpox epidemic, the public’s fear of inoculation, and the seething Revolutionary War.
In the spring of 1776, thirteen-year-old Elsbeth Culpepper wakes to the sound of cannons. It’s the Siege of Boston, the Patriots’ massive drive to push the Loyalists out that turns the city into a chaotic war zone. Elsbeth’s father—her only living relative—has gone missing, leaving her alone and adrift in a broken town while desperately seeking employment to avoid the orphanage.
Just when things couldn’t feel worse, the smallpox epidemic sweeps across Boston. Now, Bostonians must fight for their lives against an invisible enemy in addition to the visible one. Elsbeth, who had smallpox as a small child and is now immune, finds work taking care of a large, wealthy family with discord of their own as they await a turn at inoculation, but as the epidemic and the revolution rage on, will she find her father? This book will serve as a joint CLSC and CLSC Young Reader selection.
Laurie Halse Anderson is a New York Times bestselling author known for tackling tough subjects with humor and sensitivity. She’s twice been a National Book Award finalist, for Chains and Speak; Chains also received the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction. Laurie was chosen for the 2009 Margaret A. Edwards Award and received the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2023, presented to her by the Crown Princess of Sweden. She lives in Pennsylvania, and you can follow her adventures on X @HalseAnderson or visit her at MadWomanintheForest.com.
Be Easy: New & Selected Poems
Revered for his “patient, clever, controlled, [and] visionary” (Hanif Abdurraquib) poems, Adrian Matejka has been a mainstay of contemporary American poetry for over two decades. Gathering hits from six extraordinary collections, Be Easy showcases his singular sonics and narrative vision in fresh, dynamic poems that lyrically complicate place, race, and identity.
Traversing the Midwest from Indianapolis to Chicago, new poems explore the twitchy unease of unintentional migration and economic instability as the country faces a future every bit as unsettling and circus-like as parking lot carnivals of the poet’s childhood. Selections from Mixology (2008)—“a post-soul tour de force” (Kevin Young)—reverberate with the rhythm of ’80s hip-hop, while “revelatory” (Gabrielle Calvocoressi) odes from Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist The Big Smoke (2013) reimagine the legacy of prizefighter Jack Johnson and transcendent poems from Map to the Stars (2017) brim with cosmic jazz.
Matejka’s smooth lyricism flows into a singular, indispensable collection of memories lost and found again. Tracing the continuum of a “rocket-powered” (Campbell McGrath) writer, Be Easy affirms Matejka as one of the most exciting voices of our time.
Adrian Matejka is the author of six poetry collections and the graphic novel Last on His Feet. He has been nominated for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, served as the poet laureate of the state of Indiana from 2018–2019, and is editor–in–chief of Poetry magazine. He lives in Chicago.

The Age of the Imaginals: A Musical Performance
2026-08-07 12:45 | Smith Wilkes Hall, Smith Wilkes Hall
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 all ages to engage with climate change, resilience, and possibility.

Colonial Williamsburg Historic Trades & Skills Demonstrations: Milliner & Journeyman Founder
2026-08-07 12:00, 2026-08-06 12:00, 2026-08-05 12:00, 2026-08-04 12:00, 2026-08-03 12:00 | Oliver Archives Center, Oliver Archives Center
The Colonial Williamsburg Historic Trades and Skills community uses 18th-century tools and techniques to apprentice in and eventually master more than 20 historic trades and skills. These world-renowned experts not only make goods and provide services to the Historic Area, they also consult and produce for other cultural institutions around the world.
Milliners design, make, and sell fashionable accessories and garments for women, including hats, caps, cloaks, gloves, and decorative trims, and mantua-makers are skilled dressmakers who measure, cut, fit, and sew women’s gowns and other fitted garments to the latest fashions.

Robert P. George
2026-08-07 10:45 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
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 in law, culture and politics. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is of counsel to the law firm of Robinson & McElwee. He will help close Chautauqua’s week commemorating “America at 250” with his perspective on the significance of “freedom of conscience” in the American founding and ongoing experiment.
George has frequently been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, teaching philosophy of law and related subjects. In addition, he has served as chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, on the President’s Council on Bioethics, as a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, and as the U.S. member of UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Science and Technology.
George is the author of several books; his most recent is Seeking Truth and Speaking Truth: Law and Morality in Our Cultural Moment. He has written numerous academic articles and review essays along with pieces for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.
A graduate of Swarthmore College, George holds the degrees of J.D. and MTS from Harvard University and the degrees of PhD, BCL, DCL, and D.Litt. from Oxford University, in addition to 23 honorary doctorates. He is a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Citizens Medal, the Honorific Medal for the Defense of Human Rights of the Republic of Poland, the Canterbury Medal of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and Princeton University’s President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Ecumenical Communion Service, Rev. Julius Jackson
2026-08-07 09:15 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy

CHQ Mystic Heart - Dhara Kowal, Zen Buddhism Meditation Practice
2026-08-07 07:45, 2026-08-06 07:45, 2026-08-05 07:45, 2026-08-04 07:45, 2026-08-03 07:45 | Presbyterian House, Presbyterian House
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 teacher and priest (ordained in 2023), she serves as Co-Director of the Rochester Zen Center, in partnership with Sensei John Pulleyn.
In the preceding years, she joined the Center’s staff in 2019. She served as both Head of Zendo at Chapin Mill, the Center’s country retreat facility, and Manager of the Sangha Programs Office, which coordinates educational and social programming.
Born and raised in Staten Island, New York, Dhara-sensei first learned about Zen practice while training in martial arts. She joined the Center in 1998 and was a local Sangha member for some 20 years prior to joining staff. During that time, she committed herself to attending as many sesshins as possible and serving the Center as a volunteer, including Editor of Zen Bow for 14 years. She also had a successful career in academia as an award-winning professor and author (Ph.D. in Rhetoric & Communication, University of Pittsburgh).

Chautauqua Theater Company Presents for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange
2026-08-06 22:00 | Roe Green Theater Center
CTC’s 2026 Acting Conservatory student Mengwe Wapimewah performs for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange

WICKED FOR GOOD
2026-08-06 20:10, 2026-08-05 16:30 | Chautauqua Cinema, Chautauqua Cinema
The conclusion to Jon M. Chu’s 2024 Wicked is “a soaring musical triumph filled with standout performances, extraordinary craft, and an emotional core that is sure to delight fans young and old.” -Linda Marric, HeyUGuys “From its director to its cast, the movie is a testament to diversity (species included) as a common good as well as to love, friendship and solidarity. It’s on the side of kindness, which is itself, well, a balm.” -Manohla Dargis, New York Times “Its sincerity, heart, and belief in a better world are inspiring.” -Billie Melissa, Newsweek (PG, 137m)

Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra with Aubree Oliverson, violin
2026-08-06 20:00 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
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 ancient myth with driving energy and striking orchestral color. Dvořák’s beloved Violin Concerto brings lyrical warmth and Romantic sweep to the spotlight, showcasing Oliverson’s expressive artistry. The program concludes with Kevin Puts’ Concerto for Orchestra, a dazzling display of rhythmic vitality and instrumental flair that highlights the full power of the ensemble.
Program:
Mazzoli: Orpheus Undone
Dvorak: Violin Concerto
Puts: Concerto for Orchestra

Colonial Williamsburg Fifes and Drums performance
2026-08-06 17:45, 2026-08-05 17:45, 2026-08-04 17:45 | Norton Hall, Norton Hall

WICKED
2026-08-06 16:30, 2026-08-05 19:50 | Chautauqua Cinema, Chautauqua Cinema
Starring Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, misunderstood because of her unusual green skin, and pop superstar Ariana Grande as Glinda who is gilded by privilege and ambition, director Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of the broadway hit musical is “a wickedly good time at the movies.” -Max Weiss, Baltimore Magazine “Smart, sweet, and sassy in equal measure, with eye-popping special effects, lustrously colorful cinematography and production design, dynamic vocals and dancing, and—best of all—emotionally intimate storytelling.” -Albert Williams, Chicago Reader (PG, 160m)

Masters Series Masterclass: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation presents Pursuing Happiness with Thomas Jefferson and Fifes & Drums Experience: Thursday
2026-08-06 16:30 | Norton Hall, Norton Hall
On the evening before Thomas Jefferson turns his draft of the Declaration of Independence over to a committee, he is visited by three inspiring voices. Witness a series of imagined conversations between Thomas Jefferson, John Locke and King George III to discover the ghosts behind Jefferson’s drafts of the Declaration of Independence and gain a new perspective on the document we celebrate on the Fourth of July. This special theatrical presentation will be followed by Q & A session moderated by Katharine Pittman, Nation Builder, Martha Washington & Program Lead for The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Following the masterclass inside, enjoy a quintessential piece of the Colonial Williamsburg experience through the vibrations of 18th-century military music with a series of special performances outside Norton Hall. The march of the Fifes and Drums is an indispensable part of the Colonial Williamsburg visit. The shrill fife and the resounding drum broadcast a wave of sound throughout the city announcing the red-and-blue-uniformed regiment moving through the streets of Williamsburg. What started 65 years ago as four high school students playing “Yankee Doodle” at a Fourth of July celebration has since blossomed into two full Corps of local students who perform more than any other youth Fife and Drum Corps in the country. These students keep alive an even longer tradition of military music that dates back centuries.

Beach-to-Beach Color Sprint
2026-08-06 16:30 | Sports Club, Sports Club
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 opp at the end! Questions? contact sportsclub@chq.org

Play CHQ: Bubble Party
2026-08-06 16:00 | Heinz Beach, Heinz Beach

Chautauqua Opera Company Workshop: Anne of Green Gables and A Prayer for Owen Meany
2026-08-06 15:15 | Fletcher Music Hall, Fletcher Music Hall
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 of Anne of Green Gables by Woolf and librettist Royce Vavrek (Lincoln in the Bardo). Pacific Opera Victoria and Opéra Magnolia have commissioned the first operatic adaptation of John Irving’s internationally best-selling novel A Prayer for Owen Meany, for which Woolf will provide both libretto and music. Through these inventive new operas two of Canadian literature’s most iconic characters, Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne Shirley and Irving’s Owen Meany, will come to life. The public presentation with piano accompaniment which concludes these workshops will be the first time any music from these works has been heard, and will give Chautauqua audiences a unique opportunity to watch the development of these groundbreaking works.

David Waldstreicher
2026-08-06 14:00 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
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 is Distinguished Professor of History at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Waldstreicher is the author of several award-winning books, including The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence, widely regarded as the most comprehensive biography of the pioneering African American poet. The book received the Society of American Historians’ Francis Parkman Prize and was praised by critics for placing Wheatley at the center of debates over the relationship between slavery and the American Revolution while reconstructing the intellectual world in which she lived.
His other major works include Slavery’s Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification (2009), Runaway America: Benjamin Franklin, Slavery, and the American Revolution (2004), and In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776–1820 (1997). As an editor, he has contributed to numerous influential volumes, including Revolutions and Reconstructions: Black Politics in the Long Nineteenth Century (2020), the Library of America edition of The Diaries of John Quincy Adams (2017), Beyond the Founders: New Approaches to the Political History of the Early American Republic (2004), and The Struggle Against Slavery: A History in Documents (2001).
His scholarship has earned recognition from leading historical organizations, including the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, the Southeastern American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, and the American Jewish Historical Society. In addition to his academic work, he has written for publications such as The Boston Review, The Atlantic, and The New York Times Book Review.
Before joining the Graduate Center, Waldstreicher taught at Temple University, the University of Notre Dame, Yale University, and Bennington College. In 2024, he delivered the Benjamin Franklin Distinguished Lectures at the University of Pennsylvania under the title “Three Ages of Slavery and the Future of U.S. History.”

CHQ Mystic Heart - Dhara Kowal, Zen Buddhism Meditation, seminar and practice
2026-08-06 12:30, 2026-08-04 12:30 | Hall of Missions, Hall of Missions

Colonial Williamsburg Historic Trades & Skills Demonstrations: Blacksmith, Cabinetmaker, Carpenter & Joiner
2026-08-06 12:00, 2026-08-05 12:00, 2026-08-03 12:00 | Bestor Plaza, Bestor Plaza
The Colonial Williamsburg Historic Trades and Skills community uses 18th-century tools and techniques to apprentice in and eventually master more than 20 historic trades and skills. These world-renowned experts not only make goods and provide services to the Historic Area, they also consult and produce for other cultural institutions around the world.
Carpenters and joiners build structures and craft finished woodwork, using traditional hand tools and joinery techniques to create everything from structural framing to doors, windows, furniture, and interior fittings.

Melody Barnes
2026-08-06 10:45 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
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 democracy in both principle and practice. She joins Chautauqua’s weeklong exploration of “America at 250” with remarks reflecting on the foundations of democracy and justice, tracing throughlines from the country’s founding to the work of democracy today.
In addition to her leadership at the Karsh Institute, Barnes is the W.L. Lyons Brown Family Director for Policy and Public Engagement in the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences’ Democracy Initiative, a professor of practice at UVA’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, and a distinguished fellow at UVA’s School of Law. She is also co-founder of the domestic policy strategy firm MB2 Solutions. In 2024–25, Barnes was an inaugural recipient of the Chautauqua Perry Fellowship in Democracy alongside New York Times columnist David French; she is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves on the boards of several corporate, nonprofit, and philanthropic organizations.
A committed public servant, Barnes brings more than 25 years of experience shaping public policy at the highest levels of government and the non-profit sector. She served as assistant to the president and director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under President Barack Obama. Previously, she was executive vice president for policy at the Center for American Progress and chief counsel to the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. She began her career in law as an associate at Shearman & Sterling in New York.
Barnes holds a B.A. with honors in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a J.D. from the University of Michigan.

Rev. Anna Carter Florence
2026-08-06 09:15 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
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 currently serving as Co-Director of the Columbia Preachers Studio for Renewal, a Lilly-funded Compelling Preaching grant.
Before joining the Columbia faculty in 1998, Florence served as an associate pastor for youth and young adults at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis. Based on her 2012 Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching at Yale Divinity School is her first book, Preaching as Testimony, Inscribing the Word, Rehearsing Scripture: Discovering God’s Word in Community. Florence’s most recent title, A Is for Alabaster: 52 Reflections on the Stories of Scripture, has a forthcoming sequel titled, B Is for Banquet: 52 More Reflections on the Stories of Scripture. She has published articles and chapters in numerous books and journals, including a year’s worth of lectionary text commentaries for WorkingPreacher.org.
Florence is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and holds a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University as well as a Master in Divinity and Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary.

The Sarah James Trio
2026-08-05 22:00 | Roe Green Theater Center
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 be notable guitarist and musical artist Doug Edgell and Aaron Majiros on bass and keys. Sarah James has been a staple at 3Taps here at CHQ and other CHQ County venues bringing her own blend of what she calls “Americana-Fusion” covering a wide variety of genres from rock, pop, indie and a dab of country.
Performing solo and with her band in a variety of venues in the Phoenix market, Sarah’s music video “Take It or Leave It” recently won Bronze at the Berlin Music Video Awards in Germany and First Place in the Los Angeles Wildwood LGBT film festival. Her recent release and lyric video “Better Than This” is currently seeing nearly 250K streams on YouTube. She is also the founder and host of the popular YouTube channel “Vintage Guitar Legacies” which features a presentation and demo of rare and collectable guitars.

Alonzo King LINES Ballet
2026-08-05 19:30 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
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 has collaborated with noted composers, musicians and visual artists from around the world to create performances that alter the way we look at ballet today. Its unique artistic vision adheres to the classical form — the linear, mathematical and geometrical principles that are deeply rooted in the pre-existing East-West continuum.

School of Music: Double Bass Concert
2026-08-05 18:30 | Fletcher Music Hall, Fletcher Music Hall

CVA Lecture Series: Susan Lichtman, School of Art Faculty
2026-08-05 18:30 | Hultquist 101, Hultquist 101
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 practices with our artistic community.
Susan Lichtman is a figurative painter of domestic spaces, working out of her home studio in southeastern Massachusetts. She graduated from Brown University and received an MFA in Painting from Yale University School of Art.
Lichtman has had solo exhibitions at Steven Harvey Fine Arts Projects, (NY, NY); Fahrenheit Gallery (Madrid, Spain); Gross McCleaf Gallery, (Philadelphia, PA); and Wilson Museum at Hollins University, (Roanoke, VA.) Recent group exhibitions have been at Steven Harvey Fine Arts Project and Nathalie Karg Gallery, (NY, NY); Wege Center for the Arts, (Fairfield, IA); Chazen Gallery, (Providence, RI); Page Gallery, (Camden, ME); and Crosstown Arts, (Memphis, TN). A recipient of a fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, she also holds awards from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Susan Lichtman is Professor and Charles Bloom Chair, Emerita, of the Department of Fine Arts at Brandeis University. She has been a visiting artist at universities and art schools throughout the US. She was the Frances Niederer Artist-in-Residence at Hollins University, the Guest of Honor at JSS Civita, IT and has taught in summer programs at Yale Norfolk, Pont-Aven School of Art and MassArt New England.

Dance Preview: Alonzo King "LINES"
2026-08-05 18:15 | Smith Wilkes Hall, Smith Wilkes Hall
Chautauqua Dance Circle-Anita Lin
alin@chqdancecircle.org

Masters Series Masterclass: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation presents Becoming History with Katharine Pittman, Nation Builder Martha Washington and Fifes & Drums Experience: Wednesday
2026-08-05 16:30 | Norton Hall, Norton Hall
During “Becoming History with Kathatine Pittman, Nation Builder Martha Washington”, learn how Colonial Williamsburg’s Nation Builders bring the voices of the past to life with a behind the scenes look into the art and craft of interpretation and how they move from research to scripts, to performance, to impact. The story of America is full of hope and struggle. Step into the past with Martha Washington, our Nation’s first First Lady. Through stories and questions, explore the hopes, choices and challenges she faced. Experience Katharine Pittman’s interpretation of Martha Washington with discussion and Q & A moderated by Robert Currie, Associate Vice President, Performing Arts & Signature Events for The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Following the masterclass inside, enjoy a quintessential piece of the Colonial Williamsburg experience through the vibrations of 18th-century military music with a series of special performances outside Norton Hall. The march of the Fifes and Drums is an indispensable part of the Colonial Williamsburg visit. The shrill fife and the resounding drum broadcast a wave of sound throughout the city announcing the red-and-blue-uniformed regiment moving through the streets of Williamsburg. What started 65 years ago as four high school students playing “Yankee Doodle” at a Fourth of July celebration has since blossomed into two full Corps of local students who perform more than any other youth Fife and Drum Corps in the country. These students keep alive an even longer tradition of military music that dates back centuries.

Play CHQ: Balancing Bubby
2026-08-05 16:00 | Miller Park, Miller Park

Brandon Dillard
2026-08-05 14:00 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
Brandon Dillard is Director of Historic Interpretation and Audience Engagement at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, the iconic home and historic plantation in Virginia, where he has worked for sixteen years. At Monticello, he leads interpretation efforts and works on exhibits, programs, and training. As a public historian, he focuses on best practices for encouraging connection between the visitor and the power of place. He works to bring people together across differences to encourage collective reflection on our shared pasts. He frequently consults and provides training for museums and historic sites across the United States and abroad on the practice and technique of public history, especially in the interpretation of slavery and Indigenous histories and perspectives, and he regularly lectures on public history, memory, and Native America.
Dillard is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation. He comes from a long line of southern American storytellers, and he has spent most of his life thinking about public memory and identity. He serves on the North American Steering Committee for the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience and the Leadership Nominating Committee for the American Association of State and Local History. He is an interdisciplinary scholar with degrees in philosophy and anthropology, and he is currently a Royster Fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he is working towards a PhD in American Studies.

School of Music: Brass Chamber Concert
2026-08-05 14:00 | Fletcher Music Hall, Fletcher Music Hall

David W. Blight and Tiya Miles
2026-08-05 10:45 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
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, and how they have been interpreted and reinterpreted throughout American history.
David W. Blight is Sterling Professor of History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. In 2020, Yale President Peter Salovey appointed him as chair of the Yale and Slavery Working Group. With his Working Group colleagues, Blight authored the book Yale and Slavery: A History, a narrative study of Yale’s historic involvement and associations with slavery and its aftermaths, published by Yale University Press in February of 2024.
Blight is the immediate past president of the Organization of American Historians. He previously taught at North Central College in Illinois, Harvard University and Amherst College. He is the author or editor of a dozen books, including Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom; American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era; Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory; and annotated editions of Douglass’s first two autobiographies. Blight has worked on Douglass much of his professional life, and been awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Bancroft Prize, the Abraham Lincoln Prize, and the Frederick Douglass Prize, among others. He writes frequently for the popular press, including The Atlantic, The New York Times, and many other journals.
In 2020, Blight was elected to the American Philosophical Society and awarded the Gold Medal for History by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. At the beginning of his career, he spent seven years as a high school history teacher in his hometown of Flint, Michigan.
Tiya Miles is a public historian and the author of eight books that explore Black, Indigenous and women’s history; place and environment; and contemporary uses of the past. These works include four prize-winning histories and one prize-winning novel about slavery and its legacies. Her 2021 National Book Award winner, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake, was a New York Times bestseller that won eleven historical and literary prizes.
Miles’ latest work is Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. Her other books include Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation; The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Slavery and Freedom in the City of the Straits; The House on Diamond Hill: A Cherokee Plantation Story; Ties That Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom; Tales from the Haunted South: Dark Tourism and Memories of Slavery from the Civil War Era; and the novel The Cherokee Rose.
Miles publishes frequently in national periodicals, and her work has been supported by the MacArthur Foundation (“genius award”), the Guggenheim Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and she currently serves as the Michael Garvey Professor of History at Harvard University.

Rev. Anna Carter Florence
2026-08-05 09:15, 2026-08-04 09:15, 2026-08-03 09:15, 2026-08-02 10:45 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater

PURSUING LIGHT - THE BILL STRICKLAND STORY
2026-08-04 20:00 | Chautauqua Cinema, Chautauqua Cinema
Director Karen Somers’ documentary Pursuing Light follows the life and legacy of Bill Strickland, whose philosophy of “hope through opportunity” has impacted thousands of lives. This film traces his personal journey and examines how arts education, workforce training, and environments of beauty can help individuals transcend circumstances and achieve their fullest potential. Introduction by Kwame Alexander with a welcome from Bill Strickland. Panel discussion to follow with Karen, Kwame, Bill and executive producer Steve Sarowitz (NR, 86m)

Puppy Pals Live - The Action-Packed Comedic Stunt Dog Show
2026-08-04 19:30 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
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 Live leads the puppies and audience through challenging and comical tricks as the pooches show everyone who is really boss! Full of canine stunts and laugh-out-loud canine comedy, it is no surprise this show has been a hit all over the USA!

Old First Night
2026-08-04 18:00 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
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, Old First Night (OFN) is a celebration of the original first night of the season at Chautauqua.
This event begins with music from Thursday Morning Brass at 6 p.m., followed by vespers and a traditional Chautauqua salute called the Drooping of the Lilies, which honors Chautauquans who are no longer with us. The program continues with music and audience participation events, and all generations are involved, including Children’s School and Boys’ and Girls’ Club. The program concludes with a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday” accompanied by the Massey Memorial Organ.

Masters Series Masterclass: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation presents Becoming History with Stephen Seals, Nation Builder James Lafayette and Fifes & Drums Experience: Tuesday
2026-08-04 16:30 | Norton Hall, Norton Hall
During “Becoming History with Stephen Seals, Nation Builder James Lafayette”, learn how Colonial Williamsburg’s Nation Builders bring the voices of the past to life with a behind the scenes look into the art and craft of interpretation and how they move from research to scripts, to performance, to impact. The story of America is full of hope and struggle. Step into the past with James Lafayette, enslaved revolutionary spy. Learn more about his contribution to the founding of our nation as you engage with him and experience his world. Experience Stephen Seals’ interpretation of James Lafayette with discussion and Q & A moderated by Robert Currie, Associate Vice President, Performing Arts & Signature Events for The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Following the masterclass inside, enjoy a quintessential piece of the Colonial Williamsburg experience through the vibrations of 18th-century military music with a series of special performances outside Norton Hall. The march of the Fifes and Drums is an indispensable part of the Colonial Williamsburg visit. The shrill fife and the resounding drum broadcast a wave of sound throughout the city announcing the red-and-blue-uniformed regiment moving through the streets of Williamsburg. What started 65 years ago as four high school students playing “Yankee Doodle” at a Fourth of July celebration has since blossomed into two full Corps of local students who perform more than any other youth Fife and Drum Corps in the country. These students keep alive an even longer tradition of military music that dates back centuries.

Play CHQ: Float or Sink Challenge
2026-08-04 16:00 | Miller Park, Miller Park

TIME & WATER
2026-08-04 16:00 | Chautauqua Cinema, Chautauqua Cinema
Climate Change Initiative-Special Filmmaker Event! Free Admission! Icelandic writer and filmmaker Andri Snær Magnason returns to Chautauqua Cinema with his new film Time & Water, a vibrant elegy which preserves vanishing glaciers, departed grandparents, family memories, and flowing time in his personal archives, transforming loss into a time capsule. “This is a beautiful film. It’s very moving and evocative.” -Claudia Puig, FilmWeek LAist “Breathtaking!” -Tim Cogshell, FilmWeek LAist Andri will host discussion to follow the screening. (NR, 93m)
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 the death of his country’s glaciers and the loss of his beloved grandparents, Icelandic writer Andri Snær Magnason turns his archives into a time capsule to hold what is slipping away — family, memory, time, and water.
Writer, filmmaker, and poet Andri Magason is one of Iceland’s leading creative forces who has twice met with Chautauqua Travels groups in Reykjavik, and visited Chautauqua Institution in 2023.

School of Music: Open Recital
2026-08-04 14:00 | Fletcher Music Hall, Fletcher Music Hall

Manisha Sinha
2026-08-04 14:00 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
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 her Ph.D from Columbia University where her dissertation was nominated for the Bancroft Prize. She was nominated to the OAH Distinguished Lecture Series in 2003. A Guggenheim fellow for 2022-2023, she has received several other fellowships from the NEH and the Mellon foundation. She is the author of The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina which was cited in the New York Times’ 1619 project and named one of the ten best books on slavery in Politico. She is also the author of the multi award winning The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition, which was long listed for the National Book Award for Non-Fiction and translated into Chinese in 2025. She taught at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst for over twenty years where she received the Chancellor’s Medal, the highest honor bestowed on faculty. She was a visiting Professor at the University of Paris, Diderot in 2018 and at the University of Heidelberg in 2022, where she received the 2021 Pennington award. She has published widely in the mainstream press, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The Boston Globe, and The Nation, to name a few and has been interviewed in the national and international press. Her recent book The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920 won the President’s Book Prize from the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era in 2026.

Sigrid Jakob: "Fruiting Bodies and Big Ideas: a Citizen Science Adventure"
2026-08-04 12:30 | Smith Wilkes Hall, Smith Wilkes Hall
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 of the New York Mycological Society, a mushroom club that goes out and observes fungi in New York City’s parks 52 weeks a year. She extracts fungal DNA in her home lab, incubates dung fungi, writes and lectures.

Colonial Williamsburg Historic Trades & Skills Demonstrations
2026-08-04 12:00 | Bestor Plaza, Bestor Plaza

Ken Burns and Jeffrey Rosen
2026-08-04 10:45, 2026-08-03 10:45 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
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 millennium – how a collection of British colonies became the world’s pre-eminent constitutional democracy, with major successes, failures and continued struggles along the way – alongside world-renowned leaders in historical education. To begin this weeklong commemoration, Chautauqua welcomes Ken Burns and Jeffrey Rosen back to the Amphitheater stage for a two-day conversation on themes and threads from the pair’s latest projects: for Burns, the November 2025 PBS documentary “The American Revolution,” and for Rosen, his October 2025 book The Pursuit of Liberty: How Hamilton and Jefferson Ignited the Lasting Battle Over Power in America.
Ken Burns has been making documentary films for almost fifty years. Since the Academy Award nominated “Brooklyn Bridge” in 1981, Burns has gone on to direct and produce some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made, including “The Civil War”; “Baseball”; “Jazz”; “The War”; “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea”; “Prohibition”; “The Roosevelts: An Intimate History”; “The Vietnam War”; “Country Music”; “The U.S. and the Holocaust”; “The American Buffalo”; “Leonardo da Vinci”; and, most recently, “The American Revolution.”
Future film projects include “Emancipation to Exodus” and “LBJ & the Great Society,” among others.
His films have been honored with dozens of major awards, including seventeen Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards and two Oscar nominations. In September of 2008, at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, Burns was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Award. In November of 2022, he was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame.
Jeffrey Rosen is chief executive officer emeritus of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization whose mission is to educate the public about the U.S. Constitution. His latest book, The Pursuit of Liberty: How Hamilton and Jefferson Ignited the Lasting Battle Over Power in America, was released in October 2025. It highlights how the opposing constitutional visionaries continue to drive the debate over the power of government today. Rosen appeared as part of the 2025 Chautauqua Forum on Democracy, where he was publicly announced and recognized for the first time as the newly appointed 2025–26 Chautauqua Perry Fellow in Democracy.
Rosen is currently a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic. He was previously the legal affairs editor of The New Republic and a staff writer for The New Yorker. In his former role at the National Constitution Center, he was the host of “We the People,” a weekly podcast of constitutional debate.
Rosen is the author of seven other books, including the New York Times bestseller Conversations with RBG: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law, as well as biographies of Louis Brandeis and William Howard Taft. He is a graduate of Harvard College; Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar; and Yale Law School.

Judi Greewald, CEO of the Nuclear Innovation Alliance
2026-08-04 09:15 | Hurlbut Church sanctuary, Hurlbut Church sanctuary
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 in the public and nonprofit sectors, including the U.S. Congress, the White House, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES, formerly the Pew Center on Global Climate Change). Highlights of her distinguished career include working on the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments as congressional committee staff; overseeing energy and environmental programs at C2ES and DOE; co-founding the Carbon Capture Coalition; advising U.S. state and regional greenhouse gas initiatives; and collaborating with stakeholders to advance both economic and environmental goals.
She has focused extensively on deep decarbonization through the interplay of public policy, technology innovation, human behavior, and markets. She served as Deputy Director for Climate, Environment, and Energy Efficiency at US DOE’s Energy Policy and Systems Analysis Office, and the Senior Climate Advisor to the Energy Secretary. She was a fellow at Princeton University’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. Ms. Greenwald received a B.S. in Engineering, cum laude, from Princeton University, and an M.A. in Science, Technology, and Public Policy from George Washington University.

W.E.B. DUBOIS: REBEL WITH A CAUSE
2026-08-03 20:00 | Chautauqua Cinema, Chautauqua Cinema
This film directed by Rita Coburn and narrated by Viola Davis, explores the life of the pioneering civil rights activist and scholar W.E.B. DuBois, charting his journey from his birth in 1868 during Reconstruction to his death in 1963 on the eve of the March on Washington. Rita will introduce the film and lead a post-screening discussion. (NR, 113m)

Chautauqua School of Dance with the Music School Festival Orchestra
2026-08-03 20:00 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
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 young talent in the country. Under the leadership of Sasha Janes, the school continues its long tradition of excellence as a top-tier summer training program focused on bringing the next generation of dance stars from the studio to the stage.
Comprised of top-tier students from conservatories and universities in the U.S. and abroad, Music School Festival Orchestra members participate in a variety of musical activities during their summers at Chautauqua including chamber music and private lessons along with their meticulous orchestral training. Alumni from the MSFO can be heard in many of the world’s top orchestras and chamber ensembles and can be found on music faculties worldwide. The MSFO is led by Artistic Director Timothy Muffitt, who serves as Music Director of the Lansing Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Laureate of the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra.

CHQ Travels Reception
2026-08-03 17:00 | Athenaeum Porch
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 to learn about upcoming Chautauqua Travels experiences, including journeys to Singapore, South Africa and Santa Fe, while hearing directly from travel experts about each destination. Whether you’re considering your next adventure or curious about the program, stop by to meet fellow travelers, ask questions and discover where Chautauqua Travels may take you next.
No registration is required.

THE EYES OF GHANA
2026-08-03 17:00 | Chautauqua Cinema, Chautauqua Cinema
Directed by Ben Proudfoot and executive produced by Barack and Michelle Obama. The Eyes Of Ghana follows Chris Hesse, the personal cameraman to revolutionary leader Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana, who was deposed in a coup d’état in 1966.(NR, 93m)

Chautauqua Chamber Music: Ruckus with Keir GoGwilt, violin
2026-08-03 16:00 | Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall, Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall
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 life. Their performances blend historical authenticity with modern vitality, creating concerts that feel both timeless and daringly new. Don’t miss this exuberant celebration of baroque music at its most alive and joyful.

Play CHQ: Hopscotch
2026-08-03 16:00 | Heinz Beach, Heinz Beach

Masters Series Masterclass: A Conversation with Ken Burns
2026-08-03 15:30 | Norton Hall, Norton Hall
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 stage. An opportunity for Q & A, patrons can ask about Burns’ awards, career, research and future plans.

Rosemarie Zagarri
2026-08-03 14:00 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
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 articles and several books, including The Politics of Size: Representation in the United States, 1776-1850, A Woman’s Dilemma: Mercy Otis Warren and the American Revolution, and Revolutionary Backlash: Women and Politics in the Early American Republic.
She has contributed several amicus briefs to the Supreme Court and is a member of the Brennan’s Center’s Historians Council on the Constitution. She has been a historical consultant for the Statue of Liberty Museum as well as on various digital projects, such the Mapping Early American Elections project and When Women Lost the Vote. A former president of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR), she is also an elected member of the American Antiquarian Society and the Society of American Historians.
Zagarri has received numerous scholarly awards, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, and the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon. She received her Ph.D. from Yale University.

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR: BEYOND THE MASK
2026-08-03 13:45 | Chautauqua Cinema, Chautauqua Cinema
This feature-length documentary directed by Frederick Lewis, a professor at Ohio University, illuminates the life and legacy of Paul Laurence Dunbar, the first African American writer to gain national and international fame. Frederick will introduce the film and lead a post-screening discussion. (NR, 115m)

Conversation with Kyle, Interim CEO
2026-08-03 13:00 | Smith Wilkes Hall, Smith Wilkes Hall
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 Interim President Kyle Keogh. All are welcome.

GIRLS LIKE GIRLS
2026-08-02 20:40, 2026-08-01 20:00, 2026-07-31 14:00 | Chautauqua Cinema, Chautauqua Cinema
Based on writer/director Hayley Kiyoko’s hit single and best-selling novel of the same name and featuring all-new music from Kiyoko, Girls Like Girls is a heartfelt coming-of-age story. Set over the course of one sun-drenched summer, new-girl-in-town Coley (Maya Da Costa) falls in love for the first time while learning to accept herself along the way. “Moving and rewarding, illuminated throughout by da Costa’s wonderful performance” -Guy Lodge, Variety “Beautifully shot and tenderly acted,” -Angie Han, The Hollywood Reporter (R. 90m)

Chautauqua Theater Company Presents Best for Baby
2026-08-02 19:30, 2026-08-02 14:00, 2026-08-01 19:30, 2026-07-31 19:30, 2026-07-30 19:30, 2026-07-29 19:30, 2026-07-29 14:00 | Bratton Theater, Bratton Theater
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 you by a sensational comedic ensemble of professional guest artists — featuring Broadway actor Crystal Dickinson — alongside members of CTC’s beloved conservatory.
Best for Baby is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Hebrew Congregation, Shirley Lazarus Sunday Evening Lecture Series- Sheldon Goldberg
2026-08-02 19:00 | Smith Wilkes Hall, Smith Wilkes Hall

PROJECT HAIL MARY
2026-08-02 17:00, 2026-08-02 13:20, 2026-08-01 16:20, 2026-07-31 19:00 | Chautauqua Cinema, Chautauqua Cinema
When science teacher Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) wakes up alone on a spaceship light years from home he has no recollection of how he got there. As his memory returns he uncovers his mission to save the Earth’s sun from a mysterious threat, and discovers that an unexpected alien friendship may be the key. “One of the most visually stunning, emotionally resonant space films ever made.” -Nikki Gemmell, The Australian “Purely pleasurable.” -Peter Travers, The Travers Take “Hard sci-fi with a soft heart.”-Matt Singer, ScreenCrush (PG-13, 156m)

John Hoppenthaler and Roy Hoffman
2026-08-02 15:30 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
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 Reservoir, and Lives of Water, all with Carnegie Mellon UP. He has co-edited a volume of essays on the poetry of Jean Valentine, This-World Company (U of Michigan P). A Professor of English at East Carolina University, his poetry appears in Ploughshares, Virginia Quarterly Review, TriQuarterly, Southern Review, Poetry Northwest, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and many other journals and anthologies.
Roy Hoffman is a novelist and journalist with an interest in family, history, and characters of diverse backgrounds struggling to connect. He is the author of four novels: “The Promise of the Pelican,” about an 82-year-old lawyer defending an undocumented worker accused of a crime; “Come Landfall,” about love, war, and hurricanes; “Chicken Dreaming Corn,” inspired by his Jewish immigrant grandparents to Alabama, praised by Harper Lee; and “Almost Family,” set in the Civil Rights era South. He’s written two nonfiction books, “Back Home,” and “Alabama Afternoons.” Roy worked for many years in New York as a journalist and speechwriter, covered features and religion for his hometown newspaper in Mobile, AL., and has written essays for the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall St. Journal. He resides in Fairhope, AL., and is on the faculty of the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing in Louisville, KY. On the web: www.royhoffmanwriter.com

Cabinet of Wonder Live! A Free Family Concert with Natalie Merchant & Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra Musicians
2026-08-02 15:00 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
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 Week Five’s programmatic theme, “Art & Artists Against the Odds.”
Merchant will give a matinee family-friendly concert performance with a chamber orchestra ensemble of Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra musicians, under the baton of Principal Pops Conductor Stuart Chafetz, which will be free to the public. The concert will center on the music of Merchants’ Cabinet of Wonder, a joyful reimagining of Mother Goose developed in collaboration with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and will also include classic children’s poetry that she adapted to music for her highly praised double-album release, Leave Your Sleep (2010 Nonesuch Records).
A Chautauqua County native, Merchant was strongly influenced by local artists and her summer encounters with arts at the Institution during her formative years. At the age of fifteen, she spent a summer volunteering in a therapeutic arts camp for developmentally and physically challenged children in Ashville. It was there that she first witnessed the transformative power of art education and was inspired to become an art therapist. Although her life path led her to a career as professional musician, she has continued to honor her commitment to the healing power of music. Merchant will combine her performances on the grounds of Chautauqua site visits to locally sponsored children’s programs for workshops and sing-a-longs. Since leaving the area in 1988, she has returned several times over the years to perform solo and with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra.
Merchant will also appear in the Chautauqua Lecture Series on July 29th at 10:45am; her talk will focus on her life-long commitment to using music as powerful means of communication, community building, and a tool for social justice.

6-Week Residency Exhibition Opening
2026-08-02 15:00 | CVA: Arts Quad
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 weeks, resident artists have immersed themselves in focused studio practice, meaningful dialogue, and creative exploration. This special evening offers an opportunity to experience the work that emerged during their time at Chautauqua through both an open studio event and this group exhibition.
We hope you’ll join us in celebrating this talented cohort of artists and the work they have developed during their summer at Chautauqua.

6-Week Residency Open Studios
2026-08-02 14:00 | CVA: Arts Quad
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 for a reception celebrating the exhibition next door at the School of Art Gallery. This event provides a glimpse into the ideas, experiments, and conversations that have shaped the School of Art 6-week residency experience.

Kosher BBQ & Klezmer Band
2026-08-02 11:30 | Miller Park, Miller Park

Art in the Park
2026-08-02 11:00 | Miller Park, Miller Park
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, artists-in-residence from the School of Art, and artisans from the region around Chautauqua Institution. Items for sale include ceramics, paintings, prints, Chautauqua-themed trinkets, pieces made of up-cycled materials, homemade soaps, hand-dyed silk clothing, organic cosmetics, embellished handbags and fine jewelry. Art in the Park markets are always planned for Sundays, when admission to the grounds is free, so the markets can be accessible for Institution residents and members of the surrounding community alike.
For artist registration information, visit: https://art.chq.org/friends-of-cva/art-in-the-park/

Dolly Parton's Threads: My Songs in Symphony with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra
2026-08-01 20:00 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
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 full-evening multimedia symphonic story-telling experience. Dolly Parton says, “The threads of my life are woven together through my songs. That’s why this project, Threads: My Songs in Symphony, is so special to me. It’s all about sharing my music and my musical journey with audiences in a new way.”
Co-produced by Dolly Parton together with Schirmer Theatrical and Sony Music Publishing.
Please Note: Dolly Parton is not performing or attending this event.

Chautauqua Theater Company Presents FutureNow New Play Lab 2: ERASERS: A Bloodthirsty Comedy
2026-08-01 17:00 | Roe Green Theater Center
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.

Contemporary Issues Forum: Sarai Johnson
2026-08-01 15:00 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
Sarai Johnson, Award-winning Author

Chautauqua Theater Company Presents New Play Workshop 2: The Motions by Zora Howard
2026-08-01 14:00, 2026-07-31 14:00, 2026-07-30 14:00 | Bratton Theater, Bratton Theater
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 ode to the small movements that make a life, and the possibility of beginning again even at our very ends.

Chautauqua Theater Company Presents FutureNow New Play Lab 1: The Bone Wars
2026-08-01 11:00 | Roe Green Theater Center
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 story of the legendary rivalry between two American paleontologists in the late 1800s.

Old First Night Race and Kids Races
2026-08-01 08:00 | Sports Club, Sports Club
The Sports Club is hosting the popular 50th Annual Old First Night Run/Walk Race and Kids Fun Runs. The OFN 2.75 mile chip-timed race follows the perimeter of Chautauqua’s beautiful grounds. This year we will also host two kids races – a 1 mile non-chip timed race and little kids short fun run. Kids hats included with race registration. If you are not on the grounds August 1, you can participate in the virtual Around the World race. Race registration includes t-shirt. Sign up at oldfirstnight.com. Questions? Contact sportsclub@chq.org

An Evening with Amy Grant
2026-07-31 20:00 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
Amy Grant’s career spans more than 40 years and stretches from her roots in gospel into becoming an iconic pop star, songwriter, television personality and philanthropist. With three multi-platinum albums, six platinum albums and four gold albums, her total career album sales have exceeded 30 million and over 1 billion global streams. Grant’s chart success has been consistent throughout her career with six No. 1 hits, 10 Top 40 pop singles, 17 Top 40 Adult Contemporary tracks and multiple Contemporary Christian chart-toppers. In addition to her six GRAMMY® Awards, Grant has earned 26 GMA Dove Awards (including four Artist of the Year Awards) and has been awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as well as the Music City Walk of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Conventional wisdom has it that Grant put Contemporary Christian Music on the map becoming the first Contemporary Christian artist to have a platinum record, the first to hit No. 1 on the Pop charts and the first to perform at the GRAMMY® Awards. With that, her legacy as one of the most influential artists of the past four decades is assured. In 2022, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts included Grant as one of their five distinguished Honorees to receive the 45th Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime artistic achievements. Grant continues to actively tour each year playing 70+ solo shows in addition to the annual Christmas At The Ryman residency with Vince Gill which celebrated over 100 headline shows at the Ryman, the first co-headliners to mark this incredible milestone. In the spring of 2026, Grant will release her first new album of new music in over a decade entitled “The Me That Remains” dropping May 8, 2026. Produced by legendary Mac McAnally, this very personal album is a journey through themes of healing, human & spiritual connection, unity, & hope. The album features collaborations with guest artists Ruby Amanfu & Vince Gill along with co-writing partners Jon Foreman (Switchfoot), Tom Douglas, Mike Reid, Mac McAnally and more. The title song reflects Amy’s journey over the last few years overcoming heart surgery and a bike accident that nearly took her life. Amy’s music always looks through a lens of hope & faith while probing the human condition with honest commentary inviting a conversation. “The Me That Remains” album sounds and reads somewhat like a ‘life manual’ written from the perspective of an artist that has lived through it all, knows who she is as an artist and human, and as Amy has said,‘I want to be present for whatever emerges in my time’. The story is not over; it is just the beginning of new chapters to come.
We will also host a Masters Series Masterclass with Amy Grant at 12:30 pm on 7/31 in Norton Hall (separate ticket required).

Men's Softball League
2026-07-31 17:00 | Sharpe Field, Sharpe Field
Interested in playing slow pitch softball? Contact co-commissioner Wes Delancey
at markernalt21@gmail.com to be added to a team roster. Fee per team for league play.

DESCENT: INTO THE BLUE
2026-07-31 16:30 | Chautauqua Cinema, Chautauqua Cinema
A powerful documentary narrated by Peter Coyote, showcasing the best of the human spirit – the fight to save our ocean’s ecosystem and critically endangered coral reefs.
Post film discussion led by Rory and Courtney Fielding with a panel of experts featured in the film joining by Zoom: Film participants Mike Goldberg, Eric Wehemeyer, John Hocevar, and Ken Nedimeyer (“Father of Coral Restoration”); Renee Sunbird and Christophe Chagnard, Emmy winners for Original Musical Composition.
Rory Fielding is an Emmy Award–winning director and producer and the Executive Producer of Rory Fielding Films. His environmental documentaries have earned nine Emmy nominations and four wins. Rory Fielding Films creates films to the highest production and journalistic standards that inform and inspire. Their mission is to tell stories that matter, crafted with excellence and purpose to help shape a better world.

School of Music: Piano Program Play-Out
2026-07-31 16:00 | Sherwood-Marsh 101

School of Music: Opera Conservatory Sing-Out
2026-07-31 14:00 | Fletcher Music Hall, Fletcher Music Hall

Tessa Hulls
2026-07-31 14:00 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle — Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir by Tessa Hulls
An astonishing, deeply moving graphic memoir about three generations of Chinese women, exploring love, grief, exile, and identity.
In her acclaimed graphic memoir debut, Tessa Hulls traces the reverberations of Chinese history across three generations of women in her family. Tessa’s grandmother, Sun Yi, was a Shanghai journalist swept up by the turmoil of the 1949 Communist victory. After fleeing to Hong Kong, she wrote a bestselling memoir about her persecution and survival—then promptly had a mental breakdown from which she never recovered.
Growing up with Sun Yi, Tessa watches both her mother and grandmother struggle beneath the weight of unexamined trauma and mental illness, and bolts to the most remote corners of the globe. But once she turns thirty, roaming begins to feel less like freedom and more like running away. Feeding Ghosts is Tessa’s homecoming, a vivid, heartbreaking journey into history that exposes the fear and trauma that haunt generations, and the love that holds them together.
Tessa Hulls is an artist/writer/adventurer illuminating the connections between the present and the past. Her graphic memoir Feeding Ghosts explores the reverberations of her Chinese grandmother’s escape from the Communist regime and her subsequent mental illness. Her work addresses racial justice, the immigrant experience, generational trauma, mental health, the creative process, and the surprising feminist history of the bicycle. Her graphic memoir Feeding Ghosts has earned the Pulitzer Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize for First Book, 2024 Libby Award and was named a Best Book of 2024 by Time, Forbes, NPR, the Minnesota Star Tribune, LitHub, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Chicago Public Library and others.

Masters Series Masterclass: Amy Grant
2026-07-31 12:30 | Norton Hall, Norton Hall
Join Friday night’s Amphitheater stage headliner, Amy Grant for a conversation about her life and career. Grant, an American singer-songwriter and musician, began her career in contemporary Christian music before crossing over to pop music in the mid-1980s. Her latest album, “The Me That Remains” was released in May 2026.

Dave Eggers
2026-07-31 10:45 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
Dave Eggers is the author of many books, among them Contrapposto, The Eyes and the Impossible, The Circle, The Monk of Mokha, Heroes of the Frontier, A Hologram for the King, and What Is the What. Contrapposto, released in June, is a moving and funny novel about allies and art, and what it means to be an artist. A wild and beautiful examination of the rules and market forces of the art world, the novel is chiefly about two friends who believe they can change that world, and bring new meaning to it. These themes will frame this capstone presentation of the Chautauqua Lecture Series week on “Art and Artists Against the Odds.” This program is presented in collaboration with the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, and Contrapposto is a 2026 CLSC selection.
Eggers is founder of McSweeney’s, a nonprofit, independent publishing company based in San Francisco that produces books, a humor website, The Believer and Illustoria magazines, and a journal of new writing, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern. The magazine has been edited by a long line of brilliant editors, including Eli Horowitz, Jordan Bass, Claire Boyle, and now Rita Bullwinkel. Under their leadership, McSweeney’s has won the National Magazine Award for Fiction three times and has been a finalist nine times.
Along with Nínive Calegari, Eggers is the co-founder of 826 National, a network of youth writing and tutoring centers around the United States. The whole thing started with 826 Valencia, their original center in the Mission District of San Francisco. Since then, more than 70 other organizations, from Louisville to Toowoomba, Australia, operate with inspiration from the 826 Valencia model.

CHQ Mystic Heart - Mateo Mortellarto, Tibetan Meditation
2026-07-31 07:45, 2026-07-30 07:45, 2026-07-29 07:45, 2026-07-28 07:45 | Presbyterian House, Presbyterian House
Taking a general and non-sectarian approach to Buddhism, Mateo Mortellaro (Konchok Tsering Tengye) has years of experience leading meditation and teaching Buddhist philosophy. Mateo started his spiritual journey early in life practicing Zen Buddhism, eventually shifting focus to the Tibetan tradition, primarily within the Drikung ,Kagyu and Sakya schools.
Mateo’s main teacher is His Eminence Garchen Rinpoche, the world-renowned Buddhist master and Yogi. While his main practice and personal approach is of the Buddhist tradition, Mateo also follows the rich and eclectic teachings of Baba Ram Dass, giving instructions using language and methods that are accessible to Western students of all levels of experience.
Mateo has been fortunate to receive teachings and instructions directly from masters such as H.H the Sakya Gongma Trichen Rinpoche,H.E Garchen Rinpoche, H.E Bardor Tulku Rinpoche, and Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche. Other influential teachers include His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh, and Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.
Mateo is also the founder of KTT Dharma, which is aimed at making spiritual teachings available to those interested through media sharing, interviews, his writing, and teachings.

Sally Love & Friends: Sleep is the New Sex
2026-07-30 22:00 | Roe Green Theater Center
Usually in bed by 10, but willing to stay up and entertain us with her hilarious takes on sleep, sex and the indignities of our aging bodies,
Sally Love and friends will perform their stand up routines alongside improv artists in a brand new and exciting collaboration.
Ticket sales for this performance benefit Friends of Chautauqua Theater.

FACKHAM HALL
2026-07-30 20:50, 2026-07-30 15:20, 2026-07-29 19:00, 2026-07-28 20:50 | Chautauqua Cinema, Chautauqua Cinema
Directed by Jim O’Hanlon, this comedy spoof on Downton Abbey stars Katherine Waterston and Damian Lewis as Lady and Lord of the house.”Deliciously silly, stupid and hilarious, and I guarantee you’ll leave the cinema with a smile on your face.” -Nikki Gemmell, The Australian “There are twists, turns and ridiculous faux pas in a congenially entertaining riff on the series’ more ridiculous aspects, delivered without spite but with love and a wink.” -Thelma Adams, AARP Movies for Grownups “This is just fantastically funny.” -Tim Cogshell, FilmWeek LAist (R, 97m)

Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra: Sounds of Strauss
2026-07-30 20:00 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
Rossen Milanov, conductor
The Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra presents two of Richard Strauss’s most compelling tone poems. In Also sprach Zarathustra, Strauss explores themes of human striving and philosophical inquiry. Death and Transfiguration offers a contrasting perspective, portraying the final moments of an artist’s life and the transformation that follows. Together, these works showcase Strauss’s extraordinary command of orchestral color and dramatic form.
Program:
Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra, op. 30
Strauss: Death and Transfiguration, op. 24

School of Music: Chamber Music Concert #5
2026-07-30 18:30 | Fletcher Music Hall, Fletcher Music Hall

PUT YOUR SOUL ON YOUR HAND AND WALK
2026-07-30 18:00, 2026-07-29 13:45, 2026-07-28 18:00 | Chautauqua Cinema, Chautauqua Cinema
A powerful act of witness and remembrance, this urgent, deeply personal documentary unfolds through video calls between filmmaker Sepideh Farsi and 25-year-old Palestinian photojournalist and poet Fatma Hassona. Their connection bridges both geography and grief, offering a rare, unfiltered window into daily life inside Gaza. Hassona’s grace, resilience, and luminous spirit ground the film in a quiet strength. (NR, 112m. In Arabic and Persian with subtitles.)
Please note that this documentary presents the personal experience of a Palestinian photojournalist living in Gaza. It reflects an individual perspective and is not intended to provide a comprehensive account of the Israel-Hamas war.

Masters Series Masterclass: Write On: Writing for a Revolution with Jillian Hanesworth
2026-07-30 16:30 | Alumni Hall Ballroom, Alumni Hall Ballroom
James Baldwin once said, “I’m aware, you know, that I and the people I love may perish in the morning. I know that. But there’s light on our faces now”. This workshop will offer participants the opportunity to grapple with the social and political climate we face as a nation, and write poetry that encourages hope, truth and change. Affirming that even in the midst of darkness, there’s still light.

Masters Series Masterclass: Natalie Merchant on Art as a Tool for Social Change
2026-07-30 16:00 | Norton Hall, Norton Hall
For decades, Natalie Merchant has used her artistry not only to inspire audiences, but also to strengthen communities and advance meaningful social causes. Merchant will reflect on the power of music, film, photography, and other creative mediums to foster connection, raise awareness, and inspire action. Drawing on her work in areas such as environmental advocacy, anti-fracking efforts, and domestic violence prevention, she will explore how artists can serve as catalysts for civic engagement and collective change. Join Natalie Merchant in conversation with Deborah Sunya Moore, Chautauqua Institution Sr. Vice President and Chief Program Officer. There will be ample time for Q & A after their dialogue.

Play CHQ: Juggling with Zach Fish
2026-07-30 16:00 | Heinz Beach, Heinz Beach

School of Music: Chamber Music Concert #4
2026-07-30 16:00 | Fletcher Music Hall, Fletcher Music Hall

Micah Hendler
2026-07-30 14:00 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
Micah Hendler is the founder and artistic director of the Jerusalem Youth Chorus (JYC), an Israeli-Palestinian music and dialogue project he has brought from a dream to the global stages of TED and “America’s Got Talent” to The New York Times and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” JYC’s work and mission will frame Hendler’s contributions to the Chautauqua Lecture Series weeklong celebration of “Art and Artists Against the Odds.”
Through the co-creation of music and the sharing of stories, JYC empowers young singers from East and West Jerusalem to speak and sing their truths as they become leaders in their communities and inspire singers and listeners around the world to join them in their work for peace, justice, inclusion and equality. Even in times of war, JYC continues to meet, and its singers’ commitment to each other, and the power of their voices raised in harmony, has only grown. In addition to his ongoing bridge-building work in Jerusalem, Hendler has brought his JYC experience to the U.S. and around the world, collaborating with several organizations working to depolarize America (including Braver Angels, the One America Movement, Convergence, New Pluralists, and Constructive Dialogue Institute), and global organizations including the United Nations, Abu Dhabi Festival, El Sistema Greece, and the first World Congress of Music and Social Change.
Hendler has a degree in music and international studies from Yale and has decades of musical experience from different global traditions. He has also been involved in dialogue work for 20 years and has written and presented in many local and global fora about his work with JYC. Selected for the Forbes “30 Under 30” list for Music in 2017, Hendler has written extensively for Forbes.com on music, society and social change in a global context, using this platform to uplift marginalized voices that are not often heard in mainstream media. He currently lives in Washington, D.C., where he leads regular community sings.

School of Music: Chamber Music Concert #3
2026-07-30 13:00 | Fletcher Music Hall, Fletcher Music Hall

CHQ Mystic Heart - Mateo Mortellarto, Tibetan Meditation, seminar and practice
2026-07-30 12:30 | Hall of Missions, Hall of Missions

Play CHQ: Canvas Painting
2026-07-30 12:00 | Bestor Plaza, Bestor Plaza

Micah Hendler
2026-07-30 10:45 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater

Rev. Zina Jacque
2026-07-30 09:15 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
The Rev. Zina Jacque serves as President and Chair of the Board of National Senior Communities, overseeing the largest not-for-profit network of continuing-care retirement communities in the nation. Across two distinguished careers in higher education and ministry, she has worked to lift people, strengthen communities, and send good into the world. She continues to guide nonprofit boards and faith-based organizations nationwide.
For two decades, Jacque shaped the student experience at several leading universities. After transitioning to ministry, Jacque’s pastoral path has taken her from small urban parishes to historic pulpits, notably as the lead minister for the Villages of Alfred Street at the renowned Alfred Street Baptist Church.
Extending her service well beyond church walls, Jacque was the first executive director of the Boston Ten Point Coalition — a violence reduction initiative credited with nearly two homicide-free years among Boston’s youth under 21. Later, she founded the Pastoral Counseling Center at Trinity Church Boston. Jacque also co-founded Courageous Conversations, a national dialogue series fostering belonging and understanding in a polarized age.
Jacque’s impact has been recognized with numerous honors, including the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Boston University School of Theology, the 2022 Citizen of the Year Award from Barrington, Ill. and the Women of Distinction Award from the Barrington Chamber of Commerce. Jacque’s most recent work, “A Sacred Pause,” is a collection of meditations, journals, and reflections which has drawn a growing online following for its mix of stillness, wisdom, and grace.
Jacque holds a Bachelor of Arts from Northwestern University, Master of Arts from Columbia University, Master of Divinity and Ph.D. in Theology from Boston University.

Chautauqua School of Dance presents: "Wuthering Heights"
2026-07-29 20:00 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
Directed and Choreographed by Sasha Janes, Bonnefoux McBride Artistic Director of Chautauqua School of Dance
On the wild, windswept moors of Yorkshire, this ballet adaptation of Wuthering Heights brings to life the haunting story of Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw—two souls bound by a fierce, unbreakable love that defies class, reason, and even death. Through powerful movement and evocative music, passion turns to obsession and betrayal ignites a ruthless quest for revenge, leaving a legacy of heartbreak and longing. Dark, powerful, and unforgettable, this ballet captures the raw intensity of Emily Brontë’s timeless tale of love at its most destructive.
This ballet will showcase both former and current students of the Chautauqua School of Dance.
Contains suggestive content; not recommended for children under 13.

School of Music: Art Song Recital
2026-07-29 18:30 | Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall, Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall

Party on the Art Quad
2026-07-29 17:30 | CVA: Arts Quad
The Friends of CVA and Chautauqaua Visual Arts will once again host our annual ticketed fundraising event in the heart of the CVA Arts Quad. The proceeds benefit CVA School of Art residency program scholarships. This event provides an opportunity to connect with fellow art lovers and to bid on original pieces of art as well as experiences, Amphitheater performance tickets and more!

WE ARE ALL PLASTIC PEOPLE NOW
2026-07-29 16:30 | Chautauqua Cinema, Chautauqua Cinema
According to Ted Danson, “‘We’re All Plastic People Now’ is alarming, but it shows us that change is possible and should spark the kind of real conversation necessary for us to turn the tide on the plastic pollution crisis.”
Post-film discussion led by Rory and Courtney Fielding with panel of experts featured in the film, joining by Zoom: Dr. Shanna Swan, Dr. David Davis, and Dr. Rolf Halden.
With a gift for making difficult science concepts graspable for average people, JD continues his decades-long career as a science educator, sharing insights from mainstream conventional science as a source of unifying inspiration, from stages, webinars, pulpits, and workshops. He offers insights from how nature works that help us discern who we are and our place in the world.
Rory Fielding is an Emmy Award–winning director and producer and the Executive Producer of Rory Fielding Films. His environmental documentaries have earned nine Emmy nominations and four wins. Rory Fielding Films creates films to the highest production and journalistic standards that inform and inspire. Their mission is to tell stories that matter, crafted with excellence and purpose to help shape a better world.

Play CHQ: Hand Fish Puppets
2026-07-29 16:00 | Miller Park, Miller Park

School of Music: Chamber Music Concert #2
2026-07-29 16:00 | Fletcher Music Hall, Fletcher Music Hall

Chautauqua Arts Education 101: Panel Discussion
2026-07-29 15:30 | Smith Wilkes Hall, Smith Wilkes Hall
Chautauqua Arts Education programs serve thousands of students and hundreds of teachers each year in Chautauqua County, carrying out Chautauqua Institution’s mission through empowering students to learn about their world and themselves through the arts. Director of Arts Education Suzanne Fassett-Wright and Vice President of Performing and Visual Arts Laura Savia will be joined by local educators Nicole Kane and Samantha Cashmore in a panel discussion to share how Chautauqua Institution is working in collaboration with our community to support student growth through increased engagement with arts experiences.

Natalie Wigg-Stevenson
2026-07-29 14:00 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
Natalie Wigg-Stevenson is a theologian, minister, author and associate professor of contextual education at Emmanuel College (Victoria University, University of Toronto). Natalie brings to her teaching a spirit of play alongside rigorous theological thinking and deep pastoral attentiveness.
Based out of Toronto, she is the author of Ethnographic Theology: An Inquiry into the Production of Theological Knowledge and Transgressive Devotion: Theology as Performance Art, as well as numerous scholarly articles. A creative non-fiction writer, she is a frequent contributor to Sojourners Magazine and has created the open-access, interactive devotional website, Transgressive Devotional.

School of Music: Chamber Music Concert #1
2026-07-29 13:00 | Fletcher Music Hall, Fletcher Music Hall

Organ Recitals Owen Reyda
2026-07-29 12:15 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
Owen Reyda is an organ performance major at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, studying with Jonathan Moyer. At Oberlin, he has also studied piano with Yulia Fedoseeva, choral conducting with Gregory Ristow, and improvisation with Christa Rakich. He has played for local churches in his hometown Westfield, NY and participated in summer organ events and academies, including at Trinity College and Yale University. He has served as Organ Scholar in the Sacred Music program at Chautauqua since 2024.
His program for Chautauqua will include works by August Gottfried Ritter, Robert Schumann, and Louis Vierne

Natalie Merchant
2026-07-29 10:45 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
Natalie Merchant has earned recognition among America’s most respected recording artists, drawing audiences with her captivating performances and intentional songwriting over her 40-year career. Her music blends folk, rock and world music influences, and she continues to be regarded as a pioneering figure in alternative music. She joins the Chautauqua Lecture Series during our week on “Art and Artists Against the Odds” to speak on her passion for arts education for young people.
Her latest record, “Keep Your Courage” (released in 2023 on Nonesuch Records), finds Merchant in peak form. The album dives into love and human connection in its many forms—with Merchant’s voice to keep you hanging on every word.
Merchant has also distinguished herself as a social justice and environmental activist through her work with a wide variety of non-profit organizations, and by creating documentary films and large-scale community arts projects.
Merchant began her musical career as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the pop music band 10,000 Maniacs in 1981 and released two platinum and four gold records with the group. She left the band in 1993 and has subsequently released nine albums as a solo artist with combined sales of seven million copies.
In 2007, Merchant was appointed by Governor Elliot Spitzer to serve on the New York State Council on the Arts, and in 2022 Senator Chuck Schumer appointed her to the board of trustees of The American Folklife Center at The Library of Congress. Merchant’s awards for artistic excellence and philanthropic work include: the ASCAP Champion Award, The Library Lion Award from the New York Public Library and The John Lennon Real Love Award. In 2025 the National Head Start Association made Merchant their national artist-in-residence.
A few days following her lecture, at 3 p.m. on Sunday, August 2, 2026, Merchant will be joined by the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra for a free family concert, “Cabinet of Wonder Live!” Under the baton of Principal Pops Conductor Stuart Chafetz, the concert will be a joyful reimagining of Mother Goose developed in collaboration with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and will also include classic children’s poetry that she adapted to music for her highly praised double-album release, Leave Your Sleep.

School of Music: Opera Conservatory Masterclass with Jonathan Beyer
2026-07-29 10:00 | McKnight Hall, McKnight Hall

The Rev. Zina Jacque
2026-07-29 09:15, 2026-07-28 09:15 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater

Meshelle: Funny on Purpose
2026-07-28 22:00 | Roe Green Theater Center
In partnership with the African American Heritage House
MESHELLE The Indie-Mom of Comedy, is an award-winning comedian, writer, and solo performer whose work sits at the intersection of arts, culture, and impact, shaped by the lens of a Black woman honoring mothering, family, personal growth, and the undeniable cultural influence of our people. Her stand-up has been featured on Nickelodeon, TruTV, BET, and STARZ, bringing her sharp, insightful voice to audiences nationwide. A TEDx speaker, Open Society Foundations Community Fellow Alumna, and Baker Artist Award winner, she uses comedy as a tool for connection, reflection, and change. Through storytelling rooted in lived experience, MESHELLE creates work that is as thought-provoking as it is hilarious.

Opera & Pops Concert with CSO
2026-07-28 20:00 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
Stuart Chafetz, conductor
Chautauqua Opera Company Apprentice and Studio Artists join Stuart Chafetz, Principal Pops Conductor, and the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra for the annual Opera & Pops concert. This popular summer event showcases Chautauqua Opera’s young artists in music from Opera, Operetta and Broadway.

CHQ Mystic Heart -Labyrinth History and Meditation
2026-07-28 18:30 | Turner (Outside of Building)
Bring gate pass. Adjacent to Turner Community Center

CVA Lecture Series: Glenn Goldberg, School of Art Faculty
2026-07-28 18:30 | CVA: Large Drawing Room
The Chautauqua School of Art proudly welcomes Glenn Goldberg as a member of our 2026 visiting faculty. Glenn Goldberg will participate in the School’s Summer Lecture Series, sharing insights and practices with our artistic community.
Glenn Goldberg was born in the Bronx in 1953 and attended the New York Studio School and Queens College during his undergraduate education. He later continued his graduate studies at Queens College to receive his MFA. In 1996 he was named the Heilman Artist and since has received grants from The Guggenheim Foundation, The Edward Albee Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and The Joan Mitchell Foundation. Goldberg’s work has been shown extensively throughout the US and internationally, and is held in numerous collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Academy of Arts and Letters, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, among others. Goldberg has taught at various institutions including The Cooper Union, NY Studio School, Brandeis University, Queens College, Parsons School of Design, and Lodestar School of Art in Ireland. He has also been a panelist and visiting artist for MFA painting programs at Yale, Columbia, Boston University, American University, Hunter College, and others. In 2023, Goldberg was commissioned to create a public arts project at the E. 149th St subway station in the Bronx by the New York MTA Arts and Design Commission. Goldberg lives and works in New York City.

Play CHQ: Mono Painting
2026-07-28 16:00 | Miller Park, Miller Park

School of Music Piano Faculty Recital: Sara Davis Buechner
2026-07-28 16:00 | Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall, Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall
Noted for her musical command, cosmopolitan artistry, and visionary independence, Sara Davis Buechner is one of the most original concert pianists of our time. Lauded for her “intelligence, integrity and all-encompassing technical prowess” (New York Times), “thoughtful artistry in the full service of music” (Washington Post), and “astounding virtuosity” (Philippine Star), Japan’s InTune magazine sums it up: “Buechner has no superior.”
Ms. Buechner has performed in every state and province of North America — as recitalist, chamber musician and soloist with top orchestras like the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony and Philadelphia Orchestra; and in venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and the Hollywood Bowl. She is also a much sought after professor at Temple University’s Boyer College of Music and Dance.

Chautauqua Theater Company Presents Best for Baby (Live Audio Descriptions)
2026-07-28 16:00 | Bratton Theater, Bratton Theater

Michael Strautmanis
2026-07-28 14:00 | Hall of Philosophy, Hall of Philosophy
Michael Strautmanis serves as the Obama Foundation’s Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, building its strategy to extend President and Mrs. Obama’s legacy through the development of the Obama Presidential Center and civic engagement programming in Chicago. Through community affairs, government relations, strategic partnerships, and digital storytelling, Michael has built the Foundation’s impact agenda in Chicago to create an anchor institution that will catalyze economic renewal on the South Side of Chicago and develop the city’s next generation of leaders. In this role, he is in dialogue with Chicagoans from every walk of life who are looking to learn more about the Obama Presidential Center and participate in the Foundation’s mission to empower leaders to give back to their communities. Michael also leads the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, President Obama’s signature initiative to create safe, healthy, and nurturing communities for boys and young men of color across the nation.
Before joining the Obama Foundation, Michael spent over a decade in Washington, D.C., working to increase access to economic opportunity, strengthen the judicial system, and champion equity and inclusion in the White House, federal agencies, and Congress. He served in the Obama White House for four of those years as Chief of Staff to Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett in the Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs. After President Obama’s first term, he joined the Walt Disney Company where he led an enterprise-wide initiative to consolidate, focus, and deepen the impact of Disney’s corporate social responsibility programs. Michael began his career in government working in the Office of General Counsel at the U.S. Agency for International Development. He did stints at the House of Representatives and American Association for Justice before joining then-Senator Obama’s congressional staff, campaign, and subsequent transition team.
An active member of Chicago’s civic community, Michael serves on the boards of Everside Health, Inc., the Emerald South Economic Development Collaborative, the Billie Jean King Leadership Institute, the Illinois Finance Authority and Headspace Health. Mike received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois and a J.D. from the University of Illinois College of Law.

REAGAN
2026-07-28 14:00 | Chautauqua Cinema, Chautauqua Cinema
Sponsored by Advocates for Balance at Chautauqua – Free Admission! Told through the voice of Viktor Petrovich (Jon Voight), a former KGB agent whose life becomes inextricably linked with Ronald Reagan (Dennis Quaid). Based on Dr. Paul Kengor’s book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism. Dr. Kengor will host the screening and discuss his role in the process.of making the film. (PG-13, 141m)

CHQ Mystic Heart - Mateo Mortellarto, Tibetan Meditation seminar and practice
2026-07-28 12:30 | Hall of Missions, Hall of Missions

Todd Paglia, CEO Stand.Earth: Delivering large-scale solutions to climate and environmental problems worldwide
2026-07-28 12:30 | Smith Wilkes Hall, Smith Wilkes Hall
Bird, Tree & Garden Club lunchtime lecture series
When Todd Paglia joined Stand.earth in 1999, he had a vision of transforming the environmental impact of something so ubiquitous that it’s often forgotten – paper. He saw that major corporations in the office supply and catalog industries were purchasing and selling millions of tons of paper with no accountability for, or even knowledge of, the environmental devastation that paper caused. As Executive Director of Stand.earth, Todd can be credited with transforming the paper policies of multi-billion-dollar Fortune 500 companies, including Staples, Office Depot, Williams-Sonoma, Dell, Victoria’s Secret, 3M and many more. Under Todd’s leadership, Stand.earth has saved more than 65 million acres of endangered forests. In addition, recycled pulp mills have seen major companies requesting more sustainable fiber as a result of Stand’s campaigns.
In 2023 under Todd’s leadership Stand was named one of the world’s most innovative companies by Fast Company Magazine and Stand won the 2023 Keeling Curve Prize for innovation in climate advocacy.

Play CHQ: Juggling with Zach Fish
2026-07-28 12:00 | Bestor Plaza, Bestor Plaza

Stephanie Elizondo Griest
2026-07-28 10:45 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
Stephanie Elizondo Griest is a globetrotting author from the Texas-Mexico borderlands. Currently a professor of creative nonfiction at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, she has performed on five continents in capacities ranging from a Moth storyteller to a literary ambassador for the U.S. State Department.
Her six books include Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana; Mexican Enough; All the Agents and Saints; and Art Above Everything: One Woman’s Global Exploration of the Joys and Torments of a Creative Life. Widely anthologized, Elizondo Griest has written for The New York Times, Washington Post, The Believer, BBC, Orion, VQR, and Oxford American, among others.
Griest’s work has won a Margolis Award for Social Justice Reporting, an International Latino Book Award, a PEN Southwest Book Award and two Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism prizes. She has been supported by the Henry Luce Foundation, Lannan Foundation, and the Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University.

David Michaels, PhD, MPH, Protecting the integrity of science underpinning public health and environmental protections
2026-07-28 09:15 | Hurlbut Church sanctuary, Hurlbut Church sanctuary
Chautauqua Science Group Weekly Lecture
David Michaels PhD, MPH, is an epidemiologist and professor at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. He has held high-level, Senate-confirmed public health positions in the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and President Bill Clinton.
Dr. Michaels is a leader in efforts to protect the integrity of the science underpinning public health and environmental protections. His book The Triumph of Doubt: Dark Money and the Science of Deception (Oxford University Press, 2020) was called “a tour de force” by the reviewer in Science Magazine and “a brave and important book,” by the reviewer in Nature. He is also the author of Doubt is Their Product, which was published by Oxford University Press in 2008 and reissued in 2023.

Masters Series Masterclass: The Picture Book with Kao Kalia Yang
2026-07-28 09:00 | Alumni Hall Ballroom, Alumni Hall Ballroom
Kao Kalia Yang is known for her work for adults, but since 2019, she’s cultivated an award-winning body of work in children’s literature. Join Yang in this Masters Series session as she reads from some of her picture books and speaks to the movement across age groups and genre lines in a life dedicated to sharing stories that a child can grow up with and an adult can grow old with.
Kao Kalia Yang is an award-winning Hmong American teacher, speaker, and writer. Her work crosses genres and audiences and centers Hmong children and families who live in our world, who dream, hurt, and hope in it. Yang’s writing and speaking are concerned with the plight of refugees from around our world, ideas of belonging, and the depths of the human experience. She holds an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Carleton College, was the 2024 Star Tribune Artist of the Year, and is a Guggenheim Fellow. Kao Kalia Yang lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with her family.

Mike Thornton & The Midnight Quartet
2026-07-27 22:00 | Roe Green Theater Center
Mike Thornton, jazz vocalist of grit and sophistication, takes center stage with The Midnight Quartet in a performance charged with high-octane energy and deep blues soul. Blending hard-swinging standards with electrifying improvisation, Thornton’s commanding voice rides effortlessly over the band’s tight, driving rhythms. Each tune ignites with hot, explosive solos, delivering a night where smoky storytelling meets virtuosic fire—classic jazz reborn with urgency, swagger, and unmistakable style.

Chautauqua Opera Conservatory with the Music School Festival Orchestra "L’Enfant Prodigue & Les Mamelles de Tiresias"
2026-07-27 20:00 | Amphitheater, Amphitheater
Music by: Claude Debussy & Francis Poulenc
Librettist: Édouard Guinand & Guillaume Apollinaire
Stage Director: Emma Griffin
Conductor: Timothy Muffitt
Two masters of French music share the stage in a sparkling double bill. Francis Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tirésias (1945) bursts with surreal satire, flipping gender norms topsy-turvy in a wildly imaginative romp of music and mischief. It’s paired with Claude Debussy’s luminous early masterpiece L’enfant prodigue (1884), a one-act cantata suffused with longing, redemption, and sumptuous lyricism. Together, these works deliver an evening of operatic drama and delight.
The Chautauqua Opera Conservatory is a premier, immersive summer program offering the highest caliber of training for young singers ages 18 and older. Under the leadership of Director Jonathan Beyer, participants join a select community of singers who study, coach, and perform in the inspiring and idyllic setting of the Chautauqua Institution in western New York State.
Our program combines rigorous artistic preparation with a warm, encouraging environment that puts each singer’s growth and well-being first. Voice lessons, role study, vocal coachings, and masterclasses are led by a distinguished full-time faculty of voice teachers, coaches, and stage directors, alongside renowned guest artists from the world’s leading opera houses and conservatories. Students explore and perform repertoire spanning Opera, Art Song, Oratorio, Chamber Music, and Crossover styles.
Comprised of top-tier students from conservatories and universities in the U.S. and abroad, Music School Festival Orchestra members participate in a variety of musical activities during their summers at Chautauqua including chamber music and private lessons along with their meticulous orchestral training. Alumni from the MSFO can be heard in many of the world’s top orchestras and chamber ensembles and can be found on music faculties worldwide. The MSFO is led by Artistic Director Timothy Muffitt, who serves as Music Director of the Lansing Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Laureate of the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra.
