Ashland Chautauqua 2024 celebrates 25th annual event with 'A Trip Down Memory Lane'

The year was 2000. A new century brought a new educational entertainment format to Ashland. Ohio Humanities selected Ashland as a site for its Ohio Chautauqua ? visiting scholars who portrayed historical characters.

Ashland’s planning committee was ready to take on the challenge, and over the next few years, took full responsibility for producing the annual event.

Now, in 2024, Ashland is the only community in Ohio still producing an annual event in the Chautauqua format.

Ashland Chautauqua’s 25th year "Silver Celebration: A Trip Down Memory Lane" began with a three-evening event in April featuring scholar John Dennis Anderson returning as Louis Bromfield.

The traditional July five-day event will continue the theme with the return of five favorite scholars portraying historic individuals, as selected through audience surveys completed in 2019.

Cast of characters: Julia Child, Joe Louis, Ethel Waters, John Dillinger, Amelia Earhart

The scholars are Karen Vuranch reprising Julia Child, the TV personality known for her lessons in French cooking (2009); Hasan Davis portraying boxing champion Joe Louis (2007); Ilene Evans as Ethel Waters, blues singer and actor (2013); Jeremy Meier returning as John Dillinger, the daring criminal of the 1930s (2005); and Elsa Wolff portraying Amelia Earhart, aviation pioneer most known for having been lost over the Pacific Ocean in a round-the-world flight attempt (2011).

The traditional event, featuring evening first-person performances and daytime workshops, is July 16-20. Evening performances will be at the Guy C. Myers Band Shell in Ashland’s Brookside Park.

Daytime workshops are held at venues around Ashland and in the Loudonville Public Library. The schedule of adult and youth workshops will be published in early July. The workshops will be led by the Chautauqua scholars, with topics relating either to a character or more generally to the context of a character’s life and times.

The popular informal discussions, Coffee with the Scholars, will be back at 9 a.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The location will be the FLAC building, 107 E. Main St. in downtown Ashland.

Chautauqua events are free and open to public. The evening performances and workshops are at accessible locations.

Ashland Chautauqua offers Ashland County and surrounding areas an opportunity to celebrate history in an educational and entertaining manner. hautauqua is supported by Ohio Humanities, the Ohio Arts Council, the City of Ashland’s Parks & Recreation Department, Explore Ashland, local businesses and organizations and by residents who want to see this vibrant celebration of history thrive in this community.

Financial and in-kind support from the Malabar Farm Foundation helped to cover the costs for the April event. A grant from the Ashland County Community Foundation helped with additional expenses related to the April event and this year’s entire Silver Celebration. Ashland Main Street is the fiscal agent. Ashland Chautauqua programming is planned and implemented by a committee of citizen volunteers.

This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: Ashland Chautauqua 2024 celebrates 25th year at July performances