2017 Chautauqua
Get ready and plan to attend the 2017 Chautauqua Performance. This year’s theme is “The Great West: Cowboys and Cattle Trails,” in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the opening of the Chisholm Trail.
- For those of you who are not familiar with Chautauqua, the Chautauqua Assemblies began in 1874 as summer camp meetings. All over the United States, they brought learning, culture and entertainment to small towns and villages. Prominent personalities were paid to give speeches on religious, political and scientific topics, such as Samuel Clemens and William Jennings Bryan. Modern-day Chautauqua programs present a variety of historical enactments, workshops, and informal discussions. Evening performances include first-person presentations and time for audience questions to the historical figure in-character and to the scholar portraying the character. Ten daytime workshops and five evening lectures explore the cultural and political nuances of the era. All events are FREE and open to the public.
The schedules for the Lawton Chautauqua evening performances, which will be held at Lawton City Hall, 7:00 pm, are as follows:
- Tuesday, 20 June 2017 - Jesse Chisholm, by Michael Hughes
- Wednesday, 21 June 2017 - Thaddeus Dunkley, by James H. Armstead
- Thursday, 22 June 2017 - Betty Reynolds, by Sally A. Drucker
- Friday, 23 June 2017 - Johanna July, by Vanessa Adams-Harris
- Saturday, 24 June 2017 - “Hanging Judge” Isaac Parker, by Doug Mishler
The daytime work shop schedules, which will be held at the Museum of the Great Plains, are as follows:
- Tuesday, 20 June 2017 10 am - The Cowboy, the Cattle Drive & the Cow Town
- Tuesday, 20 June 2017 2 pm - The Black Seminole Indians, Freedmen & Maroons
- Wednesday, 21 June 2017 10 am- Notable & Notorious Women of the West
- Wednesday, 21 June 2017 2 pm - Isaac Parker & the West in Film
- Thursday, 22 June 2017 10 am - Patchwork Quilting on the Frontier
- Thursday, 22 June 2017 2 pm - Songs, Tall Stories, & Funny Facts about the Western Cattle Trails
- Friday, 23 June 2017 10 am - The Parker Court: Taming Oklahoma!
- Friday, 23 June 2017 2 pm - Captivity Narratives: Frontier Women Who Lived With the Indians
- Saturday, 24 June 2017 10 am - The Wages of Droving Versus the Wages of Sin
- Saturday, 24 June 2017 2 pm - Diet, Railroads & the Cattle: Industry in the Development of the West.
For more information please contact Rose Wilson, Programming Coordinator, Lawton Public Library @ 580-581-3450 ext. 5 or by email, rwilson@lawtonok.gov
###