About Martin LahmanHistorical Chautauqua Performer
A full-length performance of Thomas Paine will be performed starting in Summer 2026 in Ashland, Ohio.
Past characters and future characters for performances include J. Edgar Hoover, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Thomas Paine, John F. Kennedy, Andrew Johnson, Lyndon B. Johnson, William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Cormac McCarthy, William Jennings Bryan, and John Wesley Powell.
I am open to requests for other historical characters to fit your event’s needs.
More About Martin and Chautauqua
The word Chautauqua is an Iroquois word referring to Chautauqua Lake in New York, often interpreted to mean “a bag tied in the middle,” describing the lake’s shape. More recently, Chautauqua refers to a type of organized educational assembly or movement that originated at the lake in 1874. This Chautauqua movement evolved into popular adult education across America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with traveling and stationary meetings offering a diverse program of lectures, concerts, plays, and entertainment. The traveling circuits declined with the advent of modern media, but in some areas, the original meetings persist. Today, the term can still be used to describe any similar educational assembly or intellectual inquiry in a community setting.
I first learned about Chautauqua when I was five years old, through Greeley, Colorado’s High Plains Chautauqua. They have a Colorado Humanities-supported program that supports students in developing characters throughout the local school district called Young Chataqua. Since that time, I have researched and portrayed historical people, starting with Johnny Apple Seed in first grade and continuing to list all
I first learned about Chautauqua when I was five years old, through Greeley, Colorado’s High Plains Chautauqua. They have a Colorado Humanities-supported program that supports students in developing characters throughout the local school district called Young Chataqua. Since that time, I have researched and portrayed historical people, starting with Johnny Apple Seed in first grade and continuing to list all