Influential African Americans of the late 19th and 20th centuries come alive through Joseph Bundy's dramatic Chautauqua impersonations. He has been active in West Virginia and the mid-Appalachian region for years as an actor, playwright, and poet. But he is best known for his Chautauqua impersonations of James Weldon Johnson Booker T. Washington, A. Philp Randolph, Jim Europe, and Major Martin R. Delany. He has presented performances and residences for many organizations in West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina, Maryland, Ohio, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Pennsylvania and New York. In 2009 he portrayed Booker T. Washington for the Enid, OK Winter Chautauqua and Major Delany.

For more than twenty years, Hank Fincken has toured the U.S. performing his original one-man plays in schools, parks, libraries, festivals, and universities. His characters include Thomas Edison, Johnny Appleseed, Francisco Pizarro, Christopher Columbus, Henry Ford, and an 1849er on The California Trail named J. G. Bruff. He added W.C. Fields in 2010. This will be Hank's fifth Oklahoma CHAUTAUQUA. He has recently performed in Chautauquas in Ohio, South Carolina, Missouri, Illinois, and Colorado.

A prolific writer, he has authored scores of plays, stories, and essays as well as one book: Three Midwest History Plays and Then Some. Recent highlights include performing as Johnny Appleseed near John's childhood home in Massachusetts; acting as Edison in a Hollywood film for the United States Patent Office; winning the national Pinnacle Award twice for outstanding video conferencing programs; arguing the New York state's case as Prosecutor Richard Crowley against Susan B. Anthony in her birth town (Adams, New Hampshire); performing for the descendents of the '49er character at the international Bruff Family Reunion in Washington D.C., and working with Fields' grandchildren in preparing this summer's program. Hank has special permission to recreate the image and likeness of W.C. Fields, granted by W.C. Fields Productions.

In the last fifteen years Doug has brought "history to life" in well over one thousand presentations. In addition to his latest character D. W. Griffith and his first P. T. Barnum, Doug has presented Theodore Roosevelt, Ernie Pyle, General Stonewall Jackson and 11 other historical figures. The voices in his head keep him busy but when he is not on the road with the boys he finds time to direct and act in theatrical plays, as well as teaching American history at the University of Nevada. He has garnered a national reputation as one of the finest first-person performers. Like his idol Theodore, Doug believes there is still plenty of time to grow up and get a "real job"-but later!

Karen Vuranch is a storyteller, actress, historian and writer. Using solid historical research, she creates characters that bring history to life. She has toured internationally with Coal Camp Memories. Based on oral history, it chronicles a woman's experience in the Appalachian coal fields. Homefront is a play based on oral history she collected about women in World War II. Karen also recreates historical figures: author Pearl Buck; labor organizer Mother Jones; humanitarian Clara Barton, and Indian captive Mary Draper Ingles. Grace O'Malley, a 16th century Irish pirate and Wild West outlaw Belle Starr, the First Lady of Food, Julia Child. Her newest character is Hollywood gossip columnist, Louella Parsons. Potluck: Stories and Songs about Women, Wisdom and Food, an innovative show about the contributions of women in a community, is performed with singer/songwriter Julie Adams and poet Colleen Anderson. Karen is also a traditional storyteller and has been performing in communities for over 20 years, and participated in a storytelling exchange to China in 2002.

Karen has served as an Adjunct Faculty at Concord University for the past 18 years, teaching Theatre, Speech and Appalachian Studies. Karen has an undergraduate degree from Ashland University in Theatre and Sociology and a M.A. in Humanities from Marshall University, with a major in American Studies and a minor in Celtic Studies. She has eight publications and has released two CD's of stories and produced a DVD of Coal Camp Memories.

Dr. William S. Worley is a full-time Instructor of History at Metropolitan Community Colleges of Kansas City-Blue River and an experienced Chautauquan. His historical interests include Missouri and Kansas City history along with that of the various characters he performs. Currently, he regularly takes on the persona of Tom Pendergast, KC political boss; President Harry S. Truman; basketball inventor James Naismith; Jewish compatriot of John Brown in Bleeding Kansas August Bondi, and, of course, Walt Disney.

Worley is a "public historian" in that he attempts to get historical topics out into communities where people can enjoy them, react to them, and even take issue with them. He believes that history is not something to be put on shelf, but to be lived and discussed. Married with three grown sons and three grandchildren, Worley has been a scholar-performer in Chautauquas in Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, New Hampshire, Illinois and the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific. This is his 4th visit to Oklahoma Chautauqua, having previously presented as Route 66 co-founder Cyrus Avery, Tulsa oilman & philanthropist Waite Phillips, and as Lincoln's Secretary of State William Henry Seward.

Joseph Bundy has been active in the arts in West Virginia and the mid-Appalachian region for years. He is an actor, writer and humanities scholar. He is the founder and artistic director of the Afro-Appalachian Performance Company.

Mr. Bundy is best known for his Chautauqua enactments of James Weldon Johnson, Booker T. Washington, Martin R. Delany and A. Philip Randolph and others. He has presented performances and residencies for community groups, schools, colleges, universities, civic organizations and National Parks in West Virginia, Virginia Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina, Maryland, Ohio, Missouri, Kansas Colorado, Pennsylvania and New York. 2009 he was the guest Chautauqua Scholar for the Enid, Oklahoma Winter Chautauqua portraying Booker T. Washington.

After forty years teaching humanities and theatre at colleges and universities across Midwestern America, Professor Kachel, retired as Head of the Theatre Program at Tulsa Community College. Although retired he still teaches a religion class at TCC using his PhD. studies in Religion and Society from Columbia University (1975).

Much of his work today is touring in first-person performances as William Jennings Bryan, General William Tecumseh Sherman, Sir Winston Churchill, William Shakespeare, Joseph Mallord William Turner, or H.G. Wells. His practiced acting skills can make "history come alive from inside-out" for audiences, especially when they ask spontaneous questions while he remains "in character."

In the last fifteen years Doug has brought "history to life" in well over one thousand presentations. In addition to Stonewall, Doug has presented P. T. Barnum, Theodore Roosevelt, Ernie Pyle and 11 other historical figures. The voices in his head keep him busy but when he is not on the road with the boys he finds time to direct and act in theatrical plays, as well as teaching American history at the University of Nevada. He has garnered a national reputation as one of the finest first-person performers. Like his idol Theodore, Doug believes there is still plenty of time to grow up and get a "real job" - but later!

A native of eastern New Mexico and resident historian of Kansas City, Missouri, Dr. Worley has written numerous books about Kansas City, the Southwest and the development of the Midwest. He is Instructor of History at Metropolitan Community Colleges of Kansas City-Blue River, and serves as Adjunct Professor of History at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

In the world of Chautauqua, Worley has portrayed a wide variety of characters from Harry Truman to railroad restaurateur Fred Harvey, political boss Tom Pendergast, 1920s "goat-gland doctor" John Brinkley and animation and entertainment entrepreneur Walt Disney. He has twice before participated in Oklahoma Chautauqua, first as Tulsa’s own Cyrus Avery on Route 66, and then as oilman and philanthropist Waite Phillips in the 2007 Oklahoma Centennial Chautauqua. Worley has presented historic characters in Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, New Mexico, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, New Hampshire and Northern Mariana Islands.

In the last fifteen years Doug has brought "history to life" in well over one thousand Chautauqua presentations, and one-man shows. He has performed as P. T. Barnum, Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Ford and the other voices in his head before more than ten thousand people. His "boys" include: activist William Lloyd Garrison, war correspondent Ernie Pyle, explorer Capt. William Clark, industrialist Andrew Carnegie, the Reverend Billy Sunday, artist Thomas Hart Benton, and journalist Edward R. Murrow. He recently added the South's only President Jefferson Davis, social novelist Upton Sinclair, and this summer Governor George C. Wallace joined the voices. Over the years he has gained the reputation as one of the finest first-person performers.

After three years working for the government Doug realized that his future was in the classroom and Chautauqua stage not an office. With a Ph.D. in American cultural history, Doug teaches now at University of Nevada when not on the road with his boys. To improve his characters he started in the theatre six years ago and now is addicted having acted in ten plays and just finished directing his seventeenth. Like his idol Theodore Roosevelt he believes there is still plenty of time to grow up and get a "real job" - later!