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Over its nearly 150-year existence, Chautauqua has celebrated the environment and is working to become a leading model in sustainability. With the recent addition of the Climate Change Initiative, Chautauqua strives to emulate behaviors that will sustain and revitalize the environment in face of global warming. 

One of the ways the Institution is working to adapt to the changing climate is by learning from other establishments with experience in sustainability. 

In a special Bird, Tree & Garden Club event with the Climate Change Initiative at 12:15 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 23 in Smith Wilkes Hall, sustainability leader Paul Tukey will give a lecture on cultivating and restoring landscapes followed by a panel discussion. His lecture, “Sustainable Landscapes,” will end the BTG’s Brown Bag Lecture Series for 2022.

The panelists include Climate Change Initiative Director Mark Wenzler, Supervisor of Gardens and Landscapes Betsy Burgeson and BTG Vice President Jennifer Francois.

Tukey is a renowned expert on organic landscaping and serves as the director of environmental stewardship at Glenstone Museum. With degrees in journalism from the University of Maine, Tukey has authored several books, including The Organic Lawn Care Manual: A Natural, Low-Maintenance System for a Beautiful, Safe Lawn. Most recently, he co-authored Raising Tomorrow’s Champions: What the Women’s National Soccer Team Teaches Us About Grit, Authenticity and Winning. He co-founded horticulture magazine People, Places and Plants, which shares the same name as a HGTV gardening show. 

Glenstone is a modern art museum in Potomac, Maryland, that showcases a collection of post-World War II art throughout refurbished indoor and outdoor spaces. Glenstone’s architecture and natural landscape are key components of the museum as a whole, and provide an immersive experience for visitors to understand some of the most influential artworks of the 20th and 21st century. 

“Sustainability is a core value for Glenstone,” Wenzler said. “From the very beginning, the owners have focused on creating the most sustainable place that they can, and also educating visitors and the public about the benefits of sustainable landscapes.” 

Tukey develops the strategies and protocols for sustainability and carbon-reduction that sustain Glenstone’s nearly 350 acre organic landscape. 

“We take a very holistic view of sustainability and another important word called ‘regeneration,’ ” Tukey said. “We actually think that sustainability doesn’t go far enough; if we simply sustain where we are today in the world, we won’t be in a very good place. What we’re trying to do is to regenerate, regenerate or rejuvenate.”

One of the ways in which Tukey and Glenstone revitalize the environment is by the use of native plants. They have planted over 12,000 native trees since the museum’s start in 2006. 

Aside from the “outside world,” Tukey says the indoor environment of the museum is just as important when it comes to promoting sustainability and restoring the environment.

“In the indoor world, we’re trying to be as energy efficient as possible,” Tukey said. “We really look at everything we can possibly do. We constantly recycle. We are an art museum, so we’re putting up exhibits and taking down exhibits, and so we recycle those materials every way that we can.” 

Some of the efforts Tukey has made to conserve energy within the confines of Glenstone include offering public transportation for visitors to spare gas, composting food for the outdoors and creating plans to mitigate water erosion and sediment deposits.  

In his lecture, Tukey will touch on his experience in organic landscaping and Glenstone’s work with the environment. 

The lecture and panel also serves as an opportunity for Glenstone and Chautauqua to learn from each other.  

“There are interesting similarities between Glenstone and Chautauqua,” Wenzler said. “First of all, they’re both cultural institutions where you have a large number of visitors who come, and they’re both surrounded by beautiful grounds. We can compare and contrast some of the similarities between how we are supporting sustainable landscapes that protect the lake…” 

Tukey anticipates hearing from the panelists and audience members about the sustainability measures the Institution has adopted overtime. 

“Part of our core values is that we do want to be seen as industry leaders,” Tukey said. “You can’t lead in a vacuum. You’ve got to get out front and share the message. I always learn from wherever I go…”

In his first visit to Chautauqua, Tukey hopes to inspire Chautauquans to become educated and join the fight against climate change. 

“We want to become part of a larger national and international dialogue about what cultural institutions need to be doing right now in the face of unprecedented climate disasters,” Tukey said. “I’m going to give people these little tools and big tools that they can use in their own way. We can start getting more organic matter in the soil, start doing things in a more natural way. We can solve this, but we have to convince people. We have to inform, inspire and invite people to join.”

Wenzler agrees with Tukey that the lecture and panel will be an inspiration for Chautauquans to adapt to the changing climate. 

“I hope that the number one thing people come away with from the lecture is to be inspired, to emulate the Glenstone model,” Tukey said. “We can create these incredibly beautiful artistic landscapes with native plantings that help absorb stormwater runoff, that promote wildlife habitat, that serve to enhance and support natural systems that don’t use pesticides.”

Some Grammy Award-winning folk and bluegrass music was born from a week-long recording session in November 2020. Before this, as the COVID-19 pandemic changed the music industry, Punch Brothers had stayed at home, met via Zoom and made music together. Then, they came together and recorded Hell on Church Street. 

They will perform at 8:15 p.m. Monday, Aug. 22 in the Amphitheater to kick off Week Nine’s evening entertainment. The band’s name comes from Mark Twain’s short story “Punch, Brothers, Punch!” 

“For us, it’s actually a cautionary tale and a reminder of music’s power, in the knowledge of how much it can affect people,” said Chris Thile, vocalist and mandolist for Punch Brothers. “Sometimes musicians are encouraged to think about writing something catchy. … For us, it’s a reminder to just make sure we’re doing this for the right reasons.”

Hell on Church Street, released earlier this year, is part of their current tour.

The band members also include Gabe Witcher on the fiddle and violin, Noam Pikelny on banjo, Chris Eldridge on guitar and Paul Kowert on bass. Their style has widely been described as “bluegrass instrumentation and spontaneity.”

Thile formed the band in 2006, originally called How to Grow a Band, and recorded their first album How to Grow a Woman from the Ground. 

They then changed their name to The Tensions Mountain Boys before, in 2007, landing on who they are now: Punch Brothers. 

They want to make sure they aren’t making music for the sake of becoming a hit, or making a name in pop culture. Thile said bringing joy to their listeners is the most important aspect for them.

“Having been in this band for 18 years, we share a hive mind and the differences are still striking,” Thile said. “A band develops a shorthand that they can (use to) really streamline the creative process and eliminate barriers between the members of the band.”

Any frustration or complications they may come across are quickly diminished by how close they are, and the relationship they’ve created with one another. Thile said their best collaborations come from small arguments.

“You can brush those kinds of things off very, very easily and can focus on the myriad benefits of long collaboration,” Thile said. “Whatever ways in which we get on each other’s nerves are obliterated by the ways in which it’s alive.”

Under the undulating Spanish moss and the twinkling string lights of the College of Charleston’s Cistern Yard, Rhiannon Giddens said she wants to rehabilitate the banjo. 

Performing there for Charleston’s Spoleto Festival USA in late May with her musical and life partner Francesco Turrisi, the Grammy Award-winning folk musician and MacArthur “Genius” grant recipient strummed the night away.

Now, several months later, Giddens will kick off Week Nine of the Chautauqua Lecture Series, themed “A Vibrant Tapestry: Exploring Creativity, Culture and Faith with Smithsonian Folklife Festival.” 

Giddens, the artistic director of Silkroad, will give a lecture on the banjo and its cultural meanings at 10:45 a.m. Monday, Aug. 22 in the Amphitheater.

Deborah Sunya Moore, senior vice president and chief program officer, admires Giddens’ musical excellence and her devotion to storytelling. She’s excited that Giddens will frame the week as a speaker, and then perform her own music in the Amp Tuesday, Aug. 23 at 8:15 p.m. with the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra. 

“(Giddens) will be talking about how the creation of musical myths damages our perceptions of our true past,” Moore said.

Giddens, whose father is white and whose mother has Black and Native American heritage, is a historian as well as a musician. She omnivorously revisits and excavates the constellation of musical styles that bear the moniker “American music.” Drawing on folk, roots, blues and country traditions from both Black and white cultures, Giddens wants to diversify the American story.

In a late April interview ahead of the Spoleto and world premiere of Omar, the opera following the life of an enslaved African Muslim scholar that Giddens co-composed with Michael Abels, Giddens spoke of her passion for recovering untold stories.

“I’ve just been going digging and finding the ones that speak to me, personally, as an artist, and then trying to highlight them, and trying to give them the spotlight,” she said.

The banjo is a historically denigrated instrument given its associations with Appalachia and minstrelsy. Giddens formed the group Our Native Daughters with three other Black female banjo players: Amythyst Kiah, Leyla McCalla and Allison Russell. The project is one facet of Giddens’ ongoing mission to deconstruct the musical myths that Moore mentioned.

In a May 2019 New Yorker profile of Giddens titled “Rhiannon Giddens and What Folk Music Means,” John Jeremiah Sullivan wrote about Giddens’ musical passions. At the time, she had just completed the record Freedom Highway, and Sullivan noted that that album was built on the sound of the minstrel banjo.

“The banjo: an instrument whose origins are so contested — is it African? European? or a ‘cross-bred instrument,’ as one scholar has called it? — that it expresses the messiness of American history before a person has played a note,” he wrote.

America was created on the basis of religious freedom, back to the 17th century when the pilgrims first arrived from England. Eboo Patel, founder of Interfaith America, author and former member of President Barack Obama’s inaugural Advisory Council on Reform of the Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, will open the Week Nine Interfaith Lecture Series with his discussion on “Potluck Nation” at 2 p.m. Monday, Aug. 22 in the Hall of Philosophy.

His lecture launches the afternoon theme, “Faith and the Tapestry of the Future.” This week’s theme is in partnership with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. 

Patel, whose position at Interfaith America involves facilitating interesting conversations, said he has two main points to his Chautauqua lecture, and one will be to address the current Judeo-Christian state of America.

“It’s actually quite recent, only since the 1930s, that we regularly refer to ourselves as a Judeo-Christian nation,” Patel said. “It was an important step forward from the idea of being a Protestant nation.”

The United States is one of the most religiously diverse countries, and the most religiously devout nation, in the Western hemisphere, and Patel said the country’s next chapter should be titled “Interfaith America.” 

He will explain that title, of both his lecture and his suggestion for the country’s next chapter, by discussing the concept of America as a “melting pot.”

“Identity shouldn’t be considered a battleground, either, where we’re only talking about our own wounds and trying to wound others,” Patel said. “The best way to think about American diversity is as a potluck supper. We are welcoming the distinctive contributions of diverse communities.”

In his time working on the inaugural Advisory Council on Reform of the Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Patel had a conversation with Obama about interfaith cooperation as a central pillar of American civilization.

“One of the things that his White House did with my organization was launch something called the President’s Interfaith Challenge,” Patel said. “It involved (about) 500 campuses and dozens and dozens of local communities.”

The full title of the challenge was: The President’s Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge, and its goal was to use universities, a place of problem solving, to set the example for interfaith cooperation. 

At Chautauqua, he plans to discuss the events of Aug. 12, when author Salman Rushdie was attacked on the Amphitheater stage. Patel sees Chautauqua as a place to discuss American civilization and the role America plays in having intergenerational, ongoing conversation about diversity.

“There’s no place that does that better than Chautauqua,” Patel said. “When (these conversations) are violated, what we need to do is, first of all, tend to the wounds of that violation. Then we reaffirm and reassure the centrality of the work of the Institution, and I’m proud to do that. I’m proud to be a part of that.”

Patel said for centuries, people have thought it was impossible to have interfaith dialogue and relationships, and America is the world’s first attempt at this.

“The United States has shown that not only can we coexist, but that we can cooperate and we can create together,” Patel said. 

The Rev. Yvette Flunder, a San Francisco native, has served her call through prophetic action and ministry for justice for over 30 years. The call to “blend proclamation, worship, service and advocacy on behalf of those most marginalized in church and in society” led to the founding of the City of Refuge United Church of Christ in 1991.

That church grew from a small group of mostly gay and lesbian Christians’ deep desire to have a worship space that resembled the churches of their youth, but contained none of the toxic theology that was so often present in those spaces, according to the church’s website. Specifically, the group desired a church that would not be adverse to female clergy; welcome queer and transgendered people; take seriously Jesus’ commitment to social justice; value and welcome all people regardless of their race or social status; and be accountable to its members.

Now, Flunder is bringing that ministry — and her talents as an award-winning gospel artist — to Chautauqua’s pulpit as the chaplain-in-residence for Week Nine, “A Vibrant Tapestry: Exploring Creativity, Culture and Faith with Smithsonian Folklife Festival.”

She will preach at the 9:15 a.m. service of ecumenical worship Monday – Friday in the Amphitheater. Flunder’s sermon titles include “The Rain in Coming,” “Who Can Be Against Us? Us,” “Assurance Insurance … The Balm for Our Wounded Souls,” “Resurrection or Resuscitation … It Is Time to Come to Life!” and “Happy Feet.”

In 2003, Flunder was consecrated presiding bishop of The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, a multi-denominational coalition of over 100 primarily African American Christian leaders and laity. She is a graduate of the Certificate of Ministry and Master of Arts programs at Pacific School of Religion and received her Doctor of Ministry from San Francisco Theological Seminary.

Flunder is a DEMOS board member and senior fellow at Auburn Theological Seminary and Andover Newton Seminary at Yale Divinity School. She has also served as an adjunct professor and speaker at Pacific School of Religion and numerous seminaries and universities including Auburn, Brite Divinity School, Chicago Theological Seminary, New York Theological Seminary, Columbia, Drew, Duke, Eden, Howard, Lancaster and Yale universities. She is also author of Where the Edge Gathers: Building a Community of Radical Inclusion.

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’s co-hosted the United Methodist Missionary Vacation Home at Chautauqua for seven years. 

Her ministry is one of community and service, largely tending to her congregation in quiet, graceful moments. This weekend she brings that same spirit to the Institution’s pulpit, as she preaches at the 10:45 a.m. service of worship and sermon Sunday, Aug. 21 in the Amphitheater. 

Her sermon title is “What We Breathe In.”

This summer, Hanson has served as the Institution’s interim senior pastor, following the retirement last December of the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, and before the Rt. Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, takes on the stole of senior pastor this fall.

“It has been an absolute privilege to work with Natalie, because she is the leader that we needed for this season,” said Melissa Spas, vice president of religion. “She has a capacity to hold space for others to be themselves, and leads with pastoral care that comes from long experience with chaplaincy.”

Hanson 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.

As interim senior pastor, Hanson has crafted each worship service this season, and has worked closely with every member of the Department of Religion in planning and evaluating each service.

“Her gift for liturgy and worship has shone brightly all summer,” said Mary Lee Talbot, herself a minister in the Presbyterian Church, and morning worship columnist for The Chautauquan Daily. “She has led the worship team with grace.”

Talbot, who has a front-row seat to every service in her work as columnist and frequent participant, said that Hanson’s “grace and warmth in everyday worship, and in times of joy and sorrow, brought worship and the Department of Religion to a renewed place in the Chautauqua season and program.”

Hanson’s work in the past week has been a particular balm, both Spas and Talbot said, following the violent attack on writer Salman Rushdie in the Amphitheater last Friday. 

It was Hanson who ministered through prayers, conversations, hugs, phone calls and text messages, praying at a vigil ceremony in the Hall of Philosophy hours after the attack, leading a private gathering of blessing and anointing in the Amp Saturday night, and again on Sunday morning for the congregation gathered for worship.

“Her instincts, her generosity, in re-orienting after tragedy, are so filled with grace,” Spas said.

Hanson was educated at Wesleyan University and the Harvard Divinity School, and also served as co-convener and worship developer for the Northeast Jurisdiction’s Clergywomen’s Convocation. Her work, Spas said, speaks volumes.

“I want to say very intentionally, as a woman, as a leader in faith-based spaces, you want to have women who have experience leading traditionally male-dominated spaces,” Spas said. “She does it with grace and generosity. And I think it’s a gift that she gives to the Institution, having done beautiful, amazing liturgies and not not seeking the limelight, not seeking that attention herself, although she is deserving of it.”

For Talbot, the level of involvement and care Hanson has brought to her interim pastorship “set the bar for worship at a new level of engagement. As someone who is at worship every time, I found myself more engaged in actual worship than I have in years.”

Maureen Rovegno, director of the Department of Religion, shared that Hanson has been “more of a blessing to our community this season than words can express.”

“Her prayers, her wisdom, her indefatigable work ethic, her caring, her presence, and her voice have all been exactly what was needed in every category and capacity,” Rovegno said. “She has been there whenever there was need.  We owe her an enormous debt of gratitude.”

Try to imagine what it may have been like for a master’s student in classical studies — one who has excavated Mediterranean archaeological sites in Israel, Greece and Sicily and is on the classical studies doctorate track — to come to grips with the fact that he not only knew, but also had taught introductory Latin to, a mass shooter.

Having fallen in with extremist ideology, this college student had used two pistols to wreak havoc during a Fourth of July weekend before taking his own life.

That wasn’t summer 2022’s mass shooting during the Independence Day parade in Highland Park, Illinois, home to one of the highest concentrations of Jewish residents in the Chicago region.

Rather, it was the three-day, racially motivated drive-by shooting in 1999 that took place in both Illinois and Indiana during which an Indiana University undergrad, who had grown up in Illinois, injured nine Orthodox Jews: men and boys on their way to their synagogue. He then killed an African American former Northwestern University basketball coach, and a Korean exchange student studying graduate level economics at Indiana University.

“That was my turning point,” Doyle Stevick said. “… This was just two months after Columbine. Within six months, my neighbor in Pittsburgh, just five blocks away, did the same thing.”

Stevick will give his talk, “Anne Frank and the Struggle for ‘Never Again,’ ” at 2 p.m. Saturday in the Hall of Philosophy. He will discuss the career path he pivoted to following his encounters with violent extremism in 1999.

This will be the final lecture in this season’s Contemporary Issues Forum speaker series sponsored by the Chautauqua Women’s Club.

Although Stevick completed his master’s in classical studies at Indiana University in 2001, he completed his doctoral work at Indiana University’s School of Education, earning his doctorate in history, philosophy and education policy studies, with a concentration in international and comparative education.

Stevick grew up in Pittsburgh and earned a Bachelor’s of Arts in mathematics, a second Bachelor’s of Arts in history and in classical studies, and a Master’s in ancient history at The Pennsylvania State University. Education policy and practice was a major academic shift.

“I was always bashing the Romans for their xenophobia,” Stevick said. “That had no impact on (that Latin student). It was like shampoo washing off in the shower. You can’t lecture people into (tolerance). I switched fields.”

From then on he devoted his career to understanding, combatting and most importantly, preventing divisive and threatening ideologies.

Stevick sought to “explore the power of education to undermine prejudice and foster prosocial dispositions.” He asked how schooling “could support positive institutional transformations, like Brown v. Board of Education or the collapse of the Soviet Union.”

And he challenged himself to identify the systemic cultural and social changes necessary for fulfilling “the promise of these profound changes,” and to figure out how schools might foster them.  

Searching for answers led Stevick to investigations into “the re-emergence of civil society, democratic culture, and the rule of law in post-communist Europe, with a focus on Holocaust education.”

He was awarded fellowships that funded language and area studies in Romania and Estonia; research in Estonia and Taiwan; and travel expenses to be a visiting scholar at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. His last three books focus on Holocaust education. 

Among the organizations with which Stevick has worked are the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and the Organization for Security and Cooperation’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.

Currently, Stevick is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policies within the University of South Carolina’s College of Education, and the founder and former director of the college’s Office of International and Comparative Education.

He is also the founding executive director of the Anne Frank Center at the University of South Carolina. This university is the official U.S. partner of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. It hosts the only partner site in North America.

From July 6, 1942, until their discovery on Aug. 4, 1944, by German Nazis who occupied Amsterdam during WWII, Anne Frank — who had turned 13 on June 12, 1942 — hid with her 16-year-old sister and their parents as well as four others. Forced into confinement in a three-story secret annex at the back of the building where her German father, Otto Frank, had been the managing director of a pectin business, they were helped by six of his employees.

From the attic of the annex, Anne looked out at one of Amsterdam’s oldest horse chestnut trees. She wrote about the tree in her diary from this period, which was first published in the Netherlands in 1947.

Before the tree succumbed to disease and a strong windstorm in 2010, chestnuts from it were gathered and germinated, and the saplings generated were donated to schools and to other organizations and locations around the world, including special gardens, that were named after or affiliated with Anne.

Similar to how the chestnuts from this tree are spread, the Anne Frank Center’s website shares their mission to share Anne’s story: 

“By sharing Anne’s legacy with visitors, students and teachers, UofSC’s Anne Frank Center seeks to inspire our commitment to never be bystanders but instead to stand up together against anti-Semitism, bigotry and inequality wherever it may exist today.”

Stevick feels as though conversation and connection are ways to overcome this hate. 

“We have to learn that we can get along nicely,” Stevick said. “By getting to know one another we can actively build communities of upstanders.”

The Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect (formerly known as the Anne Frank Center USA), which is based in New York City, has broadened its mission from speaking out against anti-Semitism to exposing and fighting hate more generally, including a broad array of civil and human rights challenges. Chautauquan George Fechter has been a member of its board of directors.

Stevick feels as though the Anne Frank House “stood out for its dynamic approach to cultivating pro-social attitudes and behaviors and undermining prejudice and hate.”

He said that knowledge about Anne Frank is global and that they have developed a traveling exhibition that has “swept the world … on a shoestring budget.” It has been featured in 89 countries.

“Talking with people instead of at them … was a brilliant move,” Stevick said. “From Anne Frank we learned that … children’s voices matter. She’s the only peer we learned from. We learn about Emmett Till, but not his words, just his smile. … With the traveling exhibition, children are learning with one another.”

The staff of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and its partner organizations have been training children to lead the exhibition and conversations, including at schools with dirt floors in South Africa.

“They (learn) they aren’t alone in their struggles,” Stevick said. “Their teachers are blown away. For the first time, children have a room full of adults hanging on their every word. The power of this got me involved.”  

His professional pivot in response to the horrific violent extremism he encountered as a graduate student in classical studies has empowered Stevick to explore methods of countering anti-Semitism and prejudice through creative and inclusive education policies and practices.

On Saturday afternoon, he will have much more to share — including information about the pilot program that Buffalo, New York, is leading to bring together its public and private schools. 

Girl Named Tom may be a trio, but when they sing they become one — a perfect blend and dazzling harmony of voices.     

“Girl Named Tom has an incredibly evocative sound,” said Laura Savia, vice president of performing and visual arts. “The blend of trio members comes through from the first note to the last, perhaps because they are siblings, but certainly because they are talented and skilled musicians. I think their sound is going to be a perfect fit for the Amphitheater.” 

The small town pop-folk, singer-songwriter group of siblings, Bekah, Caleb and Joshua Liechty, are taking the stage at 8:15 p.m. Friday, Aug. 19 in the Amphitheater. From humble beginnings performing in living rooms, Girl Named Tom made history by becoming the first-ever trio to win NBC’s reality singing competition “The Voice” in December 2021.

They have become known for their chart-topping renditions and covers of popular and classic songs, such as Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush,” Ingrid Andress’ “More Hearts Than Mine,” and Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman.” 

The trio’s signature style combines classic and modern sounds reminiscent of Joni Mitchell with contemporary pop influences like Taylor Swift, appealing to people of all ages. The group’s most popular cover is of Crosby, Stills and Nash’s “Helplessly Hoping,” which led them to receive a four-chair-turn on the audition round of “The Voice,” and recently surpassed 1 million streams on Spotify. 

In addition to performing covers, they also write their own original music. In 2019, they released their debut EP Another World with all originals, and shortly after in 2021, they released their first album Hits from the Road, which consists primarily of cover songs. They will perform a gamut of both original songs and renditions at Chautauqua. 

From turning chairs on television to now filling seats on their self-titled national tour, the trio is seeking to use the platform and growing fanbase they have generated to transition into performing in venues across the U.S., and into recording their own music. The group has been on the road throughout summer 2022, experimenting with different spaces and environments, from large festivals to small theaters, trying to find what works best for their sound. The tour also gives them the opportunity to meet many of the fans that supported their journey and evolution on the show. 

“I think that their performances really translated well onto small screens across America,” Savia said. “There’s something very humble, yet at the same time confident, about how they perform. I feel like that’s a part of what set them apart when they burst onto the national scene. I also do think their production quality is also going to be a good fit for this venue.” 

Viewers of “The Voice,” however, not only merely gravitated toward the three siblings’ mesmerizing vocals and down-to-earth personas, but also the group’s vulnerability, transparency and openness about their personal lives. 

“Girl Named Tom’s personal story has also been very public,” Savia said. “Since they’ve come onto the scene, they’ve talked openly about their father’s illness and his death, and their upbringing in a small town. Their story, as is with all artists, is a part of what feeds their art.” 

In January, after winning the show, the trio’s father, Chris Liechty, passed away after a long battle with a rare form of cancer. He always encouraged the siblings to wholeheartedly pursue their dreams in every capacity, even during his final moments. 

“Some people might think that this is the worst timing — our father taking such a downward spiral at the exact moment of our success on national television,” the trio said in an Instagram post prior to their father’s death. “In truth, we feel fortunate and blessed by this (show) — a joyful distraction. ‘The Voice’ has given our family opportunities to connect, reflect and marvel at the love we have for each other.”  

Girl Named Tom has always prioritized and valued family. The trio grew up in Pettisville, Ohio, a town with a population of approximately 500 people and zero stoplights. Growing up, they were all homeschooled, causing them to develop a strong bond with each other and their parents. When Bekah was a baby, Caleb and Joshua would jokingly call her Thomas, which Caleb described in a January 2022 interview on “The Ellen Show” as such a “strange name” to call their sister. This peculiar name, however, served as creative inspiration for the trio’s stage name, Girl Named Tom.

The group first formed in 2019 after Bekah graduated from high school, and after the boys had both graduated from college with bachelor’s  degrees in biochemistry. They had all planned to eventually go off to medical school with aspirations of becoming doctors; however, they each decided to forego medical school as it would take significant time away from their family.

Instead, they decided to take a giant leap of faith and audition for “The Voice” after receiving encouragement from their vocal instructor. The courageous leap of faith has led them to pursue an entirely different path than they had originally envisioned.

“One of my friends has spoken publicly on the topic of making life choices. She talks about how in life each of us have both a plan and a path,” Savia said. “We often spend our whole lives thinking we know the plan, only to bump into the path; however, the trick is not to miss the path when it presents itself. When I look at young artists like Girl Named Tom, who did prepare for a different plan, which included medical school, for them to know and recognize when the path of music was presenting itself is incredible.” 

Savia believes that the group’s trajectory and story, in addition to their heartfelt vocals, will truly resonate with Chautauquans tonight.   

“I think that Girl Named Tom will be in good company with Chautauquans,” Savia said. “People who are by definition looking for a path — for a path in literature, the humanities, the arts, religion, and recreation every day that they choose to be here.” 

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Maria Ressa is capping a week of courage by sharing her own experiences of bravery in journalism.

“We close our Chautauqua Lecture Series with one of the most exceptional champions and fighters for protecting free speech: Maria Ressa,” said Matt Ewalt, vice president and Emily and Richard Smucker Chair for Education. “The Nobel Prize honors that work, but those deep challenges to free speech — and to the role journalism plays in seeking out truth and being a critical challenge to those in power in terms of transparency and obligation to the larger public — are so clearly evident in her work each and every day.”

At 10:45 a.m. Friday, Aug. 19 in the Amphitheater, Ressa, CEO of the online news website Rappler, will give her lecture about her continued fight for freedom of expression. Born and based in the Philippines, Ressa has worked as a local correspondent for CNN, covering the growth of terrorism in Southeast Asia, and in 2012 co-founded Rappler as a way to fight against misinformation online. 

“With Maria Ressa, I anticipate both the championing of good and necessary journalism in the world, but also the larger public’s obligation to support that work, and the responsibility of other institutions to protect it,” Ewalt said.

Rappler is leading the charge for press freedom in the Philippines, and has been constantly attacked and harassed by President Rodrigo Duterte and his administration since his election in 2016. For her work, Ressa was named one of Time magazine’s 2018 Person of the Year, was among its 100 Most Influential People of 2019, and has also been named one of Time’s Most Influential Women of the Century. 

The author of three books, her forthcoming work to be published this fall is titled How to Stand up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future. In 2021, she and Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov were co-awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace,” according to the Nobel Foundation.

In her speech accepting her Nobel Prize, Ressa said she was a representative of all journalists who make sacrifices to stay true to their values and mission. 

“At the core of journalism is a code of honor. And mine is layered on different worlds — from how I grew up, when I learned what was right and wrong; from college, and the honor code I learned there; and my time as a reporter, and the code of standards and ethics I learned and helped write,” she said in her acceptance speech. “Add to that the Filipino idea of utang na loob — or the debt from within — at its best, a system of paying it forward. Truth and ethical honor intersected like an arrow into this moment where hate, lies and divisiveness thrive.”

Through Rappler, Ressa has worked to examine two sides of the same coin: the information ecosystem and the technology it was created by. Ressa battles the spread of misinformation and the damage it causes.

In the span of two years, the Philippine government filed 10 arrest warrants against her, and she has posted bail 10 times to continue her work. All the charges she faces can send her to prison for about 100 years. 

“But, the more I was attacked for my journalism, the more resolute I became,” Ressa said in her acceptance speech. “I had first-hand evidence of abuse of power. What was meant to intimidate me and Rappler only strengthened us.”

With Rappler, Ressa has attacked two fronts: Duterte’s drug war and Facebook. 

“Online violence is real world violence,” Ressa said in her speech. “Social media is a deadly game for power and money. … Facebook is the world’s largest distributor of news, and yet studies have shown that lies laced with anger and hate spread faster and further than facts on social media. These American companies controlling our global information ecosystem are biased against facts, biased against journalists. They are — by design — dividing us and radicalizing us.”

Without facts, she said, there is no truth. 

“Without truth, you can’t have trust,” she said. “Without trust, we have no shared reality, no democracy, and it becomes impossible to deal with our world’s existential problems: climate, Coronavirus, the battle for truth.”

All of this makes her a fitting concluding lecture in a week on “New Profiles in Courage,” Ewalt said.

“As with many voices that we hear from on the Amphitheater stage, there is the work being done that can be inspiring, and the challenge to us of the role we play as individuals, as communities,” Ewalt said. “There is an unsettling of assumptions and what we take for granted, that pushes us to ask more questions of ourselves, of our institutions.”

Feminist values have become more prominent within the social discourse of the last century; it has been an even longer road for those values to emerge in the dialogue of religious communities. The need for advocates of justice, peace and equality within religious communities is immense. Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB, a Benedictian Sister of Erie, Pennsylvania, is one of those advocates, using her work to promote feminist values alongside religious ones. 

She will give her lecture, titled “The Time is Now,” at 2 p.m. Friday, Aug. 19 in the Hall of Philosophy to close Week Eight of the Interfaith Lecture Series, “New Profiles in Courage.” 

She is a theologian, author and has served as the Benedictine prioress and federation president, and president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. Chittister said she wants to question and observe the roles of every institution, group and citizen involved in developing a culture. 

“(America) is moving more and more into a position of observership, we observe everybody else (and) we observe what’s going on,” Chittister said. 

In the current state of the U.S. government, people often observe without taking action. There’s no participation other than sharing a social media post, she said; the questions that need to be asked are being ignored.

“When I was a young woman, there was no feminist talk at the time,” Chittister said. “The strongest women I saw anywhere in my life were the sisters who taught me, and I saw them as strong, independent, committed and loving women — they were so good to me.”

From a young age Chittister knew she wanted to be a sister. She said there was almost no activism for women when she began work with the sisters. 

“These sisters became a model to me of womanhood,” Chittister said. “I admit that there was no language in my world to talk about groups of women and the impact of them.”

Reflecting on the attack on Salman Rushdie Friday morning at Chautauqua, Chittister said the assault does not necessarily change her speech, but rather emphasizes the importance of such conversations.

“I want to talk about the whole notion that we are living in a culture that enables last Friday,” Chittister said. “We’re a country of violence, the most violent country on the globe, and we don’t even seem to care.”

Stereotypically, people with opposing viewpoints don’t get along. But stereotypes aren’t always applicable in the context of controversial subjects such as politics. People with opposing viewpoints can be acquainted and even admire each other.

Robert P. George, Princeton University’s McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program and Cornel West, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at Union Theological Seminary, could not have less common ground in their cultural, social and political beliefs. But they do have a close friendship. 

The two are an example of reaching across the political divide, having taught courses together, written together and traveled the world together discussing the importance of civil and honest discourse. 

George will draw from this friendship as he gives his lecture, “What Causes – And What Might Cure Campus Illiberalism?” at 2 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 18 in the Hall of Philosophy to continue the Week Eight theme of “New Profiles in Courage.”

Illiberalism is the rejection of basic civil liberties, such as the freedoms outlined in the First Amendment.

“Sometimes it’s not the outright rejection as it is having such a limited and constrained view of those freedoms, that the life is sucked out of them,” George said. “So they lose their robust meaning.” 

He plans to talk about situations on college campuses where speakers are disinvited from speaking because of their personal views, despite the importance of their research or necessary topics they may have planned to discuss.

“Sometimes it’s worse than disinvitations, although that’s bad enough,” George said. “A speaker is not only protested … but are obstructed or shouted down or not allowed to be heard or threatened or intimidated.”

These are all examples of illiberalism, and George said one instance he remembers profoundly is Dorian Abbot, associate professor of geosciences at the University of Chicago. Abbot was disinvited to give the 2021 John Carlson Lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“His lecture was not going to be on anything controversial,” George said. “It was going to be on how scientists figure out what the climate is like on planets outside our solar system. That’s not a political talk, but a very interesting one from a scientific point of view.”

MIT was pressured by people on campus to disinvite Abbot after reading an op-ed he and another colleague released on how hiring in the science industry should be based only on scholarly accomplishments, not race, gender or any other identifiable factor.

“It is controversial that you should hire only on the basis of scholarly narrative — we have a big debate on this in our country,” George said. “There were people who didn’t approve of Professor Abbot’s point of view (and) they demanded that MIT cancel his lecture.”

When George found out about the cancelation, he got in touch with Abbot and gave him the opportunity to give the same talk, but at Princeton.

“The lecture went forward, but not at MIT,” George said. “That’s an example of someone being denied an opportunity to speak his case. Not because of what he was going to be saying at MIT, but because of his views about an unrelated matter.”

A properly liberal spirit welcomes an expression of a wide range of viewpoints, George said; the best approach is to bring up all sides of controversial questions so people can make up their minds themselves.

George said he doesn’t like ideologically-partisan labels, but sometimes they are necessary to provide a broad perspective.

“We need to be careful because most people don’t fit under any one comprehensive description,” George said. “We need to make sure that in our effort to be efficient in our communication, we don’t shortchange accuracy.”

Labels and illiberalism can damage the intellectual culture of any campus, from K-12 schools to graduate programs. George said it deprives young people of the opportunity to learn.

“In all fields of learning, it’s important to the health of the intellectual enterprise that liberalism is not ashamed,” George said. “(It needs) a wide range of reasonable points of view that are well-expressed.”

George said he and West are dear friends who happen to be at different places on the political spectrum.

“We can learn from each other because we don’t go into it convinced that we absolutely know the truth infallibly,” George said. “I learn from Cornel all the time, and he says he learns from me all the time.”

People who seek the truth will find others who wish to do the same, and then there are those who do not conform to what people believe they should. George said both of these kinds of people should be appreciated.

“I want to commend the courage, both of the dissenters, whether I happen to agree with them or not, that doesn’t matter,” George said. “They’ve got the courage to express their dissent. They deserve commendation for that. And I want to commend the courage.”

The traditional marks of a good business are often measured by profits, stakeholder equity and utility. As corporate America shifts in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, one value is being left behind: care for the consumers. 

Chip Bergh, president and CEO of Levi Strauss & Co., is among one of the leading business figureheads in America who tries to look beyond profit to better help people across the globe. Ford Foundation President Darren Walker will join Bergh in conversation at 10:45 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 18 in the Amphitheater to discuss what it means to be courageous in big business, and how Bergh has stood for his values in his career. 

In 2019, Bergh was named one of the World’s Greatest Leaders by Fortune magazine. Prior to taking up the role as president of Levi Strauss & Co., Bergh served on the board of directors for the apparel company VF Corporation and the Singapore Economic Development Board. He also worked at Procter & Gamble for 28 years, overseeing the launch of Swifter, Gillette and more multimillion dollar products under P&G’s name. Additionally, Bergh was named nonexecutive chairman of the board of HP Inc. in 2017. 

Walker has participated in conversations with several speakers throughout the Week Eight theme “New Profiles in Courage.” With Bergh, he anticipates a fresh perspective on courage in corporate America. 

“Chip is an example of a corporate CEO who has exhibited courage, because he has been willing to go against the grain of sometimes normative thought,” Walker said. “Chip has challenged the idea that the only purpose of a company is profits.”

Bergh has campaigned for investment to be returned to employees and their communities, an act that Walker said “takes courage in a time when most of the incentives for public company CEOs are strictly financial, and most of the indicators of success are mostly financial.”

Levi Strauss sells clothing in more than 110 countries worldwide, and has approximately 500 stores. Under Bergh’s leadership, Levi Strauss returned to public markets with a successful initial public offering in March 2019. Walker himself has served on corporate boards for Block, Inc. and Ralph Lauren.

“I plan on situatuating Chip in the context of corporate America in 2022 and the difficulty for a leader to exhibit courage when they are often discouraged from being courageous,” he said. 

As Week Eight nears an end, Walker hopes people learn from Bergh’s strategy and leadership, and act with the same bravery. 

“Chautauquans should expect to understand a leader and a company that believes in a double bottom line, a financial return and social return,” Walker said. “That it is possible for more companies to be like Levi Strauss, and that they can play a role — Chautauqua as shareholders of companies can demand that their companies seek a double bottom line, too.”  

Staff writer Kaitlyn Finchler contributed to this report. 

In his Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle lecture, Ryan Busse wants to get to the roots of radicalization in the United States.

“I was inside the firearms industry for 20 years,” said Busse, an author and former firearms industry executive. “(My lecture) is really about discussing those roots, and what can be done to halt or reverse them.”

At 3:30 p.m. today in Norton Hall — a new location announced Wednesday night — Busse will give a CLSC lecture on his book, Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America, which chronicles Busse’s time in the firearms industry. 

The location change was announced at the same time as new security protocols‚ including metal detection tools, at the Institution. The new protocols come not from any new imminent threat, officials said, but out of caution following discussion with security advisers and program guests.

“Starting in 2004, I realized that I was inside of an industry that was having a massive impact on the nation, way more outsized than somebody in the cereal industry, for instance,” he said. “I realized, ‘Holy smokes, guns and gun politics are changing the country.’ And about then, I had a lot of doubts about the trajectory of the industry.”

Busse said he began living a “dual life” — he participated in the industry and his business, but held doubts about where it was all headed.

“To my knowledge, I was the only one who felt that way,” he said. “It is an industry much like a church, where participation almost requires 100% devotion. 

“People who are doubters don’t tend to last very long, but there I was. I started thinking then that there were components of what I lived every day that could be a book, or a TV show, or a screenplay.” Going about 15 years, Busse said he began tallying the “crazy stories” he encountered daily. 

“In 2019, I started to do a lot of writing,” he said. “I wanted to get stories and thoughts out on paper with not really any formal structure, just get up in the morning and pour it out. I compiled that into a query letter, sent it to a literary agent and she immediately recognized it as a story that needed to be told.”

Ultimately, Busse said he wants Chautauquans to recognize that “this thing that is now American democracy is not just happening to us.” He also wants them to recognize that they influence the way society operates. 

“There are things that we are doing in our society to make it this way,” he said. “In other words, understanding the roots of what is causing some of our democratic distress. The other thing is that we all run the risk of overcommitment to components of our lives that are now becoming our identities. For me, in the firearms industry, you pretty much had to be all-in.”

The oratorio Sanctuary Road, like any operatic works, has a composer — Paul Moravec — and a librettist — Mark Campbell. It’s a traditional authorship, to be sure, but Moravec likes to say that the two had a third collaborator: William Still.

Still was a businessman, abolitionist and a conductor on the Underground Railroad, who helped nearly 800 enslaved Black people to freedom before the Civil War. He was also a meticulous notekeeper, and in 1872 published The Underground Railroad Records, whose contents are taking on new life with Moravec and Campbell’s work, which will be performed in the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra concert “Paths to Freedom: Sanctuary Road” at 8:15 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 18 in the Amphitheater, conducted by CSO Music Director Rossen Milanov, joined by the Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus. 

“What makes Sanctuary Road so relevant is that its story is directly inspired by the writings of William Still,” said Laura Savia, Chautauqua’s vice president of performing and visual arts. “He was just a pillar of the Underground Railroad, and kept the most meticulous records of everyone who came through the eastern line who had any connection to him. It’s because of his writings we know as much about parts of the Underground Railroad as we do — but he’s not a household name.”

This evening’s concert features Moravec and Campbell’s oratorio work, though Sanctuary Road is also now an opera that premiered last March with the North Carolina Opera. The oratorio, commissioned by the Oratorio Society of New York and premiered in 2018 at Carnegie Hall, is an example of how Campbell and Moravec are exploring and reinventing the oratorio for the modern era, Savia said. 

The work’s creators have dubbed it an “operatorio.” Even the New York Classical Review, upon its 2018 premiere, described the work as an oratorio “in the full quasi-operatic sense, rich in character, action, and vocal display.”

Moravec, who won a Pulitzer in 2004 for his Shakespearean reimagining Tempest Fantasy, has been the recipient of numerous fellowships, including from the Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts, and three awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He first started work on Sanctuary Road in 2016; it is the second in a three-part series of sweeping oratorios exploring American history. 

“It is remarkable just the sheer amount of documentation that Moravec and Campbell have to work with,” Savia said. “Of course they would consider Still their third collaborator.”

A three-piece oratorio series. Three collaborators on Sanctuary Road. And within the work itself, the rule of threes comes yet again, as Still is not just the central figure: He acts the narrator, a commentator and an active participant in the story.

“He’s editorializing, he’s jumping in and acting out scenes from his own life,” Savia said. “I love the toggling between narration and action. For (Moravec and Campbell), who are aware that they’re two white men telling this story, it’s so important to them that they place William Still, a real-life hero, at the center.”

Tonight, Still will be portrayed by bass-baritone Richard L. Hodges in his Chautauqua debut. He’s joined by soprano Laquita Mitchell, tenor Joshua Stewart, baritone Malcolm J. Merriweather and mezzo-soprano Melody Wilson. 

With Sanctuary Road being performed tonight, in the same way that the Institution programmed a community conversation the day prior to the production of Bill Barclay’s The Chevalier — another work dedicated to an influential Black man nearly lost to history — earlier in the summer, so too was there a conversation held on Sanctuary Road on Wednesday evening, led by Michael I. Rudell Director of Literary Arts Sony Ton-Aime. 

“Not only is this an oratorio work and orchestral work that is inspired by literary writings, but with Sony’s vast knowledge of contemporary American writings and writings of the African diaspora, we can really amplify the stories, themes, resonances that are in Sanctuary Road,” Savia said. “This means we get to go deeper for a piece like this, because Chautauqua Institution is committed to growing into more of a year-round incubator for writers and creators. This conversation is an opportunity to understand those processes.”

Between the work itself, the Wednesday conversation, and the talk-back scheduled immediately after tonight’s concert, Savia wanted to create as deep a dive as possible into Still and his story — and all of the dramatic, operatic moments it includes.

When Matthew Whitaker was 9 years old, he could play a song on the piano with perfection after having only heard it once. At 15, Whitaker released his debut album to critical acclaim, collaborating with contemporary jazz icons. And at 21 years old, Whitaker is touring the nation, doing what he enjoys most: playing music.

He’s been playing from the age of 5, moving onto composing and performing, as well — all without the sense of sight.

Born with an eye disease brought on by premature birth that’s caused him to live with blindness, Whitaker has become an emerging talent, already making a name for himself as a jazz pianist and organist among the likes of Art Tatum and Duke Ellington.

Despite the challenges he lives with, his musical spirit and positivity persist, giving energetic performances with a broad and joyful smile on his face.

At 8:15 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 17 in the Amphitheater, Whitaker’s jazzy vivacity will be in full swing.

“I knew that Chautauqua would celebrate Matthew as a gifted musician who is focused on being an inspiration to others,” said Deborah Sunya Moore, senior vice president and chief program officer.

The Matthew Whitaker Quintet will perform a blend of classic, contemporary and original jazz pieces with inspired liveliness. Whitaker will be joined onstage by bassist Karim Hutton and guitarist Marcos Robinson, who both contributed to Whitaker’s latest release, Connections. The quintet will also feature Johnny Steele on drums and Ivan Llanes on percussion.

Connections, Whitaker’s third album, “takes him a full leap forward,” wrote reviewer Frank Alkyer for DownBeat magazine. “The fleetness of finger, the touch and taste, the grit and grime when he needs it, the lightness and airiness when it’s called upon — Whitaker has it all.”

Whitaker’s prodigious skill and ceaseless enthusiasm inspire both his audience and his bandmates.

“We are all hungry for inspiration, and this musician’s ability to radiate joy through jazz should not be missed,” Moore said.

Week Eight at Chautauqua has already examined courage through science and faith, in the face of loss and adversity. A recurring theme is courage in politics — especially divided politics. 

“As we think about these issues of what it means to be courageous, and how we think about courage during such a deeply polarizing and troubled time, that question around the intersection of courage and politics was one that deeply interested us,” said Matt Ewalt, vice president and Emily and Richard Smucker Chair for Education.

At 10:45 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 17 in the Amphitheater, Jonah Goldberg, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the center-right digital news site The Dispatch and the former senior editor of National Review, will be in conversation with Nancy Gibbs, director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. 

Goldberg is the author of several books, most recently Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy. A conservative columnist for several publications and his own Dispatch, he’s a regular contributor to major new networks, including CNN, MSNBC and, until November 2021, Fox News. He and fellow pundit Stephen Hayes left the network after its streaming service aired a documentary series from Tucker Carlson called “Patriot Purge.”

It was “a collection of incoherent conspiracy-mongering, riddled with factual inaccuracies, half-truths, deceptive imagery and damning omissions,” Goldberg and Hayes, who co-founded The Dispatch with Goldberg, wrote in a blog post announcing their departures.

Changes in the media landscape over the last few years will be a part of Goldberg and Gibbs’ conversation today.

“Earlier in the week, we heard from Congressman Jamie Raskin about courage in politics more broadly, as we think about issues of trauma and collective trauma as it relates to Jan. 6,” Ewalt said. “But with Jonah Goldberg, we have one of the most significant conservative thinkers of our time in conversation with Nancy Gibbs, around the divisiveness of our politics, the state of American conservatism and an examination of our media landscape, all with these larger themes of courage in mind now.”

Ewalt said that Goldberg, an author and a fellow at the National Review Institute and the American Enterprise Institute, will provide an examination of liberal and conservative ideologies, economic policy and the changed role of media. With Gibbs, former managing editor of TIME magazine, he will look into how to define and exercise courage in a polarized world. 

“With the polarization of our country right now, we often settle, within ourselves, upon a kind of linear or two-dimensional (perspective), or think it’s one of two sides,” Ewalt said. “Yet, our politics is far more complicated than that.”

Goldberg and Gibbs, through today’s conversation, will challenge the idea of our democracy and discuss courage in politics. 

“What does it mean to unsettle that kind of simplification, and begin to think of where we find courage within ideas that, on the surface, we may not agree with, but in fact play a role in larger work that a society is confronting?” Ewalt asked.