CHAUTAUQUA, N.Y. — Chautauqua Institution proudly announces the program lineup for Week Four of its 2021 season. The week, which begins July 17 and concludes July 24, features events, lectures, and classes both in person on the grounds and livestreamed through CHQ Assembly. Week Four includes renowned guests such as Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award honoree Johnny Mathis, senior editor at The Dispatch and Time columnist David French, New York Times bestselling author Amanda Ripley, and Princeton professor and public intellectual Eddie S. Glaude Jr. The week launches on Saturday with the first “Film in Concert” of the summer, as the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra accompanies Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas” as it plays above them on the big screen. 

Chautauqua Institution’s nine-week season features weekday lectures focusing on weekly cultural themes. Week Four’s theme is “Navigating Our Divides,” in which speakers in the 10:30 a.m. Chautauqua Lecture Series program discuss the various geographies, economies, cultures and beliefs that make up America and how we can better navigate these divisions, differences and barriers. The 1 p.m. Interfaith Lecture Series examines “The Evolving Religious Narrative of America,” which considers American ethics, religion and justice, and how historical narratives may not accommodate our multifaith evolution or evolving national identity. 

The Rev. Robert W. Henderson will serve as the guest chaplain for the week. He is senior minister and head of staff at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Charlotte,  where he endeavors to create and lead dynamic worship that is faithful to Reformed Theology. He has worked to address the needs of the homeless and was selected as “Charlottean of the Year” in 2017.  

AMPHITHEATER LECTURES 

MONDAY 

Chautauqua Lecture Series: Amanda Ripley is an investigative journalist and a New York Times bestselling author. Her most recent book, High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out discusses where we as a nation must move forward in both agreement and in disagreement and will frame her opening lecture for the week. 

Interfaith Lecture Series: Eboo Patel is the founder and president of Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), a nonprofit organization working to make interfaith cooperation a social norm in America. He has authored four books and dozens of articles about national issues of religious diversity, civic engagement, and the intersection of racial equity and interfaith cooperation. He also served on President Obama’s Inaugural Faith Council. 

TUESDAY 

Chautauqua Lecture Series: David French is a senior editor at The Dispatch, a columnist for Time, and a New York Times bestselling author. His most recent book Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation calls for courage, pluralism, justice, and mercy and will frame his lecture. He is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and a recipient of the Bronze Star. 

Interfaith Lecture Series: Michael Martin is the executive director of the Native American Community Services of Erie (New York) and Niagara Counties, Inc. He was named by his Clan Mother as a Faithkeeper for his Onondaga, Beaver Clan (Haudenosaunee) from the Six Nations of the Grand River territory in Southern Ontario. His lecture will contextualize the “Doctrine of Discovery” and its effects on religion and on the Native Peoples of America. 

WEDNESDAY 

Chautauqua Lecture Series: Katherine Cramer is the Natalie C. Holton Chair of Letters & Science and a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a visiting professor with the Center for Constructive Communication at the MIT Media Lab. Her lecture will discuss rural consciousness, modern democracy, and how we might better address division and resentment at a community and national level. 

Interfaith Lecture Series: Gary Phillip Zola is the executive director of The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives and the Edward M. Ackerman Family Distinguished Professor of the American Jewish Experience & Reform Jewish History at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. He served as a member of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, an independent agency of the federal government. 

THURSDAY 

Chautauqua Lecture Series: Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is an author, political commentator, public intellectual and educator who examines the complex dynamics of the American experience. His writing takes a wide look at Black communities, the difficulties of race in the United States and the challenges we face as a democracy. Glaude’s Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for our Own is also designated a 2021 selection for the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. 

ARTS PROGRAMMING  

Aside from the daily lectures, Week Four features a variety of afternoon and evening arts and entertainment programs live at the Amphitheater or the Performance Pavilion on Pratt, with some offerings available via livestream and on-demand through the CHQ Assembly platform. 

6 p.m. Saturday, July 17, Performance Pavilion on Pratt: Chaired by Marlena Malas,the Chautauqua Voice Program presents the iconic Brothers Grimm fairytale opera Hansel and Gretel. 

7:30 p.m. Saturday, July 17, Amphitheater: Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas” will be projected on the big screen and accompanied by Grammy-winning composer Danny Elfman’s darkly charming score played live by the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Principal Pops Conductor Stuart Chafetz. 

2:30 p.m. Sunday, July 18, Amphitheater: Conducted by Music Director Timothy Muffitt, the Music School Festival Orchestra Chamber Players will perform Stravinsky’s Octet, Poulenc’s Suite Francaise and multiple pieces for brass and percussion in large ensemble groups for their only performance of the 2021 season.  

4 p.m. Sunday, July 18, Performance Pavilion on Pratt: Written by Dominique Morisseau and directed by Stori Ayers, Chautauqua Theater Company’s Blood at the Roottells the story of six black students charged with attempted murder following a high school yard fight steeped in racial tension. This play examines racial bias and the nature of justice through the students of Cedar High. This is the production’s final performance. 

8:15 p.m. Monday, July 19, Amphitheater: The Music School Festival Orchestra, conducted by Music Director Timothy Muffitt, will collaborate with the Chautauqua Voice Program, chaired by Marlena Malas, to present a quintessential opera work, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. 

8:15 p.m. Tuesday, July 20, Amphitheater: Conductor Rossen Milanov leads the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra for an evening of works by Strauss and Dvořák. 

8:15 p.m. Wednesday, July 21, Amphitheater: The Grammy Award-winning vocal ensemble Chanticleer brings a wide range of classical, gospel, jazz, popular music and new compositions and arrangements, sung by a male chorus of dazzling virtuosity.  

4 p.m. Thursday, July 22, Performance Pavilion on Pratt: Half scripted, half improvisation and playing like a Shakespeare improv with modern day language, Chautauqua Theater Company’s Commedia will delight with familiar yet ridiculous storylines and references ripped from today’s headlines. 

8:15 p.m. Thursday, July 22, Amphitheater: Conducted by Timothy Muffitt, the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra will perform an evening of works by Walker, Britten and Dvořák. 

4 p.m. Friday, July 23, Performance Pavilion on Pratt: An opera by Derrick Wang, directed by Cara Consilvio and conducted by Steven Osgood, Chautauqua Opera Company’s Scalia/Ginsburg is a one-act comedy about the unlikely friendship between U.S. Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia. 

8:15 p.m. Friday, July 23, Amphitheater: Johnny Mathis has had three songs inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, achieved 50 hits on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary Chart, ranks as the all-time No. 6 album artist in the history of Billboard’s pop album charts and was given the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences. He will be bringing several of his supremely popular hits like “Chances Are,” “It’s Not For Me To Say” and “Misty,” to Chautauqua. 

ADDITIONAL LECTURES/CONVERSATIONS ON CHQ ASSEMBLY  

Chautauqua proudly continues some cherished programming online in lieu of additional in-person programming during the 2021 Summer Assembly. 

3:30 p.m. Sunday, July 18: The Chautauqua Writers’ Center presents a free Sunday reading with Oliver de la Paz and Marcus Jackson. 

1:30 p.m. Thursday, July 22: Melissa Murray, Frederick I. and Grace Stokes Professor of Law at New York University will hold a conversation with John Q. Barrett, professor of law, St. John’s University, on constitutional law, family law, criminal law, and reproductive rights and justice, as the 2021 Robert H. Jackson Lecture on the Supreme Court of the United States. 

On demand: The Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle presents James Shapiro’s book Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future in which the author traces the unparalleled role of Shakespeare’s 400-year-old tragedies and comedies in making sense of so many of these issues, on which the American identity has turned. 

10 a.m. Friday, July 23: Chautauqua Cinema presents “A Reckoning in Boston” by James Rutenbeck as the first Meet the Filmmaker event of 2021,in which patrons will have the opportunity to meet both Rutenbeck and producer and film subject Kafi Dixon. All attendees must show Chautauqua vaccination verification stickers. 

1 p.m. Friday, July 23:  DeRay Mckesson, civil rights activist and author of On the Other Side of Freedom, presents as part of the 2021 African American Heritage House Lecture Series. 

MORE OPPORTUNITIES FOR ENGAGEMENT 

Chautauqua’s Mystic Heart Meditation Program offers community members daily meditation sessions at 7:30 a.m. throughout the week. 

TICKET INFORMATION 

Tickets are available for purchase at tickets.chq.org and at the Main Gate Welcome Center Ticket Office on the day of your visit. Morning Program Tickets are $30; Afternoon Program Tickets are $15. The fee for Evening Program tickets varies based on the evening entertainment. For tickets and information, visit tickets.chq.org or call 716-357-6250. Program Tickets permit access to the Chautauqua Institution grounds four hours prior to the scheduled start time of an event. Patrons are invited to arrive early and explore the grounds and other amenities, including free access to world-class art galleries, plus shops and restaurants. Admission to Chautauqua is always free on Sundays.  

ABOUT CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION 

Chautauqua Institution is a community on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York state that comes alive each summer with a unique mix of fine and performing arts, lectures, interfaith worship and programs, and recreational activities. As a community, we celebrate, encourage, and study the arts and treat them as integral to all of learning, and we convene the critical conversations of the day to advance understanding through civil dialogue. CHQ Assembly is the online expression of Chautauqua Institution’s mission. 

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