ENID — History comes to life Saturday at Winter Chautauqua 2012, with visiting scholar Debra Conner portraying Margaret Mitchell, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Gone With the Wind.”

Winter Chautauqua will include workshops at 10:30 a.m. and noon, and a main presentation at 7 p.m. at Northwestern Oklahoma State University-Enid.

John Provine, who serves with his wife, Laurel, as Winter Chautauqua project director, said the living history presentation traces its roots back to 19-century historical re-enactments in Chautauqua, N.Y.

Provine said Chautauqua began hosting week-long camp meetings designed to educate and entertain locals in 1875.

“It was really a unique way to reach out to more rural populations, and from Chautauqua, traveling tent shows developed that canvassed America,” Provine said.

Chautauqua shows remained popular throughout the country until the advent of radio programs in the 1920s. Chautauqua was revived in the 1970s with a focus on actors’ portrayals of historical characters.

Enid and Tulsa are the only communities in the state to offer permanent Summer Chautauqua programs, and Enid offers the only Winter Chautauqua program in Oklahoma.

While Summer Chautauqua is a week-long event with five character portrayals, Winter Chautauqua is a single-day program focusing on one character portrayal. Winter Chautauqua also takes its visiting scholar directly to local school children, through a variety of workshops in the week leading up to the main event.

“Winter Chautauqua is truly unique, because it has grown over the years to be not only a community outreach program, but also an outreach to all of the schools in our area,” John Provine said.

He said the Chautauqua-in-the-Schools program allows the visiting scholar to educate, entertain, and “acquaint local kids with the idea of Chautauqua.”

“My goal many years ago was that we would not have any kids graduate in the county without them knowing about Chautauqua,” Provine said with a laugh.

This year’s Chautauqua-in-the-Schools program included a creative writing seminar for Enid fifth-graders and Conner’s portrayal of poet Emily Dickinson for Enid High School students.

Winter Chautauqua also coincides with the high school Student Chautauquan competition, in which students compete to prepare and present the best 10- to 12-minute dialogue portraying a historical character.

The Student Chautauquan competition judging will take place later this week, and the winning entry will be presented Saturday prior to Conner’s main presentation.

Conner said the Chautauqua presentations give students and members of the general public alike a hands-on feel for history.

“It’s the interactive element,” Conner said. “It’s theater, but it’s interactive theater. The audience can ask questions and really learn about that character’s life in further detail.”

Conner first was introduced to Chautauqua during a dramatic portrayal of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Willa Cather in about 1989.

“I was just blown away by how realistic it was,” Conner said. “That scholar could answer any questions the audience fired at her about Willa Cather, and could not only answer the questions, but do so while remaining true to the character. I just loved that depth of knowledge an actor takes on with a Chautauqua role.”

Conner took on her first Chautauqua role in 1997 with Emily Dickinson. She now travels extensively, portraying five different characters in Chautauqua programs and hosting creative writing workshops.

Conner said it takes “about a year” of intensive study before a Chautauqua actor is ready to portray a character.

“It starts with lots and lots of reading,” Conner said. “There comes a time when I start to sift through the material I’ve gathered, and I recognize the most engaging and the most interesting material.

“When I have a vision of what my character is going to look like and what she’s going to say when she steps out on stage, that’s my launching point,” Conner said. “Those opening moments of a monologue establish me as the character on stage, and you really have a small window of time to capture the audience.”

Conner said she was drawn to portray Margaret Mitchell by an early love of “Gone With the Wind,” and a lot of curiosity about the woman who penned the famous novel.

“My mother loved ‘Gone With the Wind,’ and I grew up thinking it was the best story ever,” Conner said. “I was interested in the phenomenon of ‘Gone With the Wind’ as the first blockbuster book and movie, and I was interested in the writer’s story.”

Conner said the essential element in preparing a good Chautauqua presentation is finding “the emotional, dramatic center of that person’s story.”

“A good Chautauqua actor can sum up their character’s story in one sentence,” Conner said. Speaking of Mitchell, Conner said “she was smart, she was sassy and she hated being famous ... and of all the characters I portray, she’s the most fun.”

“We think being famous, winning a Pulitzer Prize and making lots of money off a novel should be a writer’s dream, but it was anything but that for her,” Conner said of Mitchell. “She loved her privacy and solitude, and after ‘Gone With the Wind’ became so famous, that was all gone for her.”

Conner will portray Mitchell at 7 p.m. Saturday in the commons area of the NWOSU-Enid campus at 2929 E. Randolph.

The day’s events also will include workshops at 10:30 a.m. and noon. The 10:30 a.m. workshop, “Please, do you have any news?” will focus on the Civil War history surrounding “Gone With the Wind,” and the social and cultural effects of the war’s death toll. The noon workshop, “Movie Madness,” will include behind-the-scenes stories about the making of the movie “Gone With the Wind.”

All Winter Chautauqua events are free and open to the public.

Winter Chautauqua 2012 is sponsored by Northwestern Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma Humanities Council, Enid Convention and Visitors Bureau and Greater Enid Arts and Humanities Council.