The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation launched a new initiative — the Revolutionaries in Residence program — to harness the revolutionary spirit and bring unique people to spark conversation and change at the living museum in the 21st century.
“It’s basically an experiment to have a variety of experts come together and get them involved with our programming and our staff members,” said Bill Schermerhorn, the foundation’s creative director of signature events. “It’s a broad concept. What I love about it is we can go in any direction we want.”
The program began in February 2017 with Michael Twitty, a culinary historian, author, interpreter and blogger at Afroculinaria.com. An African-American and convert to Judaism, he uses food as a gateway to exploring ideas and issues at the core of Colonial Williamsburg.
Twitty drew on historical recipes, working with hospitality staff to create new menu items at Chowning’s Tavern and the Williamsburg Lodge. He hosted cooking demonstrations for visitors passing through the Peyton Randolph House. He also led a Kimball Theatre “REV Talk” — a colonial spin on the TED Talk concept — in which he discussed the intersection of cuisine, history and race, while fielding audience questions.
Subsequent revolutionaries include actor Chaz Mena, who explored Spanish involvement during the revolution in April 2017, and filmmaker Ric Burns, who gave a pre-release screening of his PBS documentary on the Chinese Exclusion Act and discussed the meaning of being an American. In May, actor and singer Betty Buckley performed at the annual Mr. Jefferson’s Garden Party, exploring how entertainers should use their platform as a means toward social justice.
“They’re all different. They each represent the best in their fields,” Schermerhorn said. “Overall, they’re all storytellers.”
The Grainger Foundation, a philanthropic organization based in Lake Forest, Ill., supports the program through grant funding. Visiting revolutionaries are able to stay onsite, and everything else is relatively flexible. Their tenure could last a few days, a month or longer, and programming is based on how they can best share their knowledge.
Connecting history with modernity
Edward Lengel, a military and presidential historian, currently serves as the latest revolutionary. Schermerhorn said historians aren’t typically considered within such a subversive context.
“That’s what’s kind of fun about this program,” Schermerhorn said. “How do I now take this and make it work in a dramatic way for the audience?”
On July 12, Lengel hosted a dialogue about bringing history alive in the modern era alongside Ron Carnegie, who portrays George Washington for the foundation.
Lengel is authoring the historical part of a revised edition of “Colonial Williamsburg: The Official Guide,” due out in 2019. With his writing, he said he hopes to address a problem that arises at any historical site.
“What we see when we walk through Colonial Williamsburg, it looks like it’s frozen at a certain moment in time,” Lengel said. “I want to emphasize that it’s a community of change.”
The guide in its current form is a holdover from when the foundation was focusing on Revolutionary City, without much focus on the area’s early history, like Bacon’s Rebellion.
Lengel said he’s taking a broader, chronological approach.
“But it will also have a lot more about people,” he said.
It’s part of an effort to embrace historical accuracy while also creating something that’s approachable and inclusive, highlighting the energy and diversity of historic Williamsburg.
“The best history is the history that captures the humanity,” Lengel said. “The people who walk the streets of CW today ideally should feel a personal connection with the people who lived during colonial times.”
Lengel said he planned to submit the first half of his work Friday, and the second half is due at the end of September. He said the foundation’s staff has been helpful and encouraging thus far, and he sees the Revolutionaries in Residence program as a way for the organization to embrace unique backgrounds and perspectives.
“It freshens the air. It kind of brings new knowledge flowing into this place,” he said.
Later in 2018, historian and Pulitzer Prize winner Gordon Wood will join the foundation as its next revolutionary.
Schermerhorn said the concept works well enough to live on even if the Revolutionaries in Residence program eventually fades out of style. He didn’t yet have any specifics to announce regarding the program’s future following Wood, but the foundation is looking at entertainers, historians, scientists and beyond.
“We’re exploring right now,” Schermerhorn said. “It’s wide open.”
Interested?
For more information on Colonial Williamsburg’s Revolutionaries in Residence program, visit bit.ly/2zTFaxr.
