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If one was to ask James Geary, wit is the essence of human creativity that can potentially reshape the world  — and the proof is in the puns. 

Geary, deputy curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, and the author of Wit’s End: What Wit Is, How It Works, and Why We Need It, gave his lecture, “Five Ways to be Witty,” at 10:45 a.m. Wednesday in the Amphitheater, continuing Week Six, “What’s Funny? In Partnership with the National Comedy Center.”

Geary became acquainted with wit when he was 8 years old, through watching his parents’ witty repartee and through the “Quotable Quotes” column in Reader’s Digest, where he learned the art of aphorisms, “short, witty, philosophical sayings.”

Over time, Geary has accumulated a few gems: “All my life, I always wanted to be somebody, but I realize now I should have been more specific”; “No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible”; and his personal favorite, “Baldness is the gradual transformation of a head into an ass — first in shape, then in content.”

2. Make (Category) Mistakes pic.twitter.com/1FAUNCZuKJ

— The Chautauquan Daily (@chqdaily) July 31, 2019

But verbal aphorisms are only one aspect of wit; there are also visual, physical and intellectual aspects. Because wit can be interpreted in many ways, Geary struggled to define it and took inspiration from his predecessors in wit.

First was Alexander Pope’s definition: “True wit is advantage dress’d, what oft was thought, but ne’er so well express’d.”

Geary asked the audience if they noticed a missing word from Pope’s definition, to which the Amphitheater resounded: humor. Geary asked this on purpose, to argue that humor has nothing to do with wit.

“You can imagine my confusion when I was scheduled to appear during the week called ‘What’s Funny?’ ” Geary said. “If there is one takeaway I want you to have from my talk, it’s that wit is not at all about being funny. Wit can be funny, but it doesn’t have to be funny and really, the true meaning of wit has nothing to do with humor.”

Geary shared a comedic story of Hershele of Ostropol. During the feast of Passover, Hershele sat across from an aristocrat who made derogatory remarks about his eating habits.

“What separates you from a pig, is what I’d like to know,” the aristocrat said.

“The table,” Hershele replied.

Next was Dorothy Parker’s definition: “There’s a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.”

“What’s important about that, is it gets at the fact that wit has truth, wit is a form of intelligence,” Geary said. “Jokes make you laugh, but wit makes you think.”

The word “wit” comes from a Sanskrit word meaning “to see.” Throughout the world, “to see” is used as a metaphor for understanding, as evident in the phrase “I see what you mean.” The root is also shared with the words “witness,” which means to see something, and wisdom, “to see, to know.”

“So really, I think the essence of wit is more a state of mind than a sense of humor,” Geary said.

Last was Geary’s own definition: “Wit is the quick, instinctive intelligence that allows us to think, say or do the right thing, in the right place at the right time.”

4. Use Talmudic Logic pic.twitter.com/1OYJcW2x1n

— The Chautauquan Daily (@chqdaily) July 31, 2019

Geary shared five ways to be his definition of “witty,” “guaranteed to work, or your money back,” (from the Institution, that is).

The first way to be witty is to “take things literally.” This works especially well with metaphors, which Geary said are “way more pervasive” than one might think. Geary showed a New Yorker cartoon of a man visiting his doctor with a knife in his back, to which the doctor observes, “Good news, it’s a metaphor.”

“When you take a metaphor literally, you can make the person who used the metaphor seem ridiculous,” Geary said.

The second way to be witty is to “make category mistakes.” Category mistakes are philosophical in nature, meaning something from one category is presented or understood as if it belongs in another category.

As an example of a category mistake, Geary played a scene from the Marx brothers’ movie, “Duck Soup,” where Ambassador Trentino asks the brothers what information they found out about Firefly. When Trentino asks if the brothers got his criminal record, they pull out a phonograph record instead.

Headlines can also be examples of category mistakes. Geary shared two: “Include your children when making cookies,” and “Never withhold herpes infection from a loved one.”

And aphorisms work, too. American humorist Josh Billings once wrote, “Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there.”

The third way to be witty is to “violate (benignly) expectations.”

Geary projected an image on screen and asked the audience to guess what it was, prompting suggestions like “the Loch Ness Monster” or “a mustache.” But no, the image was just three lines on a white background that served as an example of how the brain automatically fills in the blanks.

“The human brain is a pattern-making machine, and when we are presented with incomplete information, the brain automatically fills in the gaps,” he said.

The fourth way to be witty is to “use Talmudic logic.” Talmudic logic comes from considering Torah concepts as axioms, initial data and the first premises of reasoning.

“What I find so fascinating and compelling about the Talmud is, it is not considered infallible. It’s basically an argument taking place over many centuries among a bunch of different rabbis,” Geary said. “What’s prized about the Talmud is the argument and what’s valued about the Talmud is the ingenuity and artistry of the argument. There is value placed on thinking things through in original and creative ways.”

For this concept, Geary used another Hershele example. In this one, Hershele was invited to lunch and was asked to pick up two loaves of bread in advance. One loaf was much larger than the other, and Hershele kept the large loaf for himself and gave his friend the smaller one. His friend told him that was “quite rude,” and when Herhsele asked what he would have done in his position, his friend said, “Well, I would’ve given you the larger loaf and kept the smaller one for myself.”

“You got the small one, what are you complaining about?” Hershele said.

“The received wisdom is that punning is the lowest form of wit… I actually think they’re the highest,” says @JamesGeary

— The Chautauquan Daily (@chqdaily) July 31, 2019

“That Talmundic logic, the logic is impeccable,” Geary said. “It may or may not have anything to do with the decision at hand, but the logic is incredibly creative and quick.”

The fifth and final way to be witty is to “free associate.”

Geary gave the audience a Remote Associates Test, a test devised in the ’60s to measure people’s creativity. For an example, he projected three words: cottage, swiss and cake, and the audience responded: cheese. 

“The idea behind this test is that creativity, and I would argue wit is the source of creativity, involves finding novel combinations about things,” Geary said. “The mind thinks in patterns. It’s a connection-making machine.”

Geary then tested the audience with multiple object tracking, a game where one tries to keep track of 4 out of 9 dots as they move on a screen. Only one person in the audience was able to keep track of all four dots, where a majority could only keep up with one. The people who got more than one did it not by looking at individual dots, but by looking at the image as a whole.

“If you focused on any single dot, there is no way you could keep track of the other dots,” Geary said. “When you’re trying to keep many things in mind, the best strategy is not to think about any of them individually, but to think about all of them collectively.”

Geary said that logic also applies to puns, or two words that sound the same but have different meanings. Puns are often considered the lowest form of wit, but Geary would argue they are actually the highest.

“I think puns show the real essence of what true wit is, and that is the ability to hold two different ideas about the same thing in your mind at the same time,” he said.

Geary would also argue that the person delivering a pun and the person understanding that pun are making the same connection, just in a different direction.

“The actual connection is identical,” he said. “The person who makes the pun and the person who receives the pun are performing exactly the same creative work, and they are equally witty.”

But the delivery of jokes and puns, of wit and wisdom, is not a direct line from source to audience.

“You have to come out and meet it; you have to go out and get it,” he said. “The comedian can only deliver it so far. It requires the audience and the individual to complete it. One can’t do her work without the other.”

That common meeting place is where wit takes place, Geary said.

“Jokes can be private, but wit needs witnesses,” he said. “Wit is something that happens between and among people and it requires equal willingness and equal creativity on both parts to make it work.”

The work of making connections, Geary said, also needs to be used for solving world problems. Take the climate crisis for example: It can’t be solved by focusing on one thing because it involves the environment, economics, psychology, race relations and international relations.

“All of the most serious problems in our society, we have to keep our wits about us to solve them,” he said. “When we think about these problems and the challenges that face us, we should not be scared out of our wits, but into our wits because it is only by coming out to meet those problems creatively and with our wits that we can solve them.”

And so Geary juggled — three balls, at the same time — for in life and in wit, the bigger picture is always the most important. 

“Like juggling, wit is keeping a lot of different ideas, a lot of balls, in the air at the same time,” he said. “And keeping them aloft long enough to make that connection, that’s going to lead to the solution of the problem.”

@JamesGeary #CHQ2019 pic.twitter.com/rM3e7iOQnC

— The Chautauquan Daily (@chqdaily) July 31, 2019

“With all of the people on our holiday gift list, there is one person missing,” said the Rev. Susan Sparks at the 9:15 a.m. Wednesday Ecumenical Service. “That name is the first six letters of Christmas — Christ.”

Sparks’ sermon title was “What Are You Going to Get the Baby Jesus for Christmas?” and her Scripture text was Micah 6:6-8. The Advent theme was love.

There was an 80-year-old woman in Sparks’ congregation who came to her with a terrible sin. The woman told Sparks she had been using “LOL” in cards, thinking it meant “lots of love.” She had just found it meant “laughing out loud.”

“I did not see what the problem was,” Sparks said. “Then she told me she had been putting it on condolence cards.”

This was the third sermon in her Advent series, representing the third Sunday in Advent.

“This is close to Christmas, and we begin to think about things like, ‘Are the cards out?’ ‘Is the tree up?’ ‘Have I bought all the gifts?’ ” Sparks said. 

She continued, “In a comedy club, the acts are scheduled tightly together so at the end of 9 minutes and 30 seconds, a red light goes on in the back of the club. It starts flashing at 9 minutes and 45 seconds, and they pull you off the stage at 10 minutes precisely. The third Sunday of Advent is like that — that light is flashing.”

She called it a time of intense consumerism and commercialism.

“It is ironic that the baby Jesus gets ignored on our holiday list because it is a celebration of his birth,” Sparks said. “What are we going to give? I noticed in the Bible, he got frankincense and myrrh, and I went online and found a lotion at Walgreens with frankincense and myrrh in it. I think we can do better for the baby Jesus than a lotion. He wants us to act from our hearts, to give of what we have at the moment.”

Sparks recalled preaching at a convention at Bally’s Las Vegas Hotel and Casino.

“Think of it, Baptists in Vegas,” she said. “When the offering came forward, there were poker chips in the plate.”

The best gift guide for baby Jesus is found in Micah 6:6-8.

“‘What should I give?’ the prophet asked; the answer came back pure and clear and simple,” Sparks said. “Say it with me — do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. These are the things Jesus loves more than lotion.”

Kindness is harder to act on than we think, she told the congregation.

“A consumer survey said that one of the top 10 stresses of the holiday season is ‘having to be nice,’ ” she said. “What would kindness look like? Like Diana Ross said, ‘Reach out and touch someone.’ ”

A Santa in a store learned sign language to be able to communicate with children from a school for the deaf. Speak to people, Sparks said, “like bus drivers, store clerks, waiters and waitresses and wait for an answer.”

Reach out to the lonely, drop by a senior care center and just visit someone for half an hour. Some people are even donating Alexas to nursing home residents.

“You can drop a card to someone who is lonely,” Sparks said. “It is a gift that could change someone’s life. It doesn’t take a lot to do kindness.”

Humility, she told the congregation, “is not thinking poorly of ourselves, but empowering ourselves for service.”

“Lao Tzu said that true power comes from lowering ourselves in service,” Sparks said. “He said that rivers and seas lead 100 streams because they are skillful at staying low. They lie in low land so the water willingly flows to them.”

Leaders and people in general, Sparks said, need to be more like a conductor who listens to everyone. John C. Maxwell in Leadershift: The 11 Essential Changes Every Leader Must Embrace, wrote that most leaders are stuck in the soloist mode, where everyone serves them.

Sparks recalled that Pat Summitt, the former head coach of the Lady Volunteers basketball team at the University of Tennessee, did not go into the locker room at half time and talk at her team. The team would get out a white board and talk about what went right, what went wrong and what needed to change.

“Once the team had talked it out, then Summitt would speak,” Sparks said.

Sparks and her husband, Toby, took a bucket trip on Thanksgiving — a train from Chicago to Los Angeles.

“It was as romantic and adventurous and fun as we thought it would be — on the first day,” she said. “By the third day, it was getting cramped.”

While her husband went out for coffee, she decided to fix her hair and put on some makeup.

He returned to their roomette, looked at her and said, “Why are you so angry?” Sparks looked in the mirror and saw what she had done.

“Never draw your eyebrows on a moving train,” she said.

She continued, “God forbid we should show vulnerability. People’s faces tell us a lot, and we need to listen.”

The third present for baby Jesus is to do justice, not just imagine justice, like a John Lennon song.

“Don’t sing about justice, don’t think about justice — do it now,” Sparks said. “The world is in pain, broken and burning. I think about the children and brothers of color taken by gun violence, the way people look at our Muslim brothers and sisters with suspicion, the hunger, poverty and homelessness all around us.”

One step taken by one person can move everything toward change. Rosa Parks said she was just trying to get home from work when she stayed in her bus seat.

Sparks said one Sunday, her deacon board gave everyone in the congregation a $5 bill.

“They could not use it on brunch, or go to a movie or buy a Powerball ticket,” she said. “They were to pay it forward, use it to lift someone up.”

One person bought wings for a homeless man sleeping on the sidewalk with a sign that said, “I’m hungry.” Another bought mittens for a family that was struggling. Another gave money to a street vendor who suffered a loss when fruit was stolen from his cart. An artist in a train station, a homeless man who needed an umbrella, a woman in Afghanistan who needed a micro loan to learn tailoring, all benefited from these gifts.

“It’s like blowing dandelion seeds into the wind,” Sparks said. “This is the power of kindness, humility and justice to change the world. It is the truth. As Margaret Mead said, ‘a few caring people can change the world.’ ”

Sparks closed her sermon by telling congregants to “reach within yourself.”

“Find what you have to give, cultivate kindness, humility and justice and put the baby Jesus first on your list,” she said. “As the Quaker missionary Stephen Grellet said, ‘I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again.’ And the people of God said, Amen.”

The Rev. Natalie Hanson presided. James Denvil, a proud citizen of Baltimore, and an attorney who married into a seven-generation Chautauqua family, read the Scriptures. For the introit, the Motet Choir sang “What Gift Can We Bring?” by Jane Marshall, arranged by Benjamin Harlan. The Choir sang “Chautauqua Anthem,” by Paul Moravec. The anthem was commissioned by the Chautauqua Motet Choir in honor of Jared Jacobsen’s more than 20 years of service to Chautauqua Institution. Jacobsen, organist and coordinator of worship and sacred music, conducted the choir. The Harold F. Reed Sr. Chaplaincy and the J. Everett Hall Memorial Chaplaincy support this week’s services.

School of Music piano students’ time at Chautauqua is coming to an end, but before they leave, they have one more chance to come together with each other and with the Chautauqua community.

At 4 p.m. Thursday, August 1 in Sherwood-Marsh Studios, about half the students in the School of Music Piano Program will perform piano duets, some for two pianos and some for four hands, which is when two pianists play on the same piano. At 4 p.m. Friday in Sherwood-Marsh, the other half of the piano students will do the same.

Usually, the Piano Program only lasts five weeks, ending with the annual piano competition. This year, however, a $1 million donation to the program allowed it to be extended for a sixth week. A showcase of student duets, Piano Program Co-Chair Nikki Melville said, seemed like the perfect way to fill that extra time.

“I think it would have felt premature to finish last week, actually,” Melville said. “It sort of felt like we weren’t quite done yet.”

Playing duet and four-hand pieces is not necessarily a common part of a pianist’s training, so these recitals offer students a chance to experience that unique performance. Partners were randomly assigned, so in many cases students have had to learn to play with someone they have not worked with before.

“I think it’s a great way to get to know another person,” said piano student Narae Lee. “We still have to share our musical ideas and then have to discuss what they really think (and) what I think.”

Students were able to choose their own pieces, so the programs will feature a range of pieces, from the light and fun to the virtuosic.

For example, students Katherine Benson and Alexei Aceto will be playing Camille Saint-Saëns’ Danse macabre, Op. 40, arranged for two pianos.

“It’s upbeat, it’s fun, it’s rousing,” Benson said. “It’ll be enjoyable.”

Lee and her duet partner, Alexander Lo, will be playing two fairytale-themed pieces; one is from Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty ballet arranged for piano by Sergei Rachmaninoff, and one is a medley of the film score of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast,” originally composed by Alan Menken and arranged for two pianos by Lo himself.

“Who doesn’t love Disney?” Lee said.

Though pianists commonly perform chamber music with mixed ensembles, it is a unique experience to collaborate with another pianist. There is an understanding of each other that comes from playing the same instrument, but there is also the challenge of adjusting to each other’s style and vision of the piece. Sometimes there is a disconnect, but when the two pianos begin to sound like one, Benson said, that’s when they know they’re getting close to clicking.

“You can kind of feel it too, like the two of you are jiving,” she said.

Much of the piano duet repertoire has its roots in salon music, from an era when people would play together just for fun at social gatherings — performances that were better suited for a drawing room than a concert hall. As such, the recitals are meant to be more casual and carefree than a formal show.

“This concert shouldn’t be too serious,” Lee said. “It should be fun.”

For some of the students, it is their first time publicly performing a piano duet, but the nature of this type of show alleviates some of the usual performance pressure.

“It’s one of our few times where we’re not alone on stage,” Benson said. “You can empathize with each other, you can laugh about what you could have done better, and you really appreciate what the other person is doing.”

These are the last two performances the Piano Program will present before its season ends. They are both a goodbye for the students and a thank you to the Chautauquans who have consistently attended piano recitals and supported the program, Melville said.

“The idea is just to sort of give something back,” Melville said. “It’s a less hyped-up, concert sort of atmosphere and more just a sharing of some really fun repertoire for all the people who have supported us all summer.”

Guest Critic: Steve Sucato

Monday night’s edition of the annual Chautauqua School of Dance’s Alumni Dance Gala in the Amphitheater proved yet again the school is a summer breeding ground for some of the finest dance talent in the world. The jam-packed program of nine short works triumphed over the muggy conditions to bring the appreciative audience repeatedly to its feet throughout the evening to applaud the top-flight dancing and dance works presented. 

Curated by Sasha Janes, director of contemporary studies for the School of Dance, and a familiar name to dance audiences the past several decades at the Institution, the program led off with a bit of Christmas in July in the form of the “Mirlitons” dance from School of Dance Artistic Director Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux’s The Nutcracker.

Set to music by Tchaikovsky and staged by Kennedy Center honoree and School of Dance Director of Ballet Studies and master teacher Patricia McBride, the lively ballet trio was performed by current Chautauqua School of Dance students Alexandra Baksay, Johanna Sigurdardottir and Julia Vinez (who will join Pennsylvania Ballet this coming season).

Sometimes called the “Dance of the Reed (or Pipe) Flutes,” Bonnefoux’s rendition was a fast-moving, effervescent dance sans often-used flute props. With choreographic influences from his former boss and ballet legend George Balanchine, the 2 1/2-minute dance was full of quick-changing footwork and leg extensions.

Next was a reprise of Janes’ 2013 pas de deux “Dominant Curves” that left the audience breathless. Chautauqua’s “king of the pas de deux,” Janes originally created the piece on dancers from Richmond Ballet; it is one of his very best.

Performed by alumni dancers Anna Gerberich (Joffrey Ballet) and Pete Leo Walker (Aspen Santa Fe Ballet) to music by Osso and Sufjan Stevens, “Dominant Curves” was all about its curving movement both on the ground and in the air. Acrobatic in its myriad of beautiful and daring partnered moves that saw Walker lift Gerberich in the air and then swirl and wrap around his shirtless torso, and so thickly lacquered in grace as to defy any hint of exertion by the dancers  — such as Gerberich’s feather-like descent from a lift high over Walker’s head to delicately reach the ground — the pas de deux was the stuff ballet dreams are made of.

Switching gears, modern dance beauty then took center stage in a solo excerpt from 1969’s “Masekela Langage,” the first of two works on the program by legendary choreographer Alvin Ailey.

Inspired by the era of South African apartheid and the race-induced violence of 1960s Chicago, the solo was performed by 2006 Chautauqua alum and current dancer with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Jacqueline Green. Driven by the soulful jazz trumpet music by Hugh Masekela, Green poured her heart out in choreography that mirrored the mood of Masekela’s music. Sometimes angry and pounding her fists on the stage floor, and sometimes appearing frightened with eyes darting about, Green’s dancing covered the breadth and width of the stage in pirouettes, leaps, and leg-extending steps that captivated both visually and spiritually.

Rounding out the program’s first half was Balanchine’s 6-minute burst of ballet fireworks, Tarantella.Staged by McBride, who debuted the pas de deux with Edward Villella in 1964, the fast-moving, folk-dance flavored piece danced to ebullient music by composer Louis Gottschalk, was performed with giddy charm by alumni Angelica Generosa (Pacific Northwest Ballet) and nearby Jamestown-native, Jordan Leeper (Atlanta Ballet).

Balanchine’s nod to the southern Italian dance meant to ward off death from a tarantula bite, was itself a killer in its exhaustive pace and non-stop virtuosic choreography dense with jumps, leaps and an obscene amount of turning steps that Generosa and Leeper adroitly performed.

While the program’s first half might have been enough to satiate many dance fans, its second half piled on even more helpings of world-class dance delights, beginning with an excerpt of the “Walpurgisnacht” scene from Balanchine’s 1975 opera production of Faust that was turned into its own ballet in 1980. The scene depicting Mephistopheles bringing Faust to watch the traditional celebration on the eve of May Day when the souls of the dead are released, was played out in dramatic fashion as 24 female teen students of Chautauqua School of Dance rushed the stage, long hair flowing behind them, in a wave that was both frantic and magnificent.

Serving as a brief look at some future alumni stars in the making, the ballet excerpt was highlighted by the performances of lead dancers Elaine Rand and Vinez, along with an eye-catching solo by the ballet’s lone male dancer, Noah Martzall.

Next, alumni and married couple Christina LaForgia and David Morse, both of Cincinnati Ballet, performed Morse’s 4 1/2-minute barn-burner, “Short Ride in a Fast Machine.” The pas de deux, premiered in 2016 by Charlotte Ballet and set to music by John Adams, was Morse’s contemporary ballet version of concentrated virtuosity, a la Balanchine’s Tarantella, albeit less intense.

Danced with zeal by LaForgia and Morse in spotlight, the pair ripped through pulse-quickening, back-and-forth unison choreography that sparkled.

Next came a dance treat rarely seen outside of Ailey’s two namesake dance companies, “Fix Me, Jesus” from Ailey’s iconic 1960 work Revelations. Performed by Green and special guest artist Antonio Douthit-Boyd, formerly of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the pair wowed in the spiritual duet that both dancers undoubtedly have ingrained in the very fabric of their beings from having performed it innumerable times. Dancing to traditional music of the same name, Green and Douthit-Boyd were flawless in the work’s slow, bendy steps and wonderfully rendered balancing moves. Patting at the air with their hands like the patting of a dog’s head, the work calling on the Divine for healing and salvation was itself divine.

Rounding out the program were reprises of two ballets seen in past summer seasons at Chautauqua, beginning with Mark Diamond’s “Spartacus” pas de deux.

Set to Soviet-Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian’s powerhouse score for the ballet, Diamond’s choreography did its best to try and match the music’s dynamism and emotional intensity. Performed by Walker and Gerberich looking typecast in their roles as the muscular Thracian gladiator and his wife Sura, the pas de deux depicted their last morning together before he was to go off to battle. Diamond effectively filled the pas de deux with passionate embraces and tortured realizations of having to say farewell to each other — that was moving. 

A farewell of a different sort was then played out in “Hallelujah,” an excerpt from Janes’ 2015 ballet, Sketches from Grace, danced to late singer Jeff Buckley’s popular rendition of the Leonard Cohen song “Hallelujah.” Performed by Generosa and Leeper, the pas de deux combines a contemporary dance aesthetic and playfulness with the melancholy sadness of watching a home movie of a loved one whose life was cut short. The dancers lovingly performed Janes’ soft and reflective choreography that concluded with Leeper lifting a backwards arched-bodied Generosa heavenward in a final, poignant image.

Based in Painesville, Ohio, Steve Sucato is a contributing writer, critic and reporter. His work has appeared in such publications as The Plain Dealer, The Buffalo News, Pittsburgh City Paper and Dance Magazine, among others.

Rabbi Bob Alper said religion isn’t funny enough.

One man in the Talmud named Raba used to begin his lessons with a joke because it relaxed students, while allowing them to take in the important message that followed.

“Two men were walking down the street; one had a German Shepherd, the other had a Chihuahua,” Alper said. “The guy with the Shepherd said, ‘Look, there’s a very good sale going on here in the department store. Let’s go in.’ The guy with the Chihuahua said, ‘Well, we can’t. We have our dogs.’ He said, ‘Yeah, but you’ve got your sunglasses, right?’ The guy said, ‘Yeah.’ ‘Well, let’s put them on.’ The guy with the Shepherd went into the store; guy with the Chihuahua went into the store. The guard stopped him, and he said, ‘Sir, you can’t bring that dog into the store.’ He said, ‘Well, this is my seeing eye dog.’ The guard said, ‘A Chihuahua?’ And he said, ‘What? They gave me a Chihuahua?’

Alper, an author, stand-up comedian and one-third of the Laugh Peace tour,  continued Week Six’s interfaith lecture series, “What’s So Funny About Religion?” Tuesday in the Hall of Philosophy with his lecture, “Defining ‘Religion’ (You’ll Be Surprised) and Making It Meaningful through Humor.”

Alper began by explaining two different definitions of religion — Wikipedia’s and his own. First, he reviewed Wikipedia’s definition of religion as “the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal god or gods.” Alper said that this definition would work if there weren’t people in the world who were religious, but didn’t believe in a “superhuman controlling power.”

“I subscribed to a different definition of religion when I learned from my rabbinical school professor and thesis adviser, Rabbi Alvin Rinus,” Alper said. “Dr. Rinus defines religion as ‘a response to finitude.’ ”

Because all people are finite, but their desires are infinite, Alper said the way these two ideas are reconciled is what religion truly is. It’s simple and inclusive, he said.

“One of my philosophy professors at Lehigh University used to say, ‘Whether you will philosophize or won’t philosophize, you must philosophize all people, even if they are not aware,’ ” Alper said. “One can equally suggest that all people respond to finitude in one way or another. All people are religious and it’s clarifying to add that while by this definition, all people are religious, not all people are ritualistic.”

While some are religious and ritualistic, and others are simply religious, Alper said, for everyone, contemplating one’s limited life can be frustrating and confusing, not to mention scary. But Alper believes he has solutions for the annoyance of such a concept: creative life-cycle events and the enhanced use of humor.

“One of the most successful enterprises of all organized religions is their ability to help people confront transitional moments in their lives,” Alper said. “Birth rituals, weddings and funerals — these touch us; they draw us in; they speak to our hearts. The rituals surrounding these moments help us cope with life-altering times.”

Another transitional moment Alper discussed was when kids leave home for college or begin living their own lives. Alper described the moment his son, Zack, left for college.

“It’s a time that literally begs for a life-cycle event, a life-cycle ceremony to smooth the deeply intense transition for a child and particularly for the parents,” Alper said.

With such life-cycle events, Alper asked where humor fits in. The response? Nearly everywhere.

“One example: In the course of my rabbinate, I’ve delivered a vast number of children’s sermonettes, and you know which one people remember most?” Alper asked. “Hands down, it was Rosh Hashanah 1978.”

Alper had just adopted a kitten named Pounce de León. He brought Pounce to the family services for Rosh Hashanah. At one point, Alper carried Pounce out onto the pulpit. 

“With my free hand, I picked up the shofar, a ram’s horn that’s used during the New Year holiday,” Alper said, “And I asked, ‘OK, how many of you think that this kitten can play the shofar?’ ”

Alper said the crowd burst into laughter, and he was able to begin the new year on a good note before he started to talk about more serious things. But importantly, out of the countless sermonettes Alper has done over the years, the 1978 one sticks out because it was funny.

“Maya Angelou observed, ‘I’ve learned that people will forget what you said and people forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel,’ ” Alper said. “Laughter makes people feel good. … It’s healing, uplifting. There’s an intensely spiritual aspect to laughter. … It’s much more than entertainment. Laughter is life-giving; it’s life-affirming.”

The way the teacher Raba used humor to invite students in, to help relax them, Alper does, as well. For example, Alper once opened a Rosh Hashanah sermon with the joke: “For the past two weeks, my wife and son were in Peru on vacation. I stayed home to write sermons and prepare for the High Holy Days. You’re welcome.”

“Clearly all of us need to put more and more laughter into our lives at all times, and having a good sense of humor means you can smile and laugh easily, that you are a person who values lightness and fun,” Alper said. “It means you can see more than one side of an issue, evaluating the proverbial glass as being half-full, rather than half-empty.”

Not only is laughter good in general, Alper said laughter can help people confront their finitude.

In one of Alper’s creative life-cycle events, his wife, Sherry, retired and sold her building where she was a practicing psychotherapist. On the day of the property transfer, Sherry’s friends and colleagues gathered in the empty building because Sherry had an important impact on all of them. And they now had to accept that she was retiring.

“From the moment they enter, whether a first visit or part of many years of therapy, they felt  safe in Sherry’s presence, valued, even protected because their sadness is understood and then the work begins on how to diminish the pain,” Alper said. “When we also confront our finitude, humor has an important place in what are, by my definition, also religious events.”

Alper explained that through difficult events in his family members’ lives, humor has been essential. Alper himself was attacked by a pitbull while on his scooter last year. He woke up in a hospital with a broken pelvis, broken scapula, 10 broken ribs, multiple abrasions and a brain bleed.

With such serious injuries, he had to cancel an appearance on the “Tamron Hall Show.” Two days after he was admitted to the hospital, flowers arrived with a card signed by the TV producer reading, “Some people will do anything not to appear on the ‘Tamron Hall Show.’ ”

“And despite my pain, my anxiety, despite my ruminating about what could have been about my own brush with death, my own finitude, despite all I was enduring, when I read that card, I laughed,” Alper said. “I laughed despite 10 broken ribs. I laughed. What an amazing, healing feeling. I laughed, and know I’ll never forget that.”

Sherry Alper has also dealt with health difficulties. She had to have spinal surgery and afterward, was advised to wear a neck brace for four weeks. She was in great pain and miserable, Alper said.

“One day, I began telling people that Sherry was ordered to wear the collar so that she wouldn’t bite her tail,” Alper said. “And, she smiled. She even laughed, and she did something totally out of character; she asked me to take her photo and, along with the caption about biting her tail, put it up on Facebook.”

Humor is powerful, Alper said. Laughter is precious and allows for people to forget about the pain of their lives, both physical and spiritual.

“Truly, everyone we ever meet, everyone we ever meet, is carrying some kind of burden, whether great or just manageable,” Alper said. “Years ago, the young daughter of a couple in my congregation died. After a few months had passed, it seemed appropriate and I recommended that they attend a meeting of compassionate friends, a support group for people whose children have died, and I’ll never forget what the wife reported later. She was surprised and encouraged when she noticed that some of the attendees at the meeting were actually laughing on occasion, because that was one of the parts of her life that she thought had been ripped away from her forever.”

When longtime VACI Partner Subagh Singh Khalsa heard this year’s VACI Partners’ members open exhibition would be made of abstract works focusing on the concepts of patterns and repetition, he saw the opportunity to have a little fun.

Khalsa, a woodworker, created an abstract cabinet triptych and challenged himself to use the smallest amount of repetition possible in the design.

“I call the thing, ‘Don’t Make Me Repeat Myself’ — something I got from my mother,” he said. “It was a really fun project just trying to avoid all the repetition that normally occurs in furniture.”

Khalsa is one of more than 20 VACI Partners with work in “Patterns and Repetitions: New Abstract Works by VACI Members,” opening with a reception at 3 p.m. Thursday, August 1 in the Fowler-Kellogg Art Center. All active VACI Partners were invited to submit works for the show, which runs until Aug. 21.  In the first week of the exhibition, gallery visitors will have the chance to vote on which pieces should receive one of two $500 prizes, which will be awarded to the artists on Aug. 9.

This is the first year the exhibition is centered around a theme. Artist Judy Gregory said this adds an exciting element to the show.

“It will be interesting to see what people, who would be normally painting landscapes, will come up with for this abstract pattern theme,” she said.

Gregory, a current VACI Partner and former president of Visual Arts at Chautauqua’s predecessor, Chautauqua Center for the Visual Arts, has been creating abstract works for decades. She will feature two hanging pieces in the show made from handmade paper and used teabags.

Gregory considers the shadows cast by these translucent, tapestry-like works part of the pieces themselves.

“The whole idea of abstraction, I think, has a lot to do with transparency and transformation and shadow-casting, because you can interpret them in different ways,” Gregory said. “An abstraction is an idea, a theory, (something) you can’t actually put into a concrete shape or figure.”

For some VACI Partners, like Khalsa, this show is the only time all year they exhibit their art.

“I don’t show my work in other places, so it’s always been a great opportunity to just to be out there,” he said. “As a result, I’ve sold a bunch and I’ve got a number of commissions.”

Khalsa said the show is an opportunity for Chautauquans to discover their neighbors’ hidden talents.

“I’m always amazed to find out the finely-honed talents some people have that I never even knew were working in the arts,” he said. “I think it’s a really nice community builder …  for both the artists and the viewers.”

The lights of the Metropolitan Opera House gleamed as the golden curtains parted, and comedian Robin Williams leaped across the stage.

Williams was recording his third official album live at the Met, which went on to win the 1988 Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album. For Williams’ manager David Steinberg, “Robin Williams: An Evening at the Met” was one of the comedian’s greatest moments.

“I was proud of that because putting him on stage at the Met was really interesting to do — no comedian had ever done that before,” Steinberg said. 

Steinberg said they spent time working on the show together, but Williams truly wrote on the stage, in the moment.

“Robin truly was a genius,” Steinberg said. “When he was on stage, that’s where he felt the safest because it was his world.”

At 10:45 a.m. Thursday, August 1 in the Amphitheater, Steinberg will be joined by Williams’ close friend, comedian Lewis Black, as they discuss Williams’ legacy, in “Managing Genius: 43 years with Robin Williams.” The two will be interviewed by radio personality and comedian Ron Bennington.

Steinberg met Williams when he began as a talent manager. In his career, he has managed stars like Sammy Davis Jr. and Billy Crystal, and became close friends with Williams over the 40 years that they worked together.

Throughout his career, and even after his death in 2014, Williams has been known as a comic genius. After dropping out of Claremont Men’s College to pursue acting, he studied theater for three years at a community college in Kentfield, California.

In 1973, Williams obtained a full scholarship to the Juilliard School. During his junior year, he left after a professor told him there was nothing more the school could teach him.

Steinberg said Williams was intelligent, constantly reading books and conversing with people about a variety of different subjects.

“Robin was a very concerned human being,” Steinberg said. “He loved to read — he was an information junkie.” 

In the mid-1970s, after he left Juilliard, Williams performed stand-up shows in San Francisco. After moving to Los Angeles, he continued to perform stand-up and made his television debut on the revival of the NBC sketch comedy show “Laugh-In.”

One year later, in 1978, Williams was cast as alien Mork in an episode of the ABC series “Happy Days.” His appearance was so popular that ABC decided to create the spin-off, “Mork & Mindy.”   

“It taped on Monday nights,” Steinberg said. “And it was the place to be — everyone wanted to get into ‘Mork’ because the script was just an idea, and he would just go off of it and everyone just had to follow — he wasn’t controlled by the words.”

In 1980, Williams had his first big performance in the movie “Popeye,” playing the title role. And as Williams entered the film industry, Steinberg said the comic “never lost that spark of wanting to do bits out of his head and off the page.”

In 2000, Williams made an appearance on the ABC improvisational comedy show “Whose Line Is It Anyways?” The show was like a heavenly playground, Steinberg said.

“He loved that show,” Steinberg said. “He loved those guys and he used to say, ‘I just want to play with them,’ and it was an incredible experience.”

His comedy was different, according to Black, who met Williams during an HBO Comic Relief show with Billy Crystal.

“There were very few comics that were that fast and able to change directions, dialects and characters like he could,” Black said. “No one could free associate on the level that he could — it was like watching fireworks, if fireworks were funny.”

Black and Williams became close friends throughout their comedy careers. For Black, working with Williams was a confidence boost, but it was even more meaningful to become his friend.

“Even as long as I’ve been doing comedy, at that point, it was a huge confidence builder,” Black said. “When I was doing Comic Relief, I was just coming onto the scene, but Robin paid attention.”

Both Steinberg and Black mentioned the power of Williams’ USO tours. Williams made six USO tours throughout his career, and Black said when they got off the helicopter or the transport at the venue, Williams would greet the troops with unbounded energy. He said the interaction between the troops and Williams was very special.

“It was special because of the love that he had for them,” Black said. “And the love they had for him — the troops were grateful that he showed up.”

To the world, Williams seemed to be always quick on his feet and exuding hilariousness.

“Everybody always thought he was on,” Black said. “And the Robin I knew was not always on — there was another side to Robin Williams, and it was a very thoughtful, kind man.”

Williams and Black worked together on the 2006 movie “Man of The Year.”

“When I was doing a scene with him, we would talk about what he would do,” Black said. “Sometimes we would just shoot the scene with just improv.”

In his career, Williams played everything from a nanny and a doctor, to a genie and a radio personality. His comedy styles have inspired many, including Jim Carrey, to create with more spontaneity and try new things on stage. Steinberg said he’s spent many moments in his life admiring and contemplating Williams’ comedy.

“There were hundreds of special moments when I thought ‘Where in the heck does this ability come from?’ ” he said. 

After decades of a successful comedy career, Williams died by suicide in 2014. The world paid tribute to the comic genius on social media and in numerous TV show episodes dedicated to Williams.

In 2018, HBO released the documentary “Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind” — produced by Steinberg, offering another look into the comic’s life. William’s legacy continues to be felt in comedy and show business, something that Steinberg said he wants Chautauquans to honor.

“I just want people to know Robin and know what he did,” Steinberg said. “Whether they agree with him politically or not, I want them to witness the genius and the courage that he showed his entire career.”

When he was a kid, all Gibran Saleem wanted in the world was to be a Ninja Turtle.

Fast-forward to 2019 — instead of battling crime as an anthropomorphic reptile, Saleem is a stand-up comic with a master’s degree in psychology.

“Who knows, though,” he said. “If I end up in a sewer one day, that might be a sign.”

As a stand-up comedian who has been featured on television shows on MTV and PBS, one of Saleem’s primary interests in his comedy routines and lectures is to increase dialogue between different religious and cultural groups.

At 2 p.m. Thursday, August 1 in the Hall of Philosophy, Saleem will explain “What’s So Funny about Religion from a Muslim Perspective: A Personal Journey” as part of the Week Six interfaith lecture series, “What’s So Funny About Religion?”

Saleem said he grew up in a Pakistani household that emphasized secure jobs over riskier professions, which eventually led him to pursue a degree in psychology.

“I moved to New York (City) to go to graduate school for psychology, and I lived a block away from a comedy club,” Saleem said. “When I got there, I was going to shows pretty regularly, just watching. Eventually I went to an open mic, which was people just trying comedy, trying out jokes. I just saw regular people trying to figure it out, and I realized: ‘Oh, so anyone can try it.’ ”

While the transition from psychology to comedy might seem unusual, Saleem said it was a natural development for him that combined many of his interests into one field.

“I felt like it was incorporating my interest in psychology, but also my interest in public speaking,” he said. “I had a lot of social anxiety in high school. I felt like creatively, intellectually and even in terms of marketing, I felt like it incorporated so many fields into one. It felt more fulfilling.”

Part of comedy’s allure for Saleem was also its link to religion.

“The overall goal for religion is positivity,” he said. “With comedy, the overall goal is to make people laugh and to connect with people. When it comes to religion, I joke about myself and my culture, my religion, a lot of stuff like that. And when I can get the audience to laugh, that means they’re understanding me. Overall, I feel when we can relate to one another, we realize we’re all just human beings.”

It’s finding commonalities with his audience, and blurring the  lines of division between different religions that Saleem said he’s most interested in discussing with his Chautauqua audience.

“Ultimately, I’d like people to say, ‘I understand where he’s coming from. He’s not so much different from me,’ ” he said. “The more you lose the lines of division, the more people can grow together.”

Bloodstains menace the pages of My Sister, the Serial Killer.

In the novel’s first chapter, Ayoola — gorgeous, magnetic and the eponymous murderer — has just fatally stabbed her boyfriend of exactly one month, on their anniversary. Imperiled by a bathroom splattered with evidence, she calls her sister Korede for help disinfecting the crime scene and disposing her lover’s corpse. Korede, who also serves as the story’s narrator, is appropriately wary but resolutely thorough, fulfilling her duties as an older sister by answering Ayoola’s summon with bleach in hand. By this point, Korede’s clean-up regimen is scientific.

She’s done it twice before.

Oyinkan Braithwaite’s trim tale of family, trauma and sibling rivalry is the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle’s selection for Week Six, “What’s Funny?” Braithwaite, a short story author, artist and Kingston University graduate, will give her CLSC Author Presentation on the book at 3:30 p.m Thursday, August 1 in the Hall of Philosophy.

Winner of the 2019 Los Angeles Times Award for Best Crime Thriller, My Sister, the Serial Killer was recently announced as one of 13 books chosen for the 2019 Booker Prize for Fiction longlist. It is the only debut novel on this year’s list, one that boasts the work of past CLSC authors Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie.   

Atom Atkinson, director of literary arts, described Braithwaite’s novel as “incredibly taut, funny (and) well-crafted” — the perfect, if unobvious, pick for a comedy-centric week. Braithwaite herself remembers “being a little surprised” when she first saw My Sister, the Serial Killer categorized as a “dark comedy.”

“At the time, I knew I was writing a fairly dark tale, only I didn’t want to be submerged in darkness for the time that it would take me to complete it,” she said. “So I chose to be matter-of-fact about the things that were happening; my characters would clean blood and then go about their daily business. This contrast shocks the reader a little, and I believe humor, or at least the typical joke, is all about subverting expectation.”

For Atkinson, such genre tension invites the reader to think actively about the experience of reading a book.

“Is there joy?” they asked. “Is there discomfort? Is there a mixture of joy and discomfort? (My Sister, the Serial Killer) feels like, in one moment, a Jane Austen portrait of two sisters; in another moment, like pulpy, hardboiled crime fiction; and, in another, both of those at the same time.”

In early conceptual stages of the novel, it was not two Sense and Sensibility-esque sisters, but two friends that would be bound by spilled blood. Braithwaite decided she “wanted something beyond choice” to tether her characters together, and so settled on sisters Ayoola and Korede — one christened with a “soft-sounding name” and the other with “a harder, more broken-up-sounding name” to reflect the contours of their respective personalities.

“You choose who your friends are,” Braithwaite said. “You don’t choose your family. And the relationship between sisters can be quite contentious, but the love and loyalty, for the most part, is there. I think it is an interesting dynamic.”

Although the beautiful Ayoola is lethal to the men who desire her and frustrating to a readership fed up with her frivolity, Braithwaite called her “an absolute joy to write.”

“I didn’t have to think too hard and long about what she would say or how she would say it,” she said. “I could be free and somewhat absurd when it came to her and the choices she made,” like posting Snapchats of an injury sustained during an attempted homicide, for example.   

Braithwaite, who described herself as “truly grateful” for the book’s honors, “loves” when readers admit that “they laughed at the most inappropriate moments,” and when people credit My Sister, the Serial Killer for “(getting) them reading again.” For her part, she enjoyed Gail Honeyman’s 2017 debut novel Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine about a brilliant social outcast who falls illogically in love with a local musician, but doesn’t label herself a consistent consumer of “funny” books.

“I am usually quite inspired after reading or watching a good epic fantasy, one that has your blood pumping,” she said. “So perhaps, one day, I’ll give that a try.”

As an acclaimed spoken word poet — she was shortlisted as a top 10 spoken word artist in the 2014 Eko Poetry Slam — Braithwaite said she is “quite conscious of the way sentences and words sound,” and she cites poetry as the probable cause for her penchant for brevity in prose. The first chapter of My Sister, the Serial Killer is only 20 words long, and none of the chapters that follow exceed six pages.

“(The shortness of the chapters) contributes to the pace at which you feel like something dreadful is coming, and also your inability to put (the book) down,” Atkinson said. “You could just read one more.”

Braithwaite noted that she has “learned you can do a lot with a little.”

“But I am still learning, still evolving,” she said. “I like to try new things.”

It starts with a lone violin. It ends with a great, lavish symphony. Tonight, the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra will perform the last concert of its Russian Festival.

Featuring Grammy Award-winning violinist Augustin Hadelich, the concert, at 8:15 p.m. Thursday, August 1 in the Amphitheater, includes two compositions by 20th-century Russian writers: Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 63, and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27.

Hadelich, a violin soloist who has performed with nearly every major orchestra in America, will accompany the CSO’s rendition of Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2. He said this concert is a homecoming of sorts.

“I always look forward to returning to Chautauqua,” Hadelich said. “This was the first place where I performed in the United States, in 2001, and this is actually my 11th visit to the festival.”

CSO Conductor and Music Director Rossen Milanov said Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 opens one instrument at a time, creating almost a story of instrumental voices.

“It opens almost immediately with no orchestra introduction — with the solo voice of the violin,” Milanov said. “Gradually, the instruments enter one at a time and the piece unfolds in that way; a narrative type of way.”

Milanov said the concerto is demanding on its soloists — but Hadelich, called a master violinist by NPR, is up to the challenge.

“In the world of music — and certainly in the 20th century — it’s one of the most challenging pieces to play for the violin,” Milanov said. “Augustin is going to be amazing.”

Hadelich said the famously challenging piece is one of the most beloved violin works of its time — due in no small part to Prokofiev’s musical storytelling.

“Prokofiev was a storyteller, and this piece contains just about every character, from the lyrical and pastoral to the manic,” Hadelich said. “There are even some parts that sound a bit like witches riding around on broomsticks.”

Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 is a composition in three movements. In the second movement, Milanov said, its narrative unfolds to a famously lyrical, rhythmic moment.

“The second movement is famous for its beautiful lyricism and the peculiarity of the opening theme,” Milanov said. “It’s very creatively scored in the orchestra; it’s something that would remind us of a clock ticking steadily in the background.”

That clock ticks into the third movement, Milanov said, where Prokofiev’s classical Russian roots are clear.

“The last movement is sort of pagan, resembling at certain movements the music of (Igor) Stravinsky with its (pagan characteristics) and references to old Slavic folklore,” Milanov said.

Hadelich agreed, adding that the world-roaming composer’s influences are as eclectic as they are classic.

“Prokofiev wrote part of the piece while he was in Spain, which is perhaps why he thought of using castanets in the last movement,” Hadelich said. “It’s an amazing fusion of folk music elements: While the dance of the last movement couldn’t be more Russian, the castanets add a hint of flamenco to the texture.”

After an intermission, the CSO will resume with a famously long, beloved symphony: Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2. This composition, Milanov said, is Rachmaninoff’s most popular symphony and an important piece of Russian music history.

“It showcases Rachmaninoff as the extension of the symphonic writing of (Pyotr Ilyich) Tchaikovsky in the 20th century, continuing that tradition of big, lavishly orchestrated symphonies in the 20th century,” Milanov said. “It was Rachmaninoff who took this genre into more modern times.”

The piece is nearly an hour long, but Milanov said it remains a favorite due to its romantic qualities and the challenge it places on musicians.

With a gathering of family, friends and Children’s School colleagues, the Jessica Trapasso Pavilion officially opened last Friday with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

With the financial support of the Hermance Family Foundation — represented at the ceremony by Kris Hermance and her daughter, Emily Spahr — a new pavilion was built and dedicated to Jessica Trapasso, a beloved member of the Chautauqua community, who passed away in 2015.

Wife to Kit Trapasso, director of Children’s School, as well as mother to Christopher and Anne Trapasso, Jessica loved Chautauqua and believed in the power of its community.

The pavilion dedication was attended by Hermance and Spahr, the Trapasso family, as well as friends and guests, including Institution President Michael E. Hill and Matt Ewalt, vice president and Emily and Richard Smucker Chair for Education.

The ceremony began with remarks from Geof Follansbee, CEO and vice president of development for the Chautauqua Foundation.

“It is a great testament to what occurs in this place,” Follansbee said. “I’m happy to be able to say that I’m a product of Children’s School.”

As guests settled in for the ceremony, Ewalt took the stage to discuss the importance of the pavilion and Children’s School.

“For almost a hundred years, Children’s School has been a child’s first experience (at Chautauqua); it really pioneered the concept of nursery school education,” Ewalt said. “This school immerses the youngest of Chautauquans in an environment that encourages exploration, play and connecting with nature; fosters a sense of community and it fills the morning with music, drama, arts, reading and special activities built around the weekly theme.”

Ewalt recognized the generosity of the Hermance Family Foundation and the level of influence Children’s School has on so many Chautauquans.

“In other words, for many, Chautauqua begins here in this space,” Ewalt said. “Thanks to the incredible generosity of the Hermances, under this roof, the Jessica Trapasso Pavilion provides the youngest Chautauquans a stage to perform, a classroom from which to learn, a laboratory for understanding nature and a safe space for which to build friendships.”

Hill then shared his love for Children’s School and the importance of the programs it provides for Chautauqua. He thanked Kit Trapasso for his continuation of Jessica’s love and dedication to the Chautauqua community.

Kit Trapasso took the podium and offered his thanks to the community.

“On days like today, I wish I had more words to say thank you,” Trapasso said. “To say that I’m grateful to you doesn’t seem to scratch the surface of my feelings this afternoon. My heart is so full as I look at this incredible space and to see the people that mean so much to me and my family, who meant so much to my wife. My family and I will never forget this day, this act of generosity and devotion, to provide this space where art and fellowship can be cultivated.”

Following his father, Christopher Trapasso thanked the Hermance family and those in attendance before the cutting of the ribbon. The Trapassos, Hermance, Spahr and Hill took scissors from the podium and began the countdown to the ceremonial ribbon cutting.

As bits of ribbon fell to the floor, the pavilion officially opened for Children’s School.

Roy Hoffman thinks stories have the capacity to reverberate across eras.

During his Week Six writer-in-residence reading on  Sunday in the Hall of Philosophy, Hoffman read two nonfiction pieces: “The Enduring Ring” and “A Reunion with my Younger Hitchhiking Self.” Hoffman wore the eponymous ring of the first essay — a gold band that first belonged to his Romanian immigrant grandfather — as he read the two essays about ancestry and youth.

“Sometimes we have to meet our younger selves again to be propelled up and out into the big, boisterous world, making the road, however we define it, our own,” he read.

Hoffman, who is teaching an advanced prose workshop this week at the Chautauqua Writers’ Center titled “Journeys (Of the Heart and Page),” grew up in Mobile, Alabama, and lived in New York City for 20 years before returning south to Fairhope, Alabama, with his family in the late 1990s.

Journeys — the literary and the literal — have defined his life and body of work. A faculty member of Spalding University’s low-residency MFA in Writing Program in Louisville, Kentucky, Hoffman will give his evening lecture, “Making History Come Alive in Stories,” at 7 p.m. Wednesday, July 31 in Room 101 of the Hultquist Center.

“I’m extremely interested in the journeys we all make in our lives, through time as well as place, through relationships and communities, and through history,” he said. “I’ve addressed this theme in journalism and personal essays, as well as my three novels, Almost Family, with its backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement; Chicken Dreaming Corn, inspired by my grandparents’ sojourn as Eastern European Jews to early 1900s Alabama; and Come Landfall, about three women and their love stories, impacted by World War II, (and the wars in) Vietnam and Iraq.”

During his lecture, Hoffman will share stories from his experience researching the historical context of those three novels. He plans to focus on several other works — including a memoir, a history of the Civil War, and a novel from the 1960s about the 1930s — to analyze the techniques employed by authors to render the past “as vivid as today.” To conclude, he will offer writers suggestions to aid research work for their own historical stories.   

“How can we, in 2019, connect with the past in a way that speaks to us with immediacy?” Hoffman asked. “Many historians not only martial the facts of the world before us — whether it be 50 or 500 years ago — but also render it with a sense of detail, and drama, that captivates and teaches. In turn, memoirists as eyewitnesses, and novelists through the imagination, set their tales in earlier times, transforming their experiences and research into what Henry James called a sense of ‘felt life.’ ”

For Hoffman, devoting such care to the writing of historical literature is not only of rhetorical significance, but also a vital public service.

“By making history come alive in stories, these authors have created writings that themselves have become part of the historical record,” Hoffman said.

CTC Artistic Director Andrew Borba had a very specific goal in mind when directing the upcoming One Man, Two Guvnors.

“I love to hear people laugh,” he said.

The highly comedic show is the second mainstage production in Chautauqua Theater Company’s 2019 season. The show, which continues its run at 2:15 p.m. today in Bratton Theater, and runs until Aug. 11, follows the journey of a recently unemployed musician as he attempts to work for two employers at once.

To Borba, one of the most rewarding things about producing a comedic piece of theater is hearing audience members kicking back and just having a good time.

Now in his 15th year with CTC, that appreciation for audience enjoyment has been with him from the very beginning.

At the first show he ever produced at Chautauqua — Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare — he remembers a moment that shaped him not just as a director, but as a human.

“I was sitting behind my father, my wife and my two young kids; three generations watching one show,” Borba said. “At some points, only my father would laugh. At others, just my wife. And others, only my kids would laugh. But more often than not, all of them would. There’s nothing more fulfilling than that to me.”

Borba carried that experience with him into his years at Chautauqua, and he said giving audiences the gift of laughter is something he never fails to appreciate. One Man, Two Guvnors, he said, will certainly make people laugh.

Borba said that of all the shows he’s been a part of with CTC, he’s never been more excited to present a show than he is right now.

“I absolutely cannot wait for audiences to see this show,” Borba said. “A great deal of love has gone into this show. I rarely speak in superlatives, but I don’t think I’ve ever been more eager for a show to open.”

Though the production process earned him a few withering looks from the cast and crew, Borba said, he continued to implement a number of different things to push the play further, including stage combat, authentic accent work and precise comedic timing.

“It’s by far the biggest show we’ve ever done,” Borba said. “It’s as if someone said, ‘What are all the things that are hard to do in theater? Let’s just do all of those.’ ”

Despite the scale and challenge posed by the play, Borba said he never had doubts that the company could pull it off, and that he’s proud of the dedication the cast and crew has shown in the process.

“I couldn’t have done this without the help of each of the teams,” Borba said. “The work that each of our departments have done and the energy that people have brought to the process is just above and beyond.”

During the frantic moments and the late nights of production, Borba said his goal remained the same: Giving audiences a great time.

“I would love it for the audiences to enjoy themselves so fully that occasionally, over the next few weeks or months or maybe even years, they have moments where they think back and just say, ‘Oh my gosh, that was funny,’ ” he said.

What do you get when you mix working in government with having a funny bone? The Capitol Steps, which began as entertainment for a Senate office Christmas party.

“We were all working for Sen. Charles Percy, and we decided to work up some song parodies to perform at the party,” said Elaina Newport, who co-founded The Capitol Steps and has been performing with the group since 1981. “The joke we’ve made over the years is that we wanted to do a traditional Nativity play, but in all of the Congress we couldn’t find three wise men or a virgin. We thought we would do the show just once — after all, we were making fun of the Congress that employed us, so we thought someone would ask us to stop, or fire us, or both. But no one did, so we’re still performing.”

The Capitol Steps will take the Amphitheater stage at 8:15 p.m. tonight, July 31, giving Chautauqua a taste of their political satire.

The group has performed for former Presidents George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. They performed for Bush Sr. on several occasions, and were nervous at first, Newport recalled.

“They gave us a list of subjects to avoid, and one of the subjects they wanted us to avoid was the president himself,” she said. “So, we did what we could — songs about Congress, etc., and when the show was over, the president came up on stage and said, … ‘Hey, don’t you have any songs about me?’ And of course we did, so with his permission, we did them.”

The Capitol Steps are set to come back to Chautauqua and continue their decades-long political comedy tradition. It’s one thing to tell jokes, but another to bring personal experience alive onstage.

“I think the reason we have survived is partly because of where we started,” Newport said. “After all, we’re kind of making fun of ourselves. We worked on Capitol Hill, and we admit it’s a mess sometimes. But we found it was much easier to go back to our day job the next morning if we could spend the evening laughing.”

Their show title, “Make America Grin Again,” is a play on “Make America Great Again,” or MAGA, made famous by President Donald Trump.

“We really felt that, after the 2016 election, people needed a laugh more than ever,” Newport said. “Regardless of who you voted for, chances are you were arguing with your friends on Facebook, or your family over the Thanksgiving dinner table. So, in the weeks following the election, the best after-show compliment we could receive was, ‘I wasn’t sure if I could laugh, but I did, and I feel better.’ That’s what we hope for every time we perform.”

While they try to be bi-partisan, the group thinks the party in power is “always funnier.”

“I like to say that our show is the only place you can see Donald Trump sing a rock song, Bernie Sanders sing a show tune, and Vladimir Putin dancing shirtless,” Newport said. “Once you have the song, the trick is filling it with jokes. The jokes need to have a grain of truth, but you’re halfway there if the song fits the character.”

And the group’s act incorporates leaders regardless of party affiliation — all are fair game.

“We have songs about Trump, Pence, Mitch McConnell, all of them,” Newport said. “But fortunately, Democrats aren’t keeping quiet — so we also have songs about Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, AOC, and Nancy Pelosi. We try to include everyone.”

“There are many dangerous places in the world today, and one of the most dangerous and least peaceful is the family dinner table during the holidays,” said the Rev. Susan Sparks at the 9:15 a.m. Tuesday Ecumenical Service. Her sermon title was “The Politics of Sweet Potato Casserole,” and the Scripture text was Isaiah 9:6, 40:1-5. The Advent theme was peace.

There is always a glitch at these dinners.

“Your brother brings his new girlfriend, Aquarius, who only eats wheat germ with a bit of alfalfa,” Sparks said. “Cousin Ned has a limited-edition, signed photograph of Karl Rove and is seated next to your aunt wearing a Rachel Maddow T-shirt. And Eddie plays the same song over and over, ‘Baby Shark,’ and he is 37 years old.”

The most dangerous time is when the family actually talks about the food itself.

“The battlelines are drawn, arms folded, eyes narrowed,” she said. “Is it marshmallows or brown sugar and pecans on the sweet potato casserole? I am a brown sugar and pecans person, and only lesser beings like that white, sticky stuff.”

In a show of hands, most of the congregation agreed.

“The actual conflict is pretty lame,” Sparks said. “Both will put you in a sugary, diabetic coma and a tent dress really fast. Both make a great casserole, so surely there is a happy medium in all the yumminess.”

This conflict sounds sadly like the world, especially America, which is so polarized.

“It is like we ripped the San Andreas Fault out of California and embedded it in our hearts and folded our arms and narrowed our eyes,” Sparks said.

She described a greeting card with two women, in 1950s dresses, holding cigarettes. One woman says to the other, “All I know is one of us is right and the other is you.”

“There is a right and a wrong way to do things,” Sparks said. “Like toilet paper — it comes over the top of the roll. But I can see the dissension; we can’t even agree on that. There was a patent filed on Sept. 15, 1891, that shows a graph with the paper coming over the roll as opposed to coming under it. I would love for things to be that easy, but most issues are not so clearly decided. There must be more than one way to see an issue.”

She suggested that the congregation look to St. Francis. Instead of a direct throw-down of opinions, people look “not so much to be understood, as to understand.” This is interest-based negotiation, as suggested by Roger Fisher and William Ury in Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. The negotiator helps the parties find out why the issue is so important and helps them find common ground and shared values from which solutions can flow.

“Isaiah shared images of common ground during the Babylonian exile,” Sparks said. “God, Isaiah wrote, would return triumphantly to restore and deliver God’s people.”

The highway would be made straight, every valley raised, the mountains brought low, the rough places leveled into a plan and all the people would see the glory of God together, Isaiah said. For this restoration to come, “the people need to see God in each other,” Sparks told the congregation.

“We need to straighten out the crooked paths of our hearts and prepare to meet God in our neighbor, in the face of the other,” she said.

Sparks described a TED Talk in which journalists brought together a group of people from Alabama, and a group from California. Instead of asking what each group thought of the other, they asked “What do you think the people in the other group think of you?” The Alabamans said they believed Californians considered them religious Bible-thumpers, backward, racist, sexist, ignorant, barefoot and pregnant. The Californians said they believed the Alabamans considered them crazy, liberal, not patriotic, snobby, elitist, godless and out of touch.

“Both sides saw how simplistic and mean-spirited these characterizations were,” Sparks said. “They found some common ground, no matter how small a sliver, for real dialogue. There was an equalization of voices.”

The journalists have expanded this method to other groups in the country. Returning to the sweet potato casserole controversy, she said, “there is some common ground — a delight in sweets. How do we get there? A new recipe. Maybe brown sugar, pecans and marshmallow mixed together. Maybe half marshmallow on one side, and brown sugar and pecans on the other. Or maybe use Captain Crunch.”

There is common ground for the politics in this country.

“We all want a better world for our children — fair and equal economic opportunities, protection from terrorism, to live our lives in peace and harmony,” Sparks said. “We need a new recipe for our own nation, a fresh approach, a commonality that will combine all our recipes into a dish that will feed us all. Miraculous things can happen.”

Sparks visited the Civil Rights Trail in Alabama, and went to the 16th Street Baptist Church that was bombed on Sept. 15, 1963, by the Klu Klux Klan. Four young girls, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Denise McNair and Carole Robertson, were killed. As Sparks stared at the stained glass window in the back wall, a member of the congregation told her that the black, crucified Jesus has a clenched right hand to push away hatred and an outstretched left hand for forgiveness. The words on the window say “Do it for me,” a reference to Jesus speaking in Matthew that when you feed the hungry, clothe the naked and visit the prisoner, you do it for Jesus, Sparks told the congregation. The news of the bombing caused international outrage. John Petts, a Welsh artist, started a campaign to fund a stained glass window.

“He limited the donation to half a crown, about 15 cents today,” Sparks said. “We have the same opportunity today to transform the fighting to healing and to find common ground. Barack Obama said our individual salvation depends on our collective salvation. We have to hitch ourselves to something larger than ourselves to find our role in the next chapter of this nation.”

This country is too rich to be brought down by petty things. “We are all created equal, and this year we need to acknowledge our commonalities as a nation and as a global family,” Sparks said. “We have a Wonderful Counselor, we are the children of a Mighty God and the Prince of Peace. For God’s sake, let’s act like it. And the people of God said amen.”

The Rev. Natalie Hanson presided. Kylee Miller, a high school senior who will attend Corning Community College and is in her second season working at the Hall of Missions with her grandparents, Bill and Maggie Brockman, read the Scriptures. The Motet Choir sang “O Holy Child,” by Michael Cox, as the introit. The Choir sang “A Shoot Shall Come Forth,” by Richard Horn, with text from the Book of Isaiah as the anthem. Jared Jacobsen, organist and coordinator of worship and sacred music, directed the choir. The Harold F. Reed Sr. Memorial Chaplaincy and the J. Everett Hall Chaplaincy provide support for this week’s services.

For Michael Moore, history is more than just a class in school. His ancestry is entwined in major historical events, and that legacy has followed him throughout his life.

“My great-great-grandfather is a Civil War hero and congressman named Robert Smalls,” Moore said. “So, I grew up with an interesting connection to history and that has helped me to think about history in a different way.”

Moore grew up in the 1970s, a decade filled with social injustices that he personally felt throughout his schooling, he said.

“I grew up in Boston in the 1970s,” Moore said. “It was a tough time around issues of race — almost on a daily basis I felt confronted about race and identity.”

Moore said to navigate the issues of race in his life, he remembers his connection to Smalls and other accomplished ancestors.

“It provided a great counterbalance to everything that society was throwing at me,” Moore said.

At 3:30 p.m. today, July 31, in the Hall of Philosophy, Moore,  president of the International African American Museum, will give his lecture, “The Farther You Can Look Back, The Farther Ahead You Can See,” as a part of the African American Heritage House Speaker Series.

In eighth grade, Moore spoke about Smalls for the first time. Moore said talking about his ancestry, as it related to certain moments in history, boosted his confidence.

“Being connected to that history and being close to the history really helped me sustain and fortify my sense of self-esteem and identity,” Moore said.

He said Smalls’ life showed how America is an intricate “melting pot” of people contributing to moments in history.

As he began a career in business, Moore said he saw how history continues to impact the world, which he said is key into understanding modern society. Through sharing particular moments in history, Moore said he will discuss how the past continues to influence the present day during his lecture.

“It’s not just about looking in the past and looking about what happened there,” Moore said. “History just plays an enormous impact on shaping current perceptions and behavior.”

He said it’s important that people understand the past and see their connections to it, which is something he will touch on in his lecture by sharing examples from his own life.

“While I’ll be using examples about African American history, I’ll talk about the impact that Robert Smalls had on me,” Moore said. “That’s in service to this broader issue, that it’s important to connect people to their past.”   

With the impact of his ancestor’s accomplishments in his heart, he earned his undergraduate degree from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, and his master’s from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.

He became the brand manager at General Foods USA and Coca-Cola USA, where he managed Jell-O as well. Moore led a software company in the late 1990s that helped spark the social networking movement.

Now, he is the founder and CEO of the International African American Museum, which is set to open in the fall of 2020. The museum is located on the exact spot where almost half of all African slaves first stepped foot in America, in Charleston, South Carolina.

“I’m a business guy, not a museum professional,” Moore said. “But I have a deep calling and connection to this history, and I have an opportunity to present this history on the site largely where that history took place.”

Moore said he hopes Chautauquans will appreciate history and gain a new perspective on modern society.   

“I hope it will generate a renewed appreciation for the importance and the power that history can play in our lives,” Moore said, “and the fact that history is not just about looking in the rear view mirror, that it has a contemporary role.”