Chautauqua brings together trio of ‘charlatans’

What do you get when you cross a pirate, a magician and a circus founder?

While it sounds like a lead-up to a joke, it’s actually the line-up for this year’s Chautauqua event, Oct. 24-25 at the Boulder Creek pavilion.

This year’s theme of “Showmen or Charlatans” will bring together seasoned actors portraying Harry Houdini, P.T. Barnum and pirate Samuel Bellamy all under one roof. There will also be opening performances by Larry Crystal, the Lenores and Justin Mather.

Each of the three actors were asked questions about the upcoming performance. Below are the questions and their answers.

Doug Mishler as P.T. (Phineas Taylor) Barnum - 6 p.m. Oct. 24

Q: How do you feel about taking part in this year’s Chautauqua?

I’m thrilled to be back, to do Phineas, and to work with two excellent performers. It should be an excellent weekend.

Q: How long have you been performing as P.T. Barnum?

He is my original character from when I started in 1993. I love doing Phineas and he is so much fun. I have done over 100 performances as P.T. and they are always crowd pleasers.

Q: What was it about him that appealed to you enough to portray him?

Phineas, like Theodore Roosevelt and Chuck Yeager, is just a larger-than-life character. If he had never really accomplished anything of note he would be a fantastic personality. But he is “the sun of the amusement world, from which all lesser luminaries borrow light,” which was his modest description and title. His ego was huge but he included the public in his own amazing sense of humor about himself and his humbug, which means not what most folks think it means. Then there is all he accomplished - he was a 19th century Walt Disney and the whole world knew who he was and loved him for it.

Q: What can the audience expect from your portrayal?

Not just lots of humbug, we will talk about his circus, his museum, his millions of attractions and stunts, his political career, his best-selling autobiography, which he updated each year and he sold more than the Bible, and of course what all of his humbug and 30 years in the showing business tells us about the American character. He understood America and its values in a way that is as profound as it is hilarious. As P.T. stated, “Anyone who expects something for nothing is sure to be cheated, and generally deserves to be.

Joey Madia as Samuel Bellamy - 2 p.m. Oct. 25

Q: How do you feel about taking part in this year’s Chautauqua?

I am looking forward to bringing pirate “Black” Sam Bellamy to Boulder City Chautauqua. It is an honor to be on the schedule with two amazing Chautauquans that I have had the pleasure to tour with in the past — Doug Mishler and Larry Bounds. The audience is in for an unforgettable weekend.

Q: How long have you been performing as Samuel Bellamy?

I first started performing Sam eight years ago as part of a walking tour I created in Beaufort, N.C., which developed into a one-man historical education show where I played nine different characters from the Golden Age of Piracy over the course of 90 minutes.

Q: For those who may be unfamiliar with him, please share a little about Samuel Bellamy.

Sam was known as the Robin Hood of the Seas. He was fighting for both political and social causes and preferred negotiation and psychological tactics to bloodshed. After a successful few years on the high seas, where he sailed alongside Blackbeard and other famous pirates, and his election as commodore of the Republic of Pirates, he died in his 30s in a nor’easter off the coast of Massachusetts as he was sailing home a very wealthy man to marry his true love, whose father had spurned his request for permission to marry her.

Q: What was it about him that appealed to you enough to portray him?

When I moved to the Southern Outer Banks of North Carolina, also known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, I brought a fascination with pirates with me that started when I was a child. Pirates were always my go-to Halloween choice. As I began to learn the history of the area, especially about Blackbeard and his Brethren of the Sea, I quickly realized that most of what we know about pirates is Hollywood garbage. Many captains were wealthy men fighting for various sociopolitical causes and not the violent drunkards so many people think they were. Sam was particularly intriguing because he was fighting for liberty, equality, and justice against immense geopolitical forces. Being a longtime social justice activist, I knew that Sam was the perfect fit for me. There is also a tragic love story.

Q: What can the audience expect from your portrayal?

In the spirit of the theme “Showmen or Charlatans?” Sam will not only be sharing with the audience his own story and motivations, he will be introducing the audience to some of the pirates with whom he sailed, who will share their own backgrounds, motivations, and techniques for survival. These men represent a broad range of personalities, from the dark to the comedic and together they provide a compelling portrait of the Golden Age of Piracy, with all of its enduring complexities. Sam and I look forward to their questions and comments.

Larry Bounds as Harry Houdini - 6 p.m. Oct. 25:

Q: How do you feel about taking part in this year’s Chautauqua?

I am delighted to be coming to Boulder City, and look forward to appearing with friends I have performed with before: Doug Mishler as P.T. Barnum and Joey Madia as the pirate Samuel Bellamy. The theme “Showmen or Charlatans” lends itself beautifully to exploring the humanities themes of truth, honor, and deception which are so entwined throughout the media today. As always, our understandings of the past allow us to better understand the events of today. That is the real magic of Chautauqua.

Q: How long have you been performing as Houdini?

For eight years I appeared as a magician for Ripley’s Believe It or Not! in Gatlinburg, Tenn., and Myrtle Beach, S.C. I performed many of Houdini’s tricks then and that was 50 years ago. But my first Chautauqua appearance as Harry Houdini was in Greenville, S.C., in 2007.

Q: What was it about him that appealed to you enough to portray him?

I discovered Houdini when I was 8 or 9. I saw the Tony Curtis movie “Houdini” on television and before the long I was studying his life and learning what he did and how he did it — from card tricks to escaping from locked chains and rope ties. I loved the mystery, the challenge, the chutzpah.

I was taught the Chautauqua process by my mentor, George Frein, who had performed in character for decades. He recruited me to reenact a historically correct, 18th century, magic show as an opening act for Thomas Jefferson. At George’s request Houdini was the second character I prepared. The first was author, journalist, and cynic Ambrose Bierce.

Q: What can the audience expect from your portrayal?

My Houdini presentation is staged just before he began his 1926 tour of the Midwest. He had injured his ankle while practicing “the upside-down” Chinese water torture cell. His touring show that year was his “3 in 1 Show” - magic, escapes, and educating the audience by exposing the methods of fake mediums and their spiritualist seances. That is the format I follow as Houdini as he tells the story of his life while performing selected effects from his show.