Clay Jenkinson: As Thomas Jefferson

Humanities scholar and author Clay Jenkinson presented a Chautauqua-style evening in the persona of the United States' third president, Thomas Jefferson. Mr. Jenkinson explored the great Virginian's (and his own) views about the establishment of the Jamestown colony and its importance to the development of self-government in America. Stressing Jefferson's idealism and his commitment to reason and wisdom, Mr. Jenkinson explained to audience members the need to live up to the principles and ideals of America's 17th- and 18th-century founders.

Mr. Jenkinson is an internationally respected humanities scholar who has created a wide-ranging life that embodies the very essence of the humanities. He is a humanities scholar in residence at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregan. He has authored six books, the most recent of which is "Becoming Jefferson's People: Re-inventing the American Republic in the Twenty-first Century." Mr. Jenkinson is especially well known to National Public Radio listeners as the voice of Thomas Jefferson in the syndicated radio program "The Thomas Jefferson Hour."

2007: event list

An Evening with the King's Singers

The King's Singers are world famous for their ability to present music from the 1200s to the 21st century. Since their formation in 1968 at King's College Cambridge, the six-member choral group has played in many countries and with many renowned orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony and the Cincinnati Pops. Their performance at the Ferguson Center included a wide variety of English and British tunes, including music Elizabethan age, written at the time when English colonization efforts in the New World were beginning.

2007: event list

"Actus Fideí" (An Act of Faith)

As part of Christopher Newport University's year-long Jamestown 2007 commemoration, the world premiere of a new play of historical fiction, "Actus Fideí," inspired by the life and times of the University's namesake, Captain Christopher Newport, fired the imagination. Filled with colorful historical figures including Queen Elizabeth I, Sir Walter Raleigh, Powhatan, Sir Francis Drake and even William Shakespeare, "Actus Fideí" traveled backward through time and confronted the heroes and anti-heroes who shaped our world 400 years ago. The drama by CNU Theater Professor Steven Breese explored the era's triumphs and tragedies through the eyes and experiences of Newport - a very unlikely maritime hero.

2007: event list

A Version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest
The Tempest / Deconstructed
10/19 – 10/21 & 10/26 – 10/28
Ferguson Center for the Arts Music & Theatre Hall

William Strachey was sailing to Virginia aboard the supply ship Sea Venture when it wrecked in a hurricane in 1609. The survivors - including Strachey and Christopher Newport - spent months in Bermuda constructing ships from the wreckage in order to continue their voyage. It is believed that Strachey's written accounts of this voyage inspired Shakespeare’s most magical play - The Tempest. The Tempest / Deconstructed, adopts this theory bringing the magic of Prosporo’s Island and the exquisite writing of Stratchey together in an original interpretation of Shakespeare’s classic. This, TheaterCNU’s next contribution to Jamestown 2007, promises to be a unique event, one that will speak to Shakespearean scholars as well as new-comers to The Bard’s magic.

2007: event list

"Pocahontas" (1995)
This now famous (or infamous) Disney movie illustrates mainstream American assumptions about Indian ways and lifestyles as they specifically relate to the 1607 founding of Jamestown. The film also highlights perceptions and misperceptions about the part Pocahontas herself played in the establishment of the English settlement and in supposedly saving the life of John Smith.

"Last of the Mohicans" (1992)
This high-budget film based on the James Fenimore Cooper novel is set in upstate New York during the French and Indian War. The film reveals the complex struggle for power and control of the continent among the European empires and how the various Iroquois and Algonquian tribes of the Northeast fought to preserve themselves and their ways.