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Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival Celebrates 19th Annual Event

March 30 - April 3, 2005

Edited by Madelyn Miller, the travellady

The city that care forgot gears up for the 19th annual Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival, slated for March 30-April 3, 2005.   The five-day fête celebrates the life and cultural legacy of the eponymous playwright in the city he called his “spiritual home.”

I have always been a big Tennessee Williams fan and have always wanted to go to this festival.

This year’s program was just too enticing to miss.

Festival programs feature master classes for writers and readers with literary stars and publishing professionals; more than two dozen lively panel discussions; celebrity interviews; theater and musical offerings; food and wine tastings; intimate dinners with authors; a scholars conference; literary and other French Quarter walking tours; a book fair; and - in playful homage to the bellowing mates in Williams’ masterpiece, A Streetcar Named Desire - a Stanley and Stella Shouting Contest.

Renowned journalists and political commentators Cokie and Steve Roberts will be interviewed on stage. Ms. Roberts will also engage in a dialogue with her distinguished mother, former Congresswoman Lindy Boggs, a New Orleans resident. New literary “It” kid Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius), cofounder of Might magazine and current editor of McSweeney’s, will also be interviewed.

Master class and panel participants include novelist Kaye Gibbons (Divining Women); mystery writer Laura Lippman (By a Spider’s Thread); novelist, biographer and screenwriter Gavin Lambert (Natalie Wood); David Simon (writer/producer of the HBO hit “The Wire”); biographer Virginia Spencer Carr (Paul Bowles); novelist Ellen Gilchrist (In the Land of Dreamy Dreams); and author/NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu (The Blood Countess).  Film critic and raconteur Rex Reed and Dakin Williams, Tennessee’s “baby” brother, will also be in attendance.

Theater highlights include Tennessee in the Quarter, five unpublished Williams one-acts, of which four are world premieres. The plays were recent discoveries by scholars who will present a panel on the topic at the Festival. Additionally, a new collection of one-acts edited by New Directions Publishing Company with an introduction by noted stage and screen veteran Eli Wallach, a frequent Festival performer, will be on sale. On another stage, critically acclaimed actor/playwright Jeremy Lawrence will present his one-man show, Talking Tennessee, in which he conjures up the genius of Williams the playwright/poet and the highs and lows of Tennessee the man. 

Several panels focus on various aspects of the work and life of Tennessee Williams.  Other topics range from discussions about one of America’s favorite pastimes - celebrity stargazing - to why the South produces so many great authors, with a special focus on Mississippi.

This past June’s “Bloomsday 100” celebration continues with a panel devoted to James Joyce and his groundbreaking novel Ulysses, which has delighted and/or challenged readers for the past 100 years. The popularity of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys will also be explored.            

Environmental specialists will analyze Louisiana’s disappearing coast, while scholars and specialists will deliberate the progress on race relations since Brown vs. Board of Education desegregated schools 50 years ago.  Some up-and-coming authors will ponder what defines the new American novel, and children’s book authors will discuss the elements considered when writing for a young audience.           

Special food and wine events are bountiful:  Back by popular demand, the Food Network’s Sara Moulton will join noted food writer William Grimes in some good “dish” at the “Words to Eat By” panel, after which many New Orleans star chefs will prepare and offer a lavish cornucopia of treats to sample. Moulton will also join Gourmet wine connoisseur Michael Green at the Fest’s wine tasting extravaganza, "Tennessee Sips: The Pen and the Palate." One can join Esquire food columnist and author John Mariani for wine, wit and hors d’oeuvres at “A Fireside Chat” earlier in the weekend.

Also on tap is a new event at Galatoire’s - perhaps New Orleans’ most famous eatery - to celebrate the recent publication of Galatoire’s: A Biography of a Bistro.  And “My Dinner with an Author” provides an opportunity to have an intimate dinner with one of the Festival’s featured authors.

The annual Drummer & Smoke event explores Southern music genres. Several walking tours cover a variety of topics, ranging from scandals, New Orleans cemeteries, African-American legacy, gay heritage, and cinema sites to literary hot-spots. The 2004 One-Act Play Competition winner will be staged, and this year’s prized play will receive a staged reading.

“The programming committee is dedicated to offering fresh topics and exciting new programs each year,” said Eugenia Patru, Festival board president.  “We’re especially proud to be staging the series of Tennessee Williams one-acts, four of which are world premieres,” she added.

Most of the events take place in New Orleans’ historic French Quarter.  Sites hosting events include the Bourbon Orleans Hotel, Le Petit Théâtre du Vieux Carré, The Cabildo, The Historic New Orleans Collection, Southern Repertory Theatre, Muriel's Jackson Square, Hotel Monteleone, Brennan’s Restaurant, Hanson Gallery, Prince Conti Hotel, Palm Court Jazz Café, The Ritz-Carlton, Windsor Court Hotel, Goldmine Saloon, and One Eyed Jacks.       

A Festival Panel Pass is $50 ($40 for students/seniors); a One-Day Pass is $20. Individual master classes are $35; the series of ten is $200. Admission to the Festival’s benefit reception on Thursday, March 31 is $50; other special events, including theater performances, range from $10 to $50; walking tours are $20.  A two-day pass for the Tennessee Williams Scholars’ Conference is $10.  Special passes and group rates are available on request.

For more information, contact the Festival office at 504.581.1144 or visit the website at www.tennesseewilliams.net  to purchase tickets.

Major funding for the Tennessee Williams / New Orleans Literary Festival is made possible through a grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Festival is also supported by a grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council as administered by the Arts Council of New Orleans; and in part by a Community Arts Grant made possible by the City of New Orleans as administered by the Arts Council of New Orleans.

The Master Classes are made possible by the Department of English, College of Arts and Sciences, Southeastern Louisiana University, and by the Historic New Orleans Collection. The 2005 One-Act Play Competition and Tennessee in the Quarter are made possible by the Gertrude C. Ford Foundation. The University of New Orleans provides administrative and production services for the One-Act Play Competition through the Department of Communications and the Creative Writing Program. The 2005 Writers in the Schools program is made possible by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.

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