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Review by Vicky A. Clark-

“On Common Ground: Works on Paper” at the Strohl Art Center, curated by the Susan and John Turben Director of VACI Galleries Judy Barie, shows how the medium of drawing has changed.

Traditionally, drawings were used as preliminary sketches for more formal works, but some artists had such a deft hand and rendered the smallest details so perfectly that a drawing looked like a finished work. Someone like Albrecht Dürer could capture the most detailed world in his prints, utilizing hidden symbols to add meaning to his mostly religious subjects. Leonardo da Vinci, in contrast, filled notebooks with ideas for inventions, drawings of human anatomy, and quick studies of nature. Centuries later, artists like Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres continued to produce highly detailed portraits, but some, like Henri Matisse, experimented with new methods, landing on his famous paper cutouts when his physical situation deteriorated so much that he couldn’t continue to paint. The definition of drawing continues to expand with artists using new methods and techniques such as fiber or videotape. Tree branches can be used as a drawing tool or as components of the composition. From preliminary study to scientific rendering to abstract composition, works on paper have captivated viewers for centuries. 

While many historic drawings were never meant to be framed and shown in a museum, things have shifted substantially in the modern era with some artists only producing drawings. Additionally, artists have increased the size of their work and have been experimenting with new materials. Sometimes the final product is a cross between drawing and photography, painting, sculpture, and even film.

Brenda Stumpf makes mixed-media works by adding a variety of materials to her surface, creating, ironically, a texture that resembles layers found at excavation or archaeological sites. Her most recent work has been influenced by her new house, an old church that she is restoring. In “Revelation” and “Invocation,” steel beams replace paper as a surface, adding to the architectural and structural grounding. Stumpf then produces a light-filled, scumbled ground that evokes the mystical and the sacred, in both places and people, with traces of histories, stories and states of being in her combination of real and imagined worlds. Her work could be considered maps that have moved far beyond geography. Her aesthetic and conceptual combinations can also be seen in her sculpture, including “To the Unknown” that is included in the “Small Sculptures: Big Impact” show.

A similar interest in enriching the surface, adding texture and depth, is a characteristic of the work by Bridget Quirk. She, however, uses kitschy materials, most notably fake hair, to animate her colorful portraits. Collage became popular in the early 20th century, as artists began to flatten their picture plane, fracturing objects into intersecting planes to create spatial confusion. Soon, that deconstruction included content as well, with an accumulation of symbols or disparate items that create a personal iconography. Using such a variety of materials — pastel, acrylic, hair, colored pencil and magazine cutouts — Quirk enhances the spatial inconsistencies as her cast of characters seem slightly out of sorts, broken down into parts and then pieced back together. The eyes, clipped from magazines, add a disconcerting touch of realism, and we are left with more questions than answers about her subjects’ identities. Although based on photographs of important people in her life, they seem like sketches for idiosyncratic players in the theater of the absurd, anime or video games, or perhaps people featured in Saturday morning cartoons. 

An artist whose work relates well to Quirk’s is Su Su, who emigrated from Beijing to Pittsburgh, in 2011. Like many transplants, she views the world through a bifurcated lens, and she channels her interests in intersections, juxtapositions and disconnects into her paintings where she experiments with complex, often disjointed, compositions as well as new painting materials. For this show, she contributed three paintings on paper of pop culture icons, Cary Grant, Mr. Rogers and Humphrey Bogart. Restricting her palette to an eerie bluish/gray-like sepia, stretching and distorting her faces like visual effects artists or English artist Francis Bacon, she presents a radically different interpretation of these men. They have been put through a blender and then placed in front of a funhouse mirror, perhaps to star in an episode of “The Twilight Zone” or some sci-fi, shape-shifting adventure.

Working in a very different way is Nathan Heuer, whose extremely precise drawings make viewers question whether he is depicting real or imagined buildings. They have the same double-take effect of Claes Oldenburg’s proposed monuments that ranged from a toilet bowl float in River Thames, to a teddy bear in Central Park. Heuer’s “Next Year’s Remodel” features a series of brick buildings in a state of disrepair. Are we looking at urban decay or the beginning of new dwellings? Creative reuse is a recurring theme here. Heuer gives us a schematic rendering of a semi, but upon closer examination, there is an incongruous air conditioner on the roof. In fact, this piece records a repurposed rig retrofitted as an office/store in order to sell shrimp. The artist also follows in the footsteps of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, whose exquisite, mind-blowing architectural prints record both existing and imaginary structures.

Despite the differences in the work of these artists, they share an interest in an in-between space that exists somewhere between dream and quotidian, imagined and real. They all make the ordinary, extraordinary, in ways that evoke ideas of stranger than fiction, more real than real, and imagined fantasies. Their content, like their technique, has blown open the parameters of drawings with a freshness and excitement.

Vicky A. Clark is an independent curator, critic and teacher based in Pittsburgh. Throughout her 30 years in the Pittsburgh art scene, she has served as a curator for the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, and curated “The Popular Salon for the People: Associate Artists at the Carnegie Museum of Art” exhibition.

The M&M Piano Duo has something as sweet as their name to offer in their performance this weekend: a program of French music full of dances and delights.

At 4 p.m. Saturday, August 3 in Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall, as part of the Chautauqua Chamber Music Resident Artist Series, School of Music faculty members Martin Dubé and Kanae Matsumoto will perform a recital of piano duets, some for two pianos and some for four-hand playing, the latter of which they will play together on the same piano.

The name Dubé and Matsumoto gave themselves, the M&M Piano Duo, is both a combination of their names (Martin and Matsumoto) and a tribute to Marlena Malas, the chair of the Voice Program who is on leave this summer, and to whom they credit their presence at Chautauqua.

“Without her we (would not be) here,” Matsumoto said. “We owe her a lot: how we listen to music, how we feel music, how we listen to each other, how we love each other. … She is a very important person in our lives.”

The recital will begin with Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for Piano Four Hands, a relatively straightforward piece meant to sound childlike and sweet. As it was originally written as part of the salon music tradition and meant to be performed for only a parlor room full of guests, Dubé and Matsumoto face the challenge of keeping that intimate sound while magnifying it for the concert hall.

“It is the simplest music,” Dubé said. “Not necessarily the most easy, but it’s not profound music at all. … It’s almost like little rhymes.”

This will be followed by Claude Debussy’s “Petite Suite,” also for four hands, which is made up of four smaller movements: “En Bateau” (On a Boat), “Cortège” (Procession), “Menuet” (Minuet) and “Ballet.”

“It’s such a delicate, pleasant, playful (piece),” Matsumoto said. “(Like) French dessert.”

Next, the program will return to Poulenc, as Dubé and Matsumoto play his Sonata for Two Pianos. Written in the post-war turmoil of early 1950s France, the piece makes use of conflict between the pianos to paint a portrait of the world at that time. It is the most solemn piece on the program, and a particular favorite of Dubé’s.

“(It’s) very humorous, but it can be so profound and so touching, and these harmonies really get me a lot,” Dubé said.

The two will take on a hefty piece for the finale of the recital: Maurice Ravel’s “La Valse” (The Waltz). If Debussy’s “Petite Suite” is dessert, then this piece is the main course. Originally written for a full orchestra, this version distills all the color and complexity of dozens of instruments into just two pianos.

“It’s really the pièce de résistance of the show,” Dubé said. “It’s a big shebang; it’s great. I hope we play it so well that everyone is going to waltz leaving the hall.”

The piece begins chaotically, like a ballroom full of people, before the melody of the waltz emerges. Throughout, the music is meant to evoke the imagery of a big dance at a ball.

“Lights coming in, people swirling, some people having a little affair in the corner of the room — you just use your imagination,” Matsumoto said. “Again, another delight, … just the fact that we are playing it — oh my God, ooh-la-la.”

It will be Dubé and Matsumoto’s first time playing in concert together. In many cases, pianists playing duets together for the first time can struggle to adjust to each other’s styles and musical understandings, but Dubé and Matsumoto have found that they have meshed together easily. Part of this, they agreed, likely comes from their experience as vocal coaches. They are trained to listen closely to the vocalists and change their playing to accommodate the singer’s performance; so, when playing with each other, they know how to listen and follow each other’s lead.

“Sometimes I have the illusion of — we’re playing together, but it’s as if I’m playing alone,” Matsumoto said. “Because it’s so inclusive, because we’re so in sync, I don’t feel like we’re two separate entities.”

Though the program covers a range of emotions from humor and wit, to anger and sorrow, Dubé and Matsumoto are mostly excited to have fun with it.

“There are some moments of serious music, but that’s not what I want to hear from (the audience), like, ‘Oh my God, that was so touching,’ ” Dubé said. “I want them to say, ‘Oh my God, you guys were having a blast there.’ ”

A taste of Americana music will come to Chautauqua this weekend.

Ken Hardley will host a taping of his Rolling Hills Radio show at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, August 4 in the Amphitheater, with guests Christine Lavin and The Farmer & Adele.

Hardley’s Jamestown-based radio show celebrates grassroots Americana music, which includes the subgenres of folk and Western swing.

“Americana music, to me, is music that is ostensibly rooted in American attitudes,” Hardley said. “Interestingly, almost every subgenre of Americana has come from somewhere else. For example, the banjo did not come from America, but we think about it as a distinctly American instrument. The genre represents a beautiful quilt of inclusivity.”

Rolling Hills Radio is typically taped at Shawbucks in Jamestown, but once annually for the past few years, a show has been taped at Chautauqua Institution.

The show’s format is modeled after radio shows that were popular in the 1940s, and features music as well as interviews with the artists.

Both Lavin and The Farmer & Adele are returning guests of Rolling Hills.

Lavin is a New York City-based singer-songwriter and guitarist.

“Christine has been a folk staple since the early ’80s,” Hardley said. “Everyone in the folk genre knows Christine. She has made a name for herself as someone who is really hysterically funny.”

Lavin just released her 23rd solo album, Spaghettification.

“She’s a dynamite songwriter,” Hardley said. “She can write love songs, angry songs and she can write satirical songs.”

Nashville-based Western swing group The Farmer & Adele is made up of husband-and-wife duo, Keenan Wade and Grace Adele.

“There’s a backbeat of the music that right away gets your toes tapping,” Grace Adele said. “It has that warm, inviting, joyful sound with a bit of a jazz undertone.”

Their cowboy and cowgirl music evokes imagery of horses clopping and tumbleweeds rolling across the Western landscape. When the couple started writing in this genre of music, they took a trip out West for inspiration.

“All that beautiful open sky out there was inspiring,” Keenan Wade said.

Keenan Wade plays the mandolin, and Grace Adele plays the archtop guitar. At the Sunday performance, they will be accompanied with a fiddle player, bass player and pedal steel guitar player.

“One of the biggest jobs I have as the guy who books the acts is to make sure there’s an onstage chemistry,” Hardley said. “It’s going to be a very lively and funny show, and the technical musicianship is going to be over-the-top. They’re perfect complements for each other.”

Hardley has been hosting the now-nationally syndicated show for about a decade, with nine shows each season. This weekend’s show at Chautauqua will be the show’s 89th episode.

The show is always taped in front of a live audience, which Hardley said enhances the experience.

“We live in a two-dimensional world nowadays; we watch our computer screens and TV,” he said. “This is real, live stuff. You can see people up onstage in three dimensions. You can smell the perfume of the woman next to you.”

The last new gallery exhibition of the season opened Thursday, the Visual Arts Lecture Series ended on Friday, and the School of Art is wrapping up at the end of Week Seven, but Chautauquans looking for more opportunities to interact with the visual arts are in luck this weekend.

From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, August 3 at Miller Park, Chautauquans can peruse the art of more than 65 vendors at this season’s second and final Art in the Park market.

The market is hosted by VACI Partners and features the work of Chautauquans, local artisans and the students and emerging artists at the School of Art.

Visitors will be able to buy everything from one-of-a-kind clothing and organic cosmetics to ceramics and paintings.

Jean Fulkerson, VACI Partner’s board president, said VACI Partners has been receiving registration requests from vendors since March.

“Through Monday, people were inquiring if there were tables still available,” she said.

All table fees from vendors will go toward scholarships for the School of Art. 

Fulkerson said that VACI Partners always plan Art in the Park markets for Sundays, when admission to the grounds is free. This way, the markets can be accessible for Institution residents and members of the surrounding community alike.

“It’s a wonderful way for people in the local area to make an entire day out of visiting Chautauqua,” she said. “Maybe they come for church or for lunch, and then they can walk through the park. … The Institution has …  projects where they go out into the community, and this is a way for (the community) to come into Chautauqua.”

In rain and sunshine, the Chautauqua Women’s Club celebrated its 130th anniversary and largest 2019 fundraiser with four events over the July 19 weekend. Over 33 consecutive years, through 2018, CWC has donated nearly $1.6 million in student scholarship funds to Chautauqua Institution, making them the largest fundraisers among on-grounds, independent organizations. On Friday afternoon, Wes Cowan — a long-time PBS “Antiques Roadshow” appraiser and the week’s Contemporary Issues Forum speaker — evaluated 20 items in a “Roadshow”-like event that concluded with a reception. Saturday and Sunday featured a silent auction of antiques, crafts, jewelry and other donated items. Seventy pies from Westfield’s Portage Pies were added on Sunday, as were activities for children. The 130th Anniversary Cocktail Celebration honoring the CWC’s past, present and future occurred Saturday evening.

With easily the largest group in the Old First Night Run/Walk this year, the Webb family is clocking in with 25 participants — not all of them human.

The Webb family will make their grand appearance at the OFN Run/Walk, starting at 8 a.m. Saturday, August 3 at the Sports Club. First joining the race in 1991, Jo-Ann Webb has attended every year since, involving generations of her family over the years.

“We started coming to Chautauqua when we had a restaurant here; it was probably in the ’60s,” Webb said. “I have four children, nine grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren, so about half of the group is here. We pick the time and the kids have started out, the grandkids started out, when they were boys and girls.”

The event draws in Chautauquans from all over, but the Webb family takes the cake every year, adding to the group every season. With family coming from all over the country to participate, they are well-known around the grounds.

“They live anywhere from San Francisco to Charleston, to Washington, D.C. to Bradenton, Florida,” Webb said. “So everybody in the family makes it a point to come, and we stay in two houses so that we have space for everybody to stay.”

This year is no different, with the Webb family having 23 family members participating in the OFN Run/Walk, ranging in age from 1 1/2 years old to 91. Webb said the youngest was born in March 2018. On top of their extended family, the Webbs have decided to bring two dogs along for the walk.

Wes Delancey, Webb’s nephew, has been participating in the walk since the age of 2; he’s now 37. Delancey and Webb both agreed that the OFN Run/Walk is a wonderful family activity that brings them closer together, despite the differences in age. 

“It’s just whoever shows up, certainly some years we had as little as six to as many as 20,” Webb said. “And recently, I got the award for being the oldest one to compete for the Spirit Award. So now what I do is I get the shirt, and then I walk as far as I can and come back and greet racers as they show up.”

“This is a sermon about second chances, a lesson based on Ebenezer Scrooge,” said the Rev. Susan Sparks at the 9:15 a.m. Thursday Ecumenical Service in the Amphitheater.

Her sermon title was “Healing the Humbug,” and the Scripture text was Luke 2:9-14. The Advent theme was “joy.”

Sparks’ favorite movie version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is the 1970 “Scrooge,” which stars Albert Finney as Scrooge, and features Alec Guinness as the ghost of Jacob Marley, Scrooge’s deceased business partner.

“My favorite character is Marley,” she said. “Scrooge is sitting in his living room, eating three-day-old porridge, and he hears chains coming up the stairs.”

She rattled a chain fashion belt, and Jared Jacobson, Chautauqua’s organist and coordinator of worship and sacred music, joined in with ominous music from the Massey Memorial Organ.

“Marley flings the door open and says, ‘I wear the chains I forged in life, link by link, yard by yard,’ ” Sparks said.

Again, she rattled the belt and the organ sounded.

“It is a brilliant image, but not enough to scare Scrooge,” she said. “Three ghosts visit him to help him take a raw, painful inventory of his life. I just can’t walk away from this story; I am haunted by its implications.”

Sparks said everyone can feel a little “draggy” wearing 700 yards of heavy chains. Those chains could be the sore muscles of an aging body, self doubt, guilt, worry, greed, selfishness, depression, anger or fear.

“When we start forging those chains, we begin to change our personalities,” she said. “We look at all things good and true and say ‘humbug.’ Dickens was right about Scrooge, and about us.”

Sparks proposed a “Marley test” for the congregation to take immediately.

“What if you were visited by three ghosts — past, present and future — what would you see?” she asked. “Where would your path end up? If you were given a second chance, how would you change?”

The Ghost of Christmas Past helps Scrooge look at his early life and the choices he had made. He chose greed over love, and station over family.

“What choices have you made that you regret?” Sparks asked. “It is tragic when we do. As columnist Erma Bombeck said, ‘Think about the women on the Titanic who said no to dessert.’ It is easy to forget dessert, it is easy to postpone joy. Time is ticking. There are years you will never get back while you are waiting for the right time. The Book of Proverbs says don’t boast about tomorrow because you don’t know what pain tomorrow will bring.”

The Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge how his poor choices changed his character and made him indifferent to the suffering around him, and so resentful of the happiness of others he could not feel joy.

“How do we spend our time?” Sparks asked. “A survey shows that we spend 11 years watching TV, 26 years sleeping and 20 weeks on hold. That is five months listening to Barry Manilow, Kenny G and Lionel Richie.”

She continued, “As you carry chains of anger, indifference, do you resent happiness? Are you still able to feel joy? Our habits create the trajectory of our lives. Ralph Waldo Emerson said that what we worship, we become.”

The chains and organ sounded.

The Ghost of Christmas Future was the scariest of all. The Ghost shows Scrooge the consequences of his life — among them, Tiny Tim dies and Scrooge is buried in an isolated grave with a cheap headstone while people laugh at him.

“He had a chain longer than Marley’s,” Sparks said. “If we continue, where will we end up? How will our lives play out? What will people say at our funeral?”

Sparks then told a story about St. Peter.

Three men stood in front of St. Peter, in the orientation class for getting into heaven. St. Peter asked each of them what they wanted to be said at their funeral. The first man said, “I want them to say I was a great doctor and a loving family man.” The second man said, “I want them to say I was a caring husband,” The third one said, “I want them to say ‘Look, he’s moving.’ ”

The good news is, Sparks told the congregation, “there is still a chance to heal the humbug. There is still a second chance.”

Scrooge begs the Ghost of Christmas Future for a second chance, and when he wakes up, he lives differently, he sees the world in a different light. Many laughed at him, but the people said that if anyone knew how to keep Christmas well, it was Scrooge.

The angel who sang to the shepherds brought good tidings and great joy for all.

“Brothers and sisters, that is good news,” Sparks said. “All our choices should drive us toward what lifts our hearts and everyone up. Light, love and good tidings are our call to live our few precious years. Take the Marley test before it is too late, because it is never too late to change.”

It is never too late to make amends, to find a new path, to ask for help. It is never too late to find love and joy.

“The Talmud says that when we are called before our Maker, we will be held responsible for all the opportunities for joy we had that we ignored,” Sparks said. “This is the power of one simple kind act or choice.”

The sign outside New York City’s Madison Avenue Baptist Church this week has a saying from Buddah. It reads, “One moment can change a day. One day can change a life. One life can change the world.”

Sparks urged the congregation to take an honest look at their choices.

“If you don’t like what you see, it is not the end of the story,” she said. “If you change a life, you can change the world. Heal the humbug. Feel the joy of Christmas every day of your life. And the people of God said, Amen.”

The Rev. Natalie Hanson presided. Maggie Brockman, who serves as co-host at the Hall of Missions with her husband Bill Brockman and first came to Chautauqua from South Dakota to study voice, read the Scriptures. The prelude was “Caprice on Danish and Russian Airs,” by Camille Saint-Saëns. Barbara Hois, flute, Rebecca Scarnati, oboe, Debbie Grohman, clarinet and Willie LaFavor, piano, performed the prelude. The Motet Choir sang “Noël Nouvelet,” arranged by Stephen Jackson, as the introit and “Love Came Down at Christmas,” arranged by Matthew Oltman, with text by Christina Rossetti, for the anthem. Jared Jacobsen, organist and coordinator of worship and sacred music, directed the choir. The Harold F. Reed Sr. Chaplaincy and the J. Everett Hall Memorial Chaplaincy provide support for this week’s services.

On Sunday in the Hall of Philosophy, Dustin Parsons apologized to ghosts.

The fourth section of Parsons’ fragmented, nonfiction essay “The Domestic Apologies,” “Apology to the Ghosts” addresses “that cold spot in the living room” at the center of a house haunted by spirits. Later in the piece, Parsons queries leftovers and writes of a couch flecked with his wife’s hair.

After making “many” visits to Chautauqua Institution from their former home in Fredonia, New York, Parsons and his wife Aimee Nezhukumatathil returned to the Institution for their week-long residencies as a prose writer and poet, respectively.

With his own work — including “The Domestic Apologies” essay and his first book, Exploded View: Essays of Fatherhood, with Diagrams — available as models, Parsons led participants through the art of brief nonfiction in his workshop this week, “Your Life in Miniature: Short Memoir.” He will give his Brown Bag lecture, “Ecstatic Ekphrastic: How Images and Text Can Work together in Writing,” on the advantages and nuances of a fresh style of experimental writing at 12:15 p.m. Friday, August 2 on the porch of the Literary Arts Center at Alumni Hall.

Parsons describes Exploded View as “a product of this kind of experiment.” Enlivened with visual depictions of schematics, directions and designs that accent the author’s words, the essay collection illuminates the seemingly mundane mechanics of being a son and father. In “Take an Island, Give an Island Back,” he recounts moments spent in Hundred Islands National Park, with then-pregnant Nezhukumatathil and her mother, via a map of the island clusters. In “Pumpjack,” he reflects on the lives of the men who operate the machines that force crude oil to the surface.

It was through fatherhood — he and Nezhukumatathil have two young boys together — that Parsons discovered the beauty of short-form creative nonfiction.

“I had these short bursts of time to write, and parenthood lends itself to small but meaningful moments that can be fully fleshed out in a micro-essay,” he said. “I found myself writing these moments out longhand again, in the waiting room of the dentist, at my son’s tennis practice. I was learning the importance of the fine tip of language that all writing depends upon.”

Although innovative forms are a guiding principle of his most recent work, he does not prioritize a concrete link between form and memory.

“That isn’t to say that when a memory is hazy I don’t equivocate in my work, or when a memory is lengthy I don’t take on the long form,” he said.

He counts three “lyric” and “heartbreaking” works — Sleep in Me by John Pineda, A Bestiary by Lily Hoang and Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot — as a few of his favorite memoirs, and describes All You Can Ever Know as “wonderful.” Kiese Laymon’s 2019 Chautauqua Prize finalist Heavy: An American Memoir is, for Parsons, “an unflinching look at how we love ourselves and forgive ourselves and those around us,” and “a beautiful book of growing up.”

All of these memoirs are vulnerable and inventive, but unlike Parsons’ Exploded View, none of them contain a diagram of a pumpjack.

“What I can say is that sometimes a form can jog a memory,” Parsons said. “Sometimes, looking at a picture, a diagram, some sort of utilitarian form, can suggest an event from my life that I might not, until that moment, thought was worthy of an essay. Sometimes the lyrical form suggests tangents and digressions. Sometimes the uncertainty of the memory suggests the need for the lyrical. It happens different ways every time.”

Boys’ and Girls’ Club Plus took learning to a grassroots level during Week Five with a nature-centered program about Chautauqua Institution.

In its second year and now coordinated by Alyssa Porter, director of youth and family programs, Club Plus is a STEM-oriented initiative to give Groupers the opportunity to learn new things in the afternoon block.

The theme for Club Plus Week Five was “Nature Around Chautauqua,” with programs led by Meaghan Collins, a Club Plus program leader who develops and manages STEM education programs at the Desert Research Institute. Though the daily programs follow a varying schedule throughout the week and feature their own Club Plus sub-themes, the programs all center around the weekly theme.

Following July 22’s rain, Collins said she quickly thought out a plan to explore where the rainwater goes and how it affects the land. On July 24, Collins said Groupers learned about nature through art.

“We looked at the seaweed up close, and I had them looking at what biodiversity makes the best art,” Collins said. “So, they did some leaf rubbings, and these were some portraits of flowers that they did. They took close-up pictures and then they drew it.”

The approach on July 25 incorporated the five senses, Collins said.

“The name of this Club Plus day is ‘Immersion in Nature,’ ” Collins said. “Going into it, the design was to stimulate the five senses through nature, discovering colors, discovering sounds, discovering cycles of nature.”

Groupers broke into groups led by Collins as well as Club staff members, exploring a stream in search of insects, looking at flower pollen under a microscope. They also spotted clouds, while writing poetry about what they saw floating across the sky.

“We’ve also been integrating some improv games with it because improv ties into your thinking more; it brings you into your five senses,” Collins said.

Games such as a monarch butterfly version of the classic game “Ships and Soldiers,” allowed Groupers to learn about the life cycle of the winged creatures that flutter around Chautauqua’s grounds, as well as have some fun blowing off steam together in the afternoon sun.

He was the Marx Brothers, but in one person — a naughty little boy, a genius, a nut, manic, utter magic — these were all words used by David Steinberg and Lewis Black to describe Robin Williams, stand-up comedian, Academy Award-winning actor and “life junkie.”

For “Managing Genius: 43 years with Robin Williams,” Steinberg, Williams’ manager of 43 years, and Black, Williams’ close friend, joined radio personality and comedian Ron Bennington in conversation at 10:45 a.m. Thursday in the Amphitheater, continuing Week Six, “What’s Funny? In Partnership with the National Comedy Center.”

“I have really, truly been blessed to wake up every day, and know I was going to talk to Robin and be involved in what people really felt was the greatest comedy legend — he would actually ask me questions that pertained to what he was going to do,” Steinberg said.

Williams grew up a “very lonely child,” according to Steinberg. Williams’ father was a senior executive at Ford Motor Company and his mother joined him for a majority of his work trips, leaving Williams alone to occupy himself with his imagination.

“This overactive imagination started as a child because he had to be his own playmate,” Steinberg said. “He played in his head and he created his environment out of loneliness, and he continued that on.”

Steinberg said Williams also spent a lot of time playing “lonely sports,” first running cross country and then biking up to 40 miles a day.

“That’s where he used to decide who he was or what he was going to do and evolve some of his material stuff,” Steinberg said. “He was never afraid to try it out.”

Williams’ career began with stand-up comedy shows in the 1970s. In his shows, Williams never knew what subject he was going to touch on, let alone any of the specifics. Still, he was known for doing “really long shows,” and it got to the point where Steinberg would have to remind him that the audience members had lives and families to return to.

“Robin was just a life junkie. When he was on stage, he was just going to have the best time,” Steinberg said. “He was having fun, but there was a desperation; he had to end up with a big laugh. It was a lot like sex, he needed a big finish.”

Steinberg said Williams could get away with anything when he performed.

“He could say things in a room full of priests that would get someone’s mouth washed out, and he would get high-fives,” Steinberg said. “He had these gorgeous blue eyes and he was really just a naughty little boy who said ‘fuck it’ and got away with it.”

Williams couldn’t get enough of an audience’s attention — he wanted to “give everything and have everything.” Steinberg said he was so “nuts” at the beginning of his career that Steinberg had to hire someone to secretly follow him around.

“It was just so he didn’t hurt himself,” Steinberg said. “He was a young kid, a 22-year-old who was a giant superstar in every area and had, really, all the money in the world; but he never cared about money, he gave it away. That was never what motivated him — but enjoyment, he was an enjoyment pig.”

When Williams couldn’t fill his voids with enjoyment anymore, he turned to drugs and alcohol. In the late ’70s, Williams was addicted to cocaine and alcohol until the drug-induced death of a dear friend, and the birth of his son, convinced him to change. However, in 2003, he started drinking again.

Black saw Williams’ alcoholism up close when the two worked together on the 2006 movie, “Man of The Year.” The two would begin their day filming scenes, but even when they were done, Williams kept going. He would spend the rest of the afternoon smoking out back with the other actors, watching their scenes and giving advice when needed, and then he would venture to clubs, using open mic nights to continue practicing some of his scenes.

“It demands a level of commitment from the performer that is unheard of,” Black said. “What he had was a commitment on a level of, ‘I am going to do something that one would say is close to magic.’ It really was true magic.”

Black said Williams always woke up the next morning with an abundance of energy, ready to do it all again. One night, Black saw firsthand how he did it: Williams came down to a bar at midnight to have a shot of tequila and a shot of espresso.

“Williams turned to me and said, ‘I think I have a problem,’ ” Black said. “I said to him, ‘If you have a problem, I think I have to go to rehab today.’ ” 

After they filmed “Man of the Year,” Williams checked himself into a substance-abuse rehabilitation center in Newberg, Oregon.

When he left the rehabilitation center, he immediately moved to New York City, to work on a Broadway show. Luckily, there were multiple Alcoholics Anonymous meeting locations in the area.

“There is nothing like a New York City 12-step meeting,” Bennington said. “It’s the most entertaining place you will ever go, but he would be so funny and sweet about the darkest things in the world.”

In his own life and the lives of people he met, Williams believed that humor could heal. Steinberg said he would visit hospitals and travel overseas on USO tours, spending hours with people to hear their stories and spark some laughs.

“He had the ability to withstand that emotionally,” Steinberg said. “There was no place he was unwilling to try to get to. He over-laughed, he over-cried, but it was all real. It’s how he felt. He didn’t try to mask his feelings to the public. He was who he was, and he was the most giving person.”

In September 2010, Steinberg and Williams went to New Zealand for a show after the country suffered a 7.1-magnitude earthquake. The day of the show, Williams spontaneously decided he wanted to donate 100% of the money back to the people affected.

“That was the first thing that came to Robin’s mind: The people need the show,” Steinberg said. “He wasn’t worried, as a lot of performers would be, with ‘Are the people going to be able to laugh?’ Robin said they needed a laugh, that he didn’t need the money and they did, and it was a perfect marriage of circumstances.”

Williams also visited victims of abuse and invited Make-A-Wish children to come on set with him, always making sure no press was around to see him do it.

“He had this horrible fear of people thinking he was trying to capitalize on something,” Steinberg said.

Williams had the same fears on his USO tours, Steinberg said.

“He didn’t want to appear as the Bob Hope for the Middle East wars,” he said.

When Black went to Iraq with Williams for their first USO tour, Williams read an entire book about the history of Iraq to prepare. Williams spent part of the trip giving people history lessons, quoting direct facts and lines from the book.

In that moment, Black realized Williams had a photographic memory, a fact he uses to debunk myths that Williams stole stand-up material throughout his career.

“He was so fast that he couldn’t have thought about it,” Black said. “I think people have wrongly accused him of that and at least in my time with him, I don’t think that was even close to being the case.”

Bennington said it was important to note that Williams was against war, but still chose to support the soldiers unconditionally.

“You cannot be against the troops, and be against the war,” Bennington said.

On the tours, Williams wouldn’t go to sleep until he shook the hand of every soldier on the base.

“It’s the level of commitment that these soldiers have, that’s the loneliest job there is,” Steinberg said. “It’s a horrible moment when you are pulling out of these bases and you’re leaving and they’re waving goodbye, and you know they’re staying. Those were the toughest moments for me.”

Black said it was the commitment of the soldiers to one another that struck him the most.

“If the American people had 3% of the commitment to each other that the troops have to each other on a daily basis, we would have no problems whatsoever,” Black said.

As the panel reflected on the laughs and life of Williams, who died by suicide in his California home on Aug. 11, 2014, Bennington noted the discussion also served as a reflection of Steinberg’s work.

“Good management is a nice thing to have, genius is a better thing to have,” Steinberg said. “The place where most guys, who do what I do, make that mistake is they forget which one is the genius.”

Williams was “utter magic,” portraying a genie, a scientist, a nanny, a teacher, among other iconic characters — a repertoire he developed, Steinberg said, because he was “fearless.”

“Robin spent his entire personal life and public life on a tightrope; he loved pushing the envelope,” Steinberg said. “Nothing in the world scared him. If he was asked to do something as an actor, he would always ask to do more. The thought of failure intrigued him and he was always fighting against that.”

In 1965, Rabbi Saul Berman participated in and was arrested at the demonstrations in Selma, Alabama.

“I was arrested a number of times,” said Berman, an American scholar and Modern Orthodox rabbi. “I spent some time in prison in Selma, and spent time helping people to register to vote. And generally, I saw the attitude of the local population toward the black community at the time.”

Berman had traveled to Selma a week prior to the scheduled march with a group of four other rabbis.

“We were deeply aware of the threat that existed,” he said. “But I had a responsibility as a citizen, as a Jew and as a person committed to furthering justice in society, to be there. Many of the experiences I had while I was there led me to a much better understanding of the nature of race relations in this country and of the extraordinary capacity of people joining together to work for a just outcome.”

At 2 p.m. today, August 2, in the Hall of Philosophy, Berman will discuss evil in the world from the perspective of Judaism as part of the sixth Interfaith Friday of the season. Berman will be joined in conversation by the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Chautauqua’s vice president of religion and senior pastor.

“Evil is a central problem that religions have been struggling with since the dawn of humankind,” Berman said. “The reason the struggle is so intense is that it goes through so many central aspects of who we are and what constitutes meaning in our lives. For example, the question of evil in the world goes to the core of the nature of our belief in God.”

That question, Berman said, essentially amounts to “how can God cause or allow evil to exist in the world?”

“That’s a fundamental struggle that we all have at moments of adversity,” he said. “It goes also to the question of how we understand the nature of free will. To what extent are humans asking to be responsible for their capacity for choice?”

But for his lecture today, Berman hopes to impart a sense of clarity.

“Ultimately, one of the things I’d like people to take away is a sense of personal responsibility that we each have to reduce evil,” he said. “It could be evil that we might be inadvertently causing ourselves, evil that might be caused by natural causes. In one of these areas, we as individuals have both the capacity and responsibility to reduce evil and to increase goodness in the world.”

One of the key ways Berman said that the nature of evil in the world has changed since his participation in the Selma demonstrations is its impact on nature.

“We humans are directly impacting on the natural order in such a way as to produce an extraordinarily evil result,” he said. “We are pouring poison into water, we are producing the kinds of gasses and emissions that change the weather. We bear responsibility for that.”

Maria Bamford starts her 2017 stand-up special, “Old Baby,” with a disclaimer:

“I always like to tell audiences, pre-program, just in case you were brought here by a friend, sometimes friends lead us astray,” she said. “I had two very close friends — my parents — invite me to see a film, and I said, ‘Of course I’ll see that movie with you, because you love me and why on Earth would you want to see me suffer?’

“And then I sat through Steven Spielberg’s ‘War Horse,’ which if you haven’t seen, as far as I’m concerned, is a 14-hour real time documentary about a gentle horse struggling in vain to escape from barbed wire.

“This may be your ‘War Horse.’ ”

Bamford makes no concessions for her offbeat comedy, characterized by an arsenal of character voices and jarringly honest observations about her mental health.

“I have those voices because this one is so less than what I had hoped for,” she told Stephen Colbert in a 2016 interview.

Bamford will close out Week Six, “What’s Funny? In Partnership with the National Comedy Center,” by appearing in conversation with Ophira Eisenberg at 10:45 a.m. today, August 2, in the Amphitheater.

Eisenberg is a comedian and the host of NPR’s and WNYC’s weekly radio game show, “Ask Me Another.” She is also the author of the comedic memoir, Screw Everyone: Sleeping My Way to Monogamy.

Matt Ewalt, vice president and Emily and Richard Smucker Chair for Education, said Bamford will address this week’s theme by discussing how comedy can bridge difficult divides.

“We’ve asked Maria Bamford to reflect, in part, on how comedy can be used to both comfort and discomfort,” he said, “to create space for critical conversations around mental health (and) around issues that we may otherwise avoid altogether.”

In her multiple comedy albums and two standup specials on Netflix, Bamford has talked at length about living with OCD, anxiety, depression and bipolar II disorder, including spending over a year in and out of psych wards after receiving her bipolar II diagnosis in 2011.

Fictionalized versions of these events are portrayed in Bamford’s Netflix comedy series, “Lady Dynamite,” where she stars as herself.

“I guess what I want to do is make mental illness feel more normal, more like a regular thing,” she said in a 2014 New York Times profile.

She has always brought surprising elements to her performances, from performing her 2012 special, “The Special Special Special” in her living room to an audience of only her parents, to giving a commencement speech to her alma mater, the University of Minnesota, where she spent half the speech discussing how she negotiated with the university for a higher appearance fee, and ended by donating the $5,000 to a graduate.

“It makes my life meaningful to make a story of it,” she said in a 2017 episode of “Good One: A Podcast About Jokes.” “I think that’s what everybody does; if I can make myself laugh and buy a house — then awesome.”

Ethicist and professor Reinhold Niebuhr had a bit of a different take on the relationship between humor and religion.

“ ‘Humor remains healthy only when it deals with immediate issues and faces the obvious and surface irrationalities,’ ” the Rev. Susan Sparks said, quoting Niebuhr’s essay, “Humor and Faith.” “ ‘It must move toward faith or sink into despair when ultimate issues are raised, and that is why there is laughter in the vestibule of the temple. Only the echo of laughter in the temple itself, but nothing but faith and prayer and no laughter in the Holy of Holies.’ ”

Sparks, an author, Baptist minister and stand-up comedian, presented her lecture, “What’s So Funny about Religion from a Christian Perspective: Reinhold Niebuhr Was Wrong,” at 2 p.m. Wednesday, July 31 in the Hall of Philosophy, as a continuation of this week’s theme, “What’s So Funny About Religion?”

Her lecture covered 20th-century theologian Niebuhr’s writings and ideas, a topic she first took on in a 90-page honors thesis in college.

“So in modern-day terms, Niebuhr is saying laughter in the vestibule in the world is great,” Sparks said. “A bit of laughter, just a hint of laughter in the temple, in the church is OK; but, laughter in the Holy of Holies and the presence of God? Never.”

Sparks said this is completely wrong. Laughter “must ring clear and true in the Holy of Holies.” For people to forgive themselves and others, they have to laugh at themselves. And, in a world of imperfect people, forgiveness is essential. So, laughter is the only way, Sparks said.

“Laughter helps us live our faith in the difficult times and the silly times; it helps us with the weird contradictions that we have to live in everyday life,” Sparks said. “There are so many weird contradictions of life being a southerner in New York.”

Sparks told a story of a time she went to a fundraiser and met a man named Butler Beauregard Dixon IV, and he told her to call him “Boo.”

“The bottom line is laughter in life just helps us realize we’re a little more human,” Sparks said. “We’re all just human beings trying to get through this together.”

She said, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how much money one has; purses, clothes, designer cars and popularity don’t matter because “the size of our funerals will depend on the weather.”

Sparks said everyone has to learn to let go to live, and laughter helps people let go of what they are holding on to. So, laughter should ring out in the world. Sparks said laughter does not ring out enough in church, though.

“You’ve got to have a sense of humor in the church,” Sparks said. “You have to.”

Sparks recalled one moment in her church that called for laughter.

“We had a guy for the longest time in our congregation by the name of Charlie McCarthy, and Charlie was hard of hearing and he loved to just spontaneously share what was on his heart in the prayers, and it always seemed to hit at some tragic national moment, right?” Sparks said. “So I’m in the prayers, and I’m trying to talk about something horrible that’s happened in our country. And, I would pause to take a breath, and Charlie in the front row would just take a deep breath and he’d go, ‘Lord, you have got to help the Mets. They stink.’ ”

Niebuhr believed laughter only echoed in the church and vestibule because laughter and power do not get along well. Sparks said humor threatens power because it’s unpredictable and opens up new ways of thinking. 

“That’s exactly why Jesus was so threatening to the powers that be,” Sparks said. “His messages were unpredictable; they threatened the top-down power structure; and he used tools of comedy in his messages: irony, exaggeration, satire, reversal.”

Yet humor was demonized among many religious people, like the Baptists and Puritans. In the Middle Ages, humor was not celebrated. However, some people could infuse humor into Biblical storytelling.

“In the late 14th century, something known as the York Cycle of Mystery Plays performed Biblical dramas annually on the Feast of Corpus Christi, which freely used humor,” Sparks said. “One play, for example, told the story of the building of the ark, portraying Noah as a lazy bum. And in the drama, when God asked Noah to build the ark, Noah replies in this play (saying) that he knew nothing of shipbuilding and reminded God that he, Noah, was old and out of shape and disinclined to do a day’s work unless great need constrained him.”

Sparks said Godly humor is evident as early as the 14th century B.C.E. Such evidence, in the myth of Adapa, for example, came from Acadia. The myth tells the story of a priest, the gods and how one attains eternal life. The myth is full of humor and laughter between both the gods and the priest, Sparks said.

Sparks said there is proof that God himself has a sense of humor — in Samuel 5:9.

“The Israelites go to battle, lose the battle, lose the Ark of the Covenant,” Sparks said. “And as the Philistines are carrying the Ark home, and God is understandably upset, and it was so that after the Philistines carried the Ark about, the hand of the Lord rose against the city with a great destruction, and the Lord smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had hemorrhoids in their secret parts.”

Sparks said again: Niebuhr was wrong. Not only does laughter need to ring in the temple, it must ring in the Holy of Holies, in the presence of God. In fact, Sparks said that not only does laughter belong in the Holy of Holies, but it should be redefined because the Holy of Holies is much broader.

“God’s dwelling place, the Holy of Holies, can be found in some of the most unexpected places of life, especially in the broken and painful places of life,” Sparks said.

Sparks explained this through two Scriptures: Isaiah 43 and Psalm 57.

Isaiah 43 states, “Do not fear. Do not fear for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name and you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you and through those rivers, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you will not be burned and the flames will not consume you.”

Psalm 57 says, “Have mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me, for in you I take refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.”

Some of “the most unexpected places” for the Holy of Holies, Sparks said, include times of pain, anger and judgment. And, in places where the Holy of Holies is found, laughter should also ring out, Sparks said.

“The Holy of Holies might be even found in the midst of the end of life,” Sparks said.

Sparks, at one point, did some work at a clown camp. There, she met a clown named Shubie Doobie who told her a story of going into a pediatric ward where she met a young girl named Beth, who was in the final  stages of a terminal disease. Shubie Doobie walked into her room with her colorful outfit and orange hair, and Beth was apprehensive and quiet.

Beth asked Shubie Doobie why she wore the large nose, and Shubie Doobie replied, “Well, I’m a clown.”

Then, Beth asked, “What’s going to happen to me after I die?”

Shubie Doobie said, “Well, Beth, you’re going to heaven.”

Beth then asked where Shubie Doobie was going to go. Shubie Doobie said clown heaven, and explained that when a person lets a balloon go, that balloon goes to clown heaven. Beth, lit up with joy, exclaimed that she wanted to go there and asked how she could.

Shubie Doobie pulled a little red nose out of her bag and put it on Beth’s nose.

“And she said, ‘All you have to do, Beth, is go out with your nose on,’ ” Sparks said.

Two weeks later, Shubie Doobie received a call from nurses that Beth had passed away. They said she died with her little red nose on.

Sparks concluded with the preface of her honors thesis.

“The disciples sought to learn from the master, stages he had passed through in his quest for the divine,” Sparks said. “ ‘God first led me by the hand,’ he said, ‘into the land of action and there I dwelt for several years. Then, he returned and led me to the land of sorrows. There, I lived until my heart was purged of every inordinate attachment. That is when I found myself in the land of love, whose burning flames consumed whatever was left of me, of self. This brought me to the land of silence where the mysteries of life and death were bared before my wondering eyes.’ ‘Was that the final stage of your quest?’ the disciples asked. ‘No,’ the master replied, ‘one day, God said to me, ‘Today, I take you to the innermost sanctuary of the temple, to the very heart of God, and it was then I was led to the land of laughter.’ ”

In the cornhusker state, madness was born.

The Manhattan Transfer and Take 6 — two vocal music dynasties — paired up for a week in Nebraska to rehearse, learn, block and stage their unforgettable collaboration, The Summit: The Manhattan Transfer Meets Take 6, hitting the Amphitheater stage at 8:15 p.m. tonight, August 2.

“Vocal harmony madness,” Claude McKnight, founding member of Take 6, said when describing the collaboration. “We use madness in the greatest of terms.”

With 20 Grammy Awards between the two iconic ensembles, the groups boast a range of musical styles from jazz to swing, gospel to rhythm and blues. The Manhattan Transfer brings its 47-year legacy as one of the preeminent vocal groups in the world, while Take 6 delivers breathtaking harmonies, innovative arrangements, funky grooves and a cappella flare.

The Manhattan Transfer is comprised of four members — Alan Paul, Janis Siegel, Cheryl Bentyne and Trist Curless; it was founded in 1969 by doo-wop legend Tim Hauser and the quartet’s four original members. Since then, the group has won 10 Grammy Awards, including for best jazz vocal performance, duo or group four times; The Manhattan Transfer was inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1988.

McKnight, Mark Kibble, Joel Kibble, Dave Thomas, Alvin Chea and Khristian Dentley make up the 10-time Grammy Award-winning Take 6. American record producer Quincy Jones heralded Take 6 as the “baddest vocal cats on the planet,” according to a 2006 NPR article.  The Manhattan Transfer and Take 6 have been performing together as The Summit since 2015, after their joint manager suggested they get together.

“I think with vocal music, one of the things that’s very important for the performer is to radiate,” McKnight said. “The more energy that’s exchanged (with the audience), the higher the caliber. We have fun with each other.”

While trying not to spoil the night’s spectacle, McKnight alluded to a vocal battle and a group-member crossover. This performance is unlike other music co-bills, according to Ed Keane Associates, the groups’ management company.

“(They) were not content to sing a set and simply join each other for a finale,” the company said in a statement. “They have created musical moments on-stage — singing and performing nearly a dozen songs together — during this show. You will experience the creativity, excitement and renowned performances that only two phenomenal groups can bring to one stage, in the moment.”

While the Hot Chauts blazed in the first inning, the Grilled Cheeselers turned up the heat to win the 2019 women’s softball championship.

In a final championship game to finish the season, the Hot Chauts faced off against the Grilled Cheeselers Tuesday at Sharpe Field. The two teams went head-to-head last year, with the Hot Chauts coming out on top. But the tables have turned this season, with the Grilled Cheeselers winning in a 14-2 blow-out.

Starting off the game with two runs, the Hot Chauts had a strong start, leaving the Grilled Cheeselers trailing with zero runs for the inning.

However, as the game continued, the Cheeselers locked in and scored run after run, making play after play to quickly pull ahead of the Hot Chauts. In the second inning alone, the team had two home-run hits and scored a total of nine runs for the team.

Despite being injured, Julia Koron, Grilled Cheeselers team captain, made a big play in the third inning to keep morale high, barely getting to first base while running with a leg brace.

After the game, Koron said that no matter what happened, the teams just wanted to have fun and play softball — winning isn’t a defining factor for them.

As the Hot Chauts played against the momentum of the Grilled Cheeselers’ communication and speed, it became obvious that the Cheeselers were headed for the championship. Hot Chauts batters hit balls directly back to the pitcher; Cheeseler passes were fast and coordinated from base to base; and the Hot Chauts couldn’t keep their flame lit.

The Grilled Cheeselers’ win came as a surprise to Mark Altschuler, commissioner of the Chautauqua softball league, who was in attendance for the game.

“No one expected this result,” Altschuler said. “We thought it would be a blow-out by the Hot Chauts, or at least a close win, but this is an amazing win for the Cheeselers this year. They deserve it.”

Even with the blow-out win, the new champions were respectful, shaking hands and giving hugs to Hot Chauts players, both teams thanking one another for coming out and playing.

Co-captain of the Grilled Cheeselers Lily Nagle summed up the game before getting back to celebrating with her team.

“It was really fun,” Nagle said. “It was the best game we have probably played in the last four years. We really had no errors; we came in hitting hard and played it through.”