History Comes Alive at CSM’s Chautauqua

This Year Brings ‘Masters of Their Craft’

Chautauqua 2016 will bring Duke Ellington, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Ernest Hemingway to the College of Southern Maryland‘s La Plata campus.

The annual Chautauqua program includes interactive, family-friendly presentations and is an educational program of the Maryland Humanities Council presented in partnership with CSM. This year’s theme, “Masters of Their Craft,” celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Pulitzer Prize by featuring three Pulitzer Prize winners. Featured will be 20th century composer Duke Ellington on July 12, poet Gwendolyn Brooks on July 13, and novelist Ernest Hemingway on July 14. The presentations begin at 6:45 pm.

For the complete Twilight Series schedule, click here.

Chautauqua will take place outdoors on the La Plata campus Fine Arts Building lawn at 8730 Mitchell Road. Audience members are encouraged to bring a lawn chair or blanket as well as food or beverages. No alcohol will be permitted.

In the event of rain, performances will move indoors in the Fine Arts Center.

Regarded as one of America’s greatest composers, Duke Ellington was an incomparable showman with a career which spanned more than 50 years. His talent and skill earned him several awards and allowed him to collaborate with legendary musicians including Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Count Basie. After dropping out of high school in 1927, Mr. Ellington pursued music full time and through his efforts and hard work, he won a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 and posthumously a Pulitzer Prize in Music in 1999. On May 24 1974, Mr. Ellington died in New York City.  He was 75.

Mr. Ellington will be portrayed by Tevin Brown, a vocalist, pianist and actor from Baltimore, and graduate of Berklee College of Music.

Gwendolyn Brooks is best known as the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for her anthology “Annie Allen.” From her native Chicago, Ms. Brooks was influenced to write about the black experience simply by looking out her window. In addition to her Pulitzer, Ms. Brooks earned numerous honors throughout her life. She succeeded Carl Sandburg as the poet laureate of Illinois in 1968; from 1985 to 1986, she served as consultant in poetry for the Library of Congress; and in 1995, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Bill Clinton. On Dec. 3, 2000, Ms. Brooks died at her home in Chicago. She was 83.

Ms. Brooks will be portrayed by Dorothy Mains Prince, the founder of Sojourns, an educational enterprise designed to bridge the lives of outstanding African-American women to community groups nationwide.

Ernest Hemingway, an accomplished athlete in his youth, excelled in his English classes and was employed as a journalist following high school. After volunteering for the Red Cross as an ambulance driver in World War I in Europe, Mr. Hemingway left the Red Cross and returned to the US after sustaining injuries to his legs. He took a job at The Toronto Star and was subsequently sent to Paris as a correspondent for the newspaper. It was there he met and collaborated with several writers and artists including Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Ezra Pound, and James Joyce while working on his own novels and poems. For “The Old Man and the Sea,” Mr. Hemingway earned the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. On July 2, 1961, at the age of 61, Mr. Hemingway died in Ketchum, Idaho.

Mr. Hemingway will be portrayed by Brian Gordon Sinclair, author of “Hemingway On Stage” and a graduate of The National Theater School of Canada.