‘Culture to the masses’: History reawakens at Delaware Chautauqua events
By A mix of entertainment and history awaits those who venture to Lewes’ Zwaanendael Park and The Green in New Castle as the Delaware Division of Historical & Cultural Affairs presents the 24th annual Chautauqua tent shows, starting Thursday.
Chautauqua events take their name from a series of adult education programs first held on the shores of Lake Chautauqua in upstate New York during the late 19th century. They spread throughout America during that time, bringing speakers, teachers, musicians, entertainers, preachers and specialists to a wide cross section of the nation’s rural and small-town population.
“What happened back in the day was (that) not everybody could get to Lake Chautauqua. So they brought these tent shows to small, rural areas to bring culture to the masses, to people that maybe weren’t in a city that had all the cultural facilities that are available to those that maybe live closer to (bigger) cities or could get to Lake Chautauqua. And we just basically stick to that same idea,” said Bridget Warner, Zwaanendael Museum’s site supervisor and the event’s coordinator since 2009.
While New Castle did hold an in-person event last year, this will be the first time in three years that Lewes will have the tent back up, after presenting virtually in 2020 and 2021.
This year’s theme is “That’s Entertainment,” and featured will be theater, music, dance, film, visual arts, lectures and more.
“Every year, we decide to do a theme. And we’ve done anniversary dates — the anniversary of World War II, the War of 1812, that type of thing. We did one on flight. We did a maritime one. And this year, we decided we were going to keep it a little lighter because, with the war in Ukraine and with COVID and everything else that was going on, we thought, this year, we needed to just keep it light,” Ms. Warner said.
Sept. 8 and 9 shows will be held in Lewes, while on Sept. 10 and 11, they will move to New Castle.
Activities will be capped off with performances by actor-historians from the American Historical Theatre, portraying Buffalo Bill, showman of the American West at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Lewes; and Ichabod Crane, a character from Washington Irving’s story, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” and sharpshooter Annie Oakley on Sept. 10 and 11, respectively, at 5 p.m. in New Castle.
Sept. 9 events in Lewes will culminate with a performance of songs of the Underground Railroad by Linda Harris and David B. Cole at 7:30.
Kim Hanley, executive director of the Philadelphia-based American Historical Theatre, will depict Ms. Oakley, one of 10 women the actress regularly portrays, most notably Abigail Adams, Lucretia Mott and Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Ms. Hanley has a varied background in acting, dancing and singing, and is an historian and costume designer. Notably, she served as costume designer for the Phillie Phanatic.
In the American Historical Theatre, she gets to combine many of her passions.
“When I do something, I do the research. I do the costuming and everything — that’s all me. We have had some actors with American Historical Theatre who were either just starting out or didn’t feel comfortable working through their own scripts or simply didn’t even have the time. So we have worked with them to get a script done. We’ve worked with other writers,” she said.
“For example, our Alexander Hamilton, when we were bringing him up for the first time, we actually had two women from Philadelphia who were helping us. One was very, very involved with Aaron Burr. So that’s why she wanted to become involved with this Hamilton script. And the other was wonderful and a great researcher.”
Like Mr. Hamilton, who folks may only know from the Broadway musical, Ms. Oakley may only be recognized from the play and later movie, “Annie Get Your Gun.”
But, in Ms. Hanley’s opinion, the Irving Berlin musical is purely a fictional account of Ms. Oakley’s life and does a great disservice to her legacy.
“It’s very much not like her life, other than the name Annie Oakley and that she was really good with a gun. That’s pretty much where the story stops. Basically, everything about ‘Annie Get Your Gun’ just dismays me, especially, in particular, the treatment of the relationship with Frank Butler, her husband,” she said.
“The Frank Butler that’s presented there really is much more like a Buffalo Bill character. Their relationship was actually beautiful and sustaining and immediate. He basically adored her from the moment he met her,” Ms. Hanley added. “There was a shooting match between them. She doesn’t throw the match because he’s a man, and she wants to impress him or whatever. She won the match. And he acknowledges that, and he basically says, ‘I fell in love with her then and there,’ and he pursued her, and ultimately, it becomes a wonderful love story of two people who were phenomenal.”
Those stories and more are relayed during these historical presentations, which are always followed by question-and-answer sessions. Ms. Hanley believes that bringing history to life in this way is ultimately more entertaining and palatable.
“Our founder, Bill Summerfield, used to always say he would much prefer to work with someone who was an actor first rather than an historian first because the actors understand the need to entertain — their look, they’re feeling out the audience. They’re responding to their audience. It’s just the nature of acting that you want the room to be with you,” she said.
“And you’re feeling the room for an understanding of where they’re at. And you’re just taking a more empathetic approach to talking to people about a thing. I’d rather put the history on an actor rather than try to put the acting on an historian,” she continued. “And we’ve worked with some lovely people who were historians or reenactors. And they just always have a very hard time with the acting.”
Other highlights of the Chautauqua in Lewes are a speech on Alexander Hamilton and performances by the Downtown Dixieland Band and the Possum Point Players’ Radio Theater on Thursday, as well as a lecture on Delaware’s Rosedale Beach and a show by the Smooth Sound Big Band on Sept. 9.
On Sept. 10 in New Castle, other activities include a discussion about the “Amos ‘n’ Andy” show, the history of comics and a presentation about women’s fashion accessories from the 12th century to present.
The weekend will wrap up Sept. 11 in New Castle with a Jimi Hendrix lecture, William Shakespeare poems put to music and an all-female string orchestra.
The Lewes events will take place at Zwaanendael Park, next to the Zwaanendael Museum at 102 Kings Highway. The New Castle programs will be on The Green, adjacent to the New Castle Court House Museum at 211 Delaware St.
Many Chautauqua activities will also be livestreamed.
For information and the schedule of events, visit here.
