Like every other performing arts organization, Port Townsend’s New Old-Time Chautauqua was thrown for a huge loop by the emergence in February of the COVID-19 pandemic. But unlike many of the others, the Chautauqua – perhaps because its leaders are jugglers and thus have highly-tuned reflexes – has not been forced to entirely cancel activity for 2020, but has instead been able to pivot in the air, and to move online. Having heard that the Chautauqua was planning to go forward with a full-featured online performance this very weekend, I quickly got on the phone with Director Paul Magid, to find that he was in a quite unexpected place, after having had quite a wild pandemic ride.
