Chautauqua comes back to Libby

On Wednesday, July 26, 1922, a Chautauqua troupe opened in Libby. 

It was the sixth Chautauqua held in the city, and the lineup offered the strange melody of the Jugo-Slav Orchestra’s tamburica, the type characters of A. Mather Hilburn and another year of carnival excitement.

That was nearly a century ago.

It’s 2014 and the walls of Brian Sherry’s shop, Left Hand Antiques & Curios, are neatly covered by old photos, illustrations and a U.S. Navy suit from the years right after World War II. The postcards in a box on the display case are fragile and hint of the time when illustrations trumped photos and live performances gathered crowds of hundreds.

“I saw the Flying Karamazov Brothers when I was in college,” Sherry said. These jugglers will come to a new Chautauqua revival July 20. “Now I get to help bring them here to Libby.”

A new revival of the old turn-of-the-century Chautauqua events is coming to Libby, and Sherry and a group of other locals is hoping to bring the old days of circus tents back to life in 2014. 

On July 20 through 22, Libby will get to witness the revelry of The New Old Time Chautauqua group, the only touring revival Chautauqua group left in the country. The touring group will be circling Montana, Idaho and Wyoming for the next three weeks.  

The schedule starts off with a potluck at 6 p.m. at the Memorial Center, followed by a day of community events on Monday at the Libby Care Center, Achievements Inc. and The Heritage Museum. A parade will inch down Mineral Avenue at noon on Tuesday, and skills workshops covering juggling to tap dancing will follow. The Vaudeville Extravaganza will hit the Memorial Center stage at 7 p.m. with its illusionists, jugglers and other vaudevillians. 

Troy has recently seen Chautauqua presentations, but ever since former Chautuaqua coordinator and spearhead Ralph Stever passed away in 2012, it seemed like there wouldn’t be another one.  But the Chautauqua came back. 

“They came back with their hat in their hand looking for somewhere else,” Coordinator Keith Meyers said. “So we said we’d do it.”

The New Old Time Chautauqua started in 1981 to revive the Chautauqua events of days past. In the era when Big Tops still scattered the land and big screens hadn’t taken over, the Chautauqua of old were meant to entertain and educate. These events were aligned with the rebirth of fundamentalism and they once toured from Florida to Montana. Chautauquas sprouted around country hills just as speakeasies did in the cities.

“The Chautauqua is only three days now instead of six like it used to be in the old days,” Sherry said. “But this group is still touring the way it used to. It’s a chance for people to see what it was like then.”

Meyers said the new Chautauqua is part circus, part education and part party. One Japanese-American woman, Joanne Muriyama, will talk about her family who was in the former U.S. Japanese internment camps.  The Flying Karamazov Brothers, the light-footed band of slapstick performers, is intended to draw gasps and laughs with their juggling antics.

“The event builds a curiosity up for people,” Sherry said. “Hopefully it makes you want to see more.”

Both Sherry and Meyers said the Chautauqua is meant to educate the Libby community and offer one more event to the area to draw people out of their houses. Meyers said as the event grows in future years, he hopes it will become an established event. 

“The Tuesday night performance is going to be something really special,” Meyers said. “Really, nothing we’ve ever seen before. And besides, what else are people going to be doing on a Tuesday night?”

Perhaps the Big Tops can exist in the era of big screens after all.