2026 TWFest Schedule

By Tracy Cunningham | March 15, 2026 |

Saturday, March 21

2 – 3:30 PM—Theatre
WILLIAMS UNDER THE OAKS
As a free gift to the community for our 40th anniversary, the Festival has partnered with the Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans to present an afternoon of free Williams-inspired theatre. Bring your blanket or festival chair and join us under the oaks on the front lawn of the New Orleans Jazz Museum for scenes from A Streetcar Named Desire, The Gnädiges Fräulein, Small Craft Warnings, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, along with Williams-inspired scenes featuring Debbie with a D, Qween Quan, and Tennessee’s ghost with Harry Mayronne. A cash bar will be available, and the Stella Shouting Contest will follow Williams Under the Oaks.
New Orleans Jazz Museum, 400 Esplanade Avenue, free and open to the public.

3:30 – 5 PM
STELLA SHOUTING CONTEST
Join us on the front lawn of the New Orleans Jazz Museum for our beloved annual shouting competition to see who can best impress our judges with their rendition of Stanley Kowalski’s iconic lines. We’re excited to have Poppy Tooker as our emcee, along with Beth Bartley d’Amour and Todd d’Amour as our Stella and Stanley. Plus, we’re once again making the Shouting Contest an awareness-raising and fundraising campaign for the New Orleans Family Justice Center, a partnership of agencies dedicated to ending domestic violence. The NOFJC provides access to free crisis services and shelter, legal aid, advocacy and case management, trauma counseling, and prevention education. Be sure to donate to this worthy cause!
Sponsored by the Goldring Family Foundation.
New Orleans Jazz Museum, 400 Esplanade Avenue, free and open to the public.

Wednesday, March 25

It’s our 40th Anniversary Opening Night! How about dinner and a show and an after-party?
5:30 – 7 PM—Culinary
PRE-SHOW DINNER AT TABLEAU
Start your Opening Night in style with a special TWFest 40th Anniversary Dinner at Dickie Brennan’s Tableau. It’s just steps away from Le Petit Theatre, so you can enjoy your dinner and stroll right into the theatre.
Your dining experience includes:
CAESAR SALAD, DUCK & ANDOUILLE GUMBO
Choice of entree: BBQ SHRIMP & GRITS OR FILET OF BEEF BÉARNAISE
ICED TEA, WINE, AND COFFEE. CASH BAR AVAILABLE
Limited seating.
Dickie Brennan’s Tableau, 616 St. Peter Street. $95.

7:30 PM – 8:45 PM—Theatre
KIND STRANGER…A MEMORY PLAY—OPENING NIGHT
This critically-acclaimed one-man show explores the life of legendary playwright Tennessee Williams and is adapted directly from his autobiography. Kind Stranger explores Tennessee Williams’ life, his loves, and his art, portraying the troubled but deeply human soul behind some of America’s greatest plays. Rick Simone-Friedland stars as Tennessee Williams with wit and unflinching honesty as he writes his last chapter, revealing how his plays were his life and his life was his plays. Using only his words, Kind Stranger could be called the last Tennessee Williams play.
Conceived and Performed by Rick Simone-Friedland. Adapted and Directed by Steven Simone-Friedland.
Le Petit Théâtre du Vieux Carré, 616 St Peter Street, General Admission – $35; VIP Seating – $50 or VIP Pass. Add-ons: Pre-show dinner at Tableau – $95; After-party at Tableau – $30.

9 – 10:30 PM—Culinary & Cocktail
OPENING NIGHT AFTER-PARTY AT TABLEAU
Mingle under the stars with your TWFest friends after our Opening Night. Step out of Le Petit Theatre into Dickie Brennan’s Tableau courtyard for some bubbly and white chocolate bread pudding served with a decadent white chocolate ganache.
Dickie Brennan’s Tableau, 616 St. Peter Street, $30.

Thursday, March 26

9 AM—Special Event
THE NEW ORLEANS WRITING MARATHON
Jumpstart your writing with the New Orleans Writing Marathon! Hosted by founder Richard Louth, participants write their way across the French Quarter in cafés, pubs, bookstores, and anywhere a small group of writers can sit, write, and share their work. It’s all about writing in the moment, writing for the joy of it, and finding inspiration in one’s place. We start at the Hotel Monteleone before going out to explore the French Quarter as writers. For more information, visit www.writingmarathon.com and for questions, contact the NOWM at info@writingmarathon.com.
Writing Marathons begin at 9 AM on Thursday and Sunday. You can end your writing marathon at whatever time best fits your schedule.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Parlor, free and open to the public but please register at https://tennesseewilliams.net/new-orleans-writing-marathon/.

10 – 11:15 AM—Writer’s Craft Session
MAURICE CARLOS RUFFIN—STARTING AND FINISHES STORIES AND NOVELS
Starting a story is often the hardest part. In this generative workshop, we’ll explore tried and true techniques that will help you find a good place to begin. We’ll also discuss how beginnings are related to endings. In combination, these are valuable techniques to overcome writer’s block and complete your work. In addition, Ruffin will focus on the elements of craft to give you a rock-solid understanding of how stories are constructed, whether novels or short stories. We’ll discuss examples of craft from the writings of legendary authors, and we’ll make use of music, film clips, poetry, and philosophy to learn about storytelling.
Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal Salon, $25 or VIP Pass.

10 AM – Noon—Walking Tour
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS IN HIS OWN WORDS
Tom Williams was very open and candid about his life through his letters, journals and memoirs. While some of what he had to say should be taken with a grain of salt, much can be traced and verified. In the 1930s, the French Quarter was a decadent mud puddle in the gutter of Southern gentility, perfectly suited for a decadent young man. Award-winning tour guide, Randy Bibb, will take you through the French Quarter visiting the sites and hangouts of Tennessee Williams. See the buildings in which he lived, where boiling water was poured through the cracks of the floor, where a plethora of vagrants, miscreants, artists, and society girls came and went through the architecture and art of his muse, the Vieux Carré. And hear his story as he told it. Randy’s knack for double entendre presents a narrative which puts a Chinese lantern over a naked light bulb with subtle humor. Randy is a native of St. Louis, Missouri, where he lived only blocks away from the Glass Menagerie apartment. He gave his first tour in New Orleans in 1988 and his commitment to historic accuracy has earned him three Global Guide Awards from TourHQ and the Cultural Preservation Award for tour guiding from the Black Storyville Babydolls. He has served as president of the Tour Guide Association of Greater New Orleans, Inc. and teaches Professional Tour Guiding and the History of The French Quarter at Delgado Community College. Randy is also a playwright and composer; his musical play Onepiece has enjoyed six productions in St. Louis and New Orleans.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Parlor, $40 or VIP Pass.

10:30 AM – Noon—Walking Tour
BIGGEST BEAT: THE EXCEPTIONAL MUSICAL HISTORY OF THE FRENCH QUARTER
This lively tour takes guests on a stroll through the Vieux Carré’s rich and varied musical past. The stroll includes historic sites spanning from the birth of Jazz to the African dances at Congo Square, and from the glamourous opera houses of the 1800s to the legends of rock ‘n’ roll. Highlights include the engaging experiences of great local artists such as Louis Armstrong, Fats Domino, Jelly Roll Morton, and Louis Moreau Gottschalk, as well as legendary visitors such as the Beatles, the Grateful Dead and Led Zeppelin. The tour is led by historian and musician Charles Chamberlain, author of New Orleans: A Concise History of an Exceptional City (LSU Press, 2025), and the forthcoming book The Beat: A History of New Orleans Music and Dance (LSU Press, 2026).
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Parlor, $35 or VIP Pass.

11 AM – 12:30 PM—Walking Tour
LGBTQ+ FRENCH QUARTER TOUR
This leisurely stroll through the French Quarter focuses on New Orleans’ enchanting past with an emphasis on the neighborhood’s queer history and its rich literary heritage. See where writers lived and wrote and learn about the incredible contributions lesbians and gay men have made to the city over its 300-year-old history. The tour is guided by long-time French Quarter resident Frank Perez, a local historian and professional tour guide who has written six books about French Quarter history. Perez also serves as the executive director of the LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Parlor, $35 or VIP Pass.

11:30 AM – 12:45 PM—Writer’s Craft Session
MARGUERITE SHEFFER—WRITING HOPES AND FEARS INTO SPECULATIVE FICTION
What will the future bring? What can our dreams and wildest imaginations teach us about the worlds we want to build–or avoid? Speculative Fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror, slipstream, etc.) is a rich playground for imagining our world otherwise. Speculative fiction authors bend reality to interrogate our morals and explore alternatives. In this session, we will learn from classic speculative short stories, and practice generative exercises to turn our hopes and fears about the future (and present) into engaging speculative fiction. We’ll also go over practices for revising, polishing, and publishing short speculative fiction.
Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal Salon, $25 or VIP Pass.

12:30 – 2:15 PM—Walking Tour
WRITERS IN NEW ORLEANS: FINDING THEIR PLACE, DEFINING THE CITY
Walt Whitman and William Faulkner; Kate Chopin and Mark Twain; Charles Bukowski and Eudora Welty—these are just a few of the writers who resist comparison except in their response to the lure of New Orleans. Native writers who wrote about the city are equally disparate: George Washington Carver, Anne Rice, John Kennedy Toole, Sarah M. Broom, to mention just a few. Join tour guide Dana Criswell on a stroll through the French Quarter to explore the lives of these writers and others, including some lesser-known figures such as Lafcadio Hearn and Lyle Saxon, who helped create a mythic version of New Orleans that continues to inspire literary talent. Criswell began giving tours (French Quarter, cemetery, and literary) after she retired from the University of New Orleans, where she taught in the English department for almost a decade before shifting into an administrative position in International Education.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Parlor, $30 or VIP Pass.

1 – 2:15 PM —Writer’s Craft Session
SKYE JACKSON—WHAT A LOVELY WAY TO BURN: NEGOTIATING DISTANCE & DESIRE IN POETRY
How close is too close? When we write poetry about desire, we must begin with a deep understanding of ourselves but also of the power of restraint—the way in which we use desire as a tool or as conduit for connection. What should be revealed? And what should stay hidden, and then, suddenly be deliciously discovered? We will probe these questions and more in our examination of desire in poetry—how we write into it and how we live it out as well. In this craft talk and workshop, we’ll read work by poets who unveil the underpinnings of desire and then attempt, in earnest, to write into that space as well. There will be time towards the end of the session to share your poems and receive feedback from the craft session leader and the rest of the group.
Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal Salon, $25 or VIP Pass.

1 – 3 PM—Walking Tour
QUEER UNDERGROUND
A critically acclaimed deep dive into the queer underbelly of New Orleans from lesbian street gangs in the sex industry to drag queens under the direct employment of the mafia to the rise of modern gay nightclubs in open rejection of the laws. With no censorship and no shame, follow the stories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people who were instrumental in the creation of modern New Orleans, building whisper networks from the first days of the colony and eventually, taking over the streets. A radical challenge to mainstream queer history and New Orleans history, the tour is a love letter to the New Orleans queer community with equal parts joy and heartbreak Tours will be led by Quinn L Bishop.
Crossing Bar, 439 Dauphine Street, $35 or VIP Pass.

2:30 – 3:45 PM—Writer’s Craft Session
WRITING LITERARY FICTION WITH ROBERT OLEN BUTLER
In the first half of his workshop, Robert Olen Butler will speak on the fundamentals of the creative process for fiction writers who aspire to create enduring literature. He will address such issues as what is art; what is distinctive about the way the artist addresses the world, the inner self, and the objects to be created; and what are the essential characteristics of fiction as an art form. In the second half he will begin administering an in-class coached writing exercise. The exercise is in multiple parts and you will make an intensive line-to-line beginning in class under his prompting and will be given the remaining exercise increments to carry home to finish at your leisure. It is quite possible for a complete, fully-formed literary short story to eventually emerge. Needless to say, you must bring with you your primary mode of writing a story, be that anything from a drafting pencil and legal pad to a laptop computer.
Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal Salon, $25 or VIP Pass.

5:30 – 7:15 PM—Walking Tour
FRENCH QUARTER GHOSTS AND LEGENDS
Join acclaimed local author and storyteller Ariadne Blayde for an immersive twilight walk exploring the dark local history and lore of the historic French Quarter, considered one of the most haunted districts in America. Learn about true crime, yellow fever, pirates, ghosts, and the city’s fascinating colonial history through visits to the Quarter’s most haunted places, including the infamous LaLaurie Mansion, the historic Mississippi riverfront, New Orleans’ oldest and most haunted bar, and more. Feel free to bring a drink!
Rodrigue Studios, 730 Royal Street, meet outside, $30 or VIP Pass.

6:30 – 9 PM—Special Event
TRIBUTE READING: FUGITIVE BEAUTY, TENDER FEELINGS, & SPARTAN ENDURANCE:THE WOMEN OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
Over the last 80 years actresses around the world have regularly expressed how deeply they relate to and appreciate the female characters created by Tennessee Williams, and at this year’s Tribute Reading you will hear their voices. While there are a few “Southern Belles” (who bear no resemblance to stereotypes of what a Southern woman might once have been), Williams created dozens of glorious female characters, some who you know well such as Blanche, Stella, Amanda, Alma, and Maggie. As well as many whose names may not be as familiar such as Leona, Bodey, Myrtle, Carol, Flora, Zelda, Clare, and Jessie. Yet in one way or another all of them are powerful, intuitive, witty, loving, ferocious survivors. This years’ readers include Festival authors Jewelle Gomez, Robert Olen Butler, and Skye Jackson; playwrights Martin Sherman and Jamie Wax; Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air Book Reviewer; and actors Gideon Glick and CCH Pounder. The evening is curated by Festival Director Paul J. Willis and Williams editor Thomas Keith, and hosted by Keith.
The annual Tribute Reading is presented by a grant from the New Orleans Theatre Association (NOTA).
Hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar at 6:30 PM; performance at 7:30 PM.
New Orleans Jazz Museum, 400 Esplanade Avenue, $45 or VIP Pass.

7:30 – 9:15 PM—Theatre
THE TENNESSEE WILLIAMS THEATRE COMPANY OF NEW ORLEANS PRESENTS
SMALL CRAFT WARNINGS BY TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
In a forgotten seaside bar on the edge of nowhere, a ragtag band of drifters, dreamers, and outcasts cling to each other against the tide—searching for warmth, connection, and meaning before it’s too late. Small Craft Warnings is Tennessee Williams at his rawest, funniest, and most compassionate: an intimate, storm-tossed portrait of human desire, loneliness, and the fragile hope that keeps us afloat together. Filled with biting humor, aching vulnerability, and Williams’ unmistakable poetry, this rarely produced gem feels as urgent and alive today as when it first shocked audiences. Includes one 15-minute intermission.
Performance Schedule: Thursday – Saturday, March 26 – 28 at 7:30 PM; Sunday, March 29 at 3 PM.
The Lower Depths Theatre at Loyola University, 6363 St. Charles Avenue. Tickets at https://ci.ovationtix.com/35398/production/1255721. Available with VIP Pass but must book in advance at info@tennesseewilliams.net.

7:30 – 10:30 PM—Theatre
IRENE COLLECTIVE PRESENTS
A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE BY TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
Set in post-World War II New Orleans, Streetcar tells the story of two sisters, Blanche DuBois and Stella Kowalski. Blanche, a former schoolteacher from Mississippi, arrives on her sister Stella’s New Orleans doorstep after suffering a series of personal losses. Her stay is met with resistance from Stella’s husband, Stanley, whose domineering and volatile ways threaten and ultimately crush Blanche.
Performance schedule: Wednesday – Sunday, March 25 – 29 at 7:30 PM; additional matinee on Sunday, 3/29 at 1 PM
Big Couch, 1045 Desire Street. Tickets at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-streetcar-named-desire-by-tennessee-williams-tickets-1982405509243?aff=oddtdtcreator Available with VIP Pass but must book in advance at info@tennesseewilliams.net.

Friday, March 27

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS SCHOLARS CONFERENCE:
9 – 9:15 AM Welcome and Remarks from the conference codirectors: Margit Longbrake, Historic New Orleans Collection; Bess Rowen, Villanova University
9:15–10:30 AM
New Currents in Williams Studies
Emerging scholars use the lenses of performance art, Southern studies, queer time, and a fashion studies approach to the dressed body to shed new light on Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Rose Tattoo, The Night of the Iguana, lesser-known late works, and more.
Moderator: Matthew P. Smith, Tulane University
Panelists: Lital Dotan, Graduate Center, City University of New York; Pune Dracker, Graduate Center, City University of New York ; Cody Norris, Miami University of Ohio ; Sloan Garner, University of Georgia.
Williams Research Center, $10 or Scholars Conference Pass, VIP Pass, or LitPass

10 – 11:15 AM—Writer’s Craft Session
MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM—WRITING A MEMOIR: TELLING THE STORY OF YOUR LIFE
Join Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Cunningham for an audience-involved workshop on telling the story of your life through memoir writing. Telling your version of your own life may seem easy, but a memoir is more than straight narrative. Good memoirs compel readers to keep reading. There’s a thread or a theme that resonates with readers. What makes you want to share your life’s story? Is there something universal about it or relevant to a particular audience? Is there a thread or theme running through your life’s key moments? For this session, Cunningham will discuss his own work in this genre, his memoir coming out in July from Random House, Unsayable, and will lead the group in some writing of their own.
Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal Salon, $25 or VIP Pass.

10 – 11:15 AM—Literary Discussion
NEW ORLEANS AS A HOME FOR WRITERS
This was the first panel discussion presented at the Festival in 1987 with tickets costing $2. It was repeated in 2007, and both times New Orleans poet Ralph Adamo was the moderator.
New Orleans is known as a city that inspires and nurtures writers, as it did Tennessee Williams. For the third time in forty years, we’ve gathered a group of writers to discuss those distinctive elements which made the city so congenial to their creative spirits: C. Morgan Babst, whose fiction and non-fiction paint a vivid picture of the city at its best and its worst; Louisiana Poet Laureate Gina Ferrara, known for her own work and for hosting a monthly Poetry Buffet reading series for nearly twenty years; bestselling and multi-award winning fiction writer Maurice Carlos Ruffin, whose work captures so many distinct views of New Orleans; Mona Lisa Saloy, Louisiana Poet Laureate 2021-2023, whose poetry brings Black Creole culture to life on the page; and Ralph Adamo, who returns to moderate this panel for a third time, and brings nearly fifty years of published poetry to the New Orleans literary legacy.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

10 – 11:45 AM—Walking Tour
WRITERS IN NEW ORLEANS: FINDING THEIR PLACE, DEFINING THE CITY
Walt Whitman and William Faulkner; Kate Chopin and Mark Twain; Charles Bukowski and Eudora Welty—these are just a few of the writers who resist comparison except in their response to the lure of New Orleans. Native writers who wrote about the city are equally disparate: George Washington Carver, Anne Rice, John Kennedy Toole, Sarah M. Broom, to mention just a few. Join tour guide Dana Criswell on a stroll through the French Quarter to explore the lives of these writers and others, including some lesser-known figures such as Lafcadio Hearn and Lyle Saxon, who helped create a mythic version of New Orleans that continues to inspire literary talent. Criswell began giving tours (French Quarter, cemetery, and literary) after she retired from the University of New Orleans, where she taught in the English department for almost a decade before shifting into an administrative position in International Education.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Parlor, $30 or VIP Pass.

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS SCHOLARS CONFERENCE:
10:45 AM–12:15 PM
The Catastrophe of Success
From the moment The Glass Menagerie became a sensation in 1945, fame took a starring role in shaping Williams’s life and career, a part it continues to play in the performance and reception of his work in the 21st century. Scholars with expertise in literary analysis, history, performance, and directing discuss the various blessings and burdens that did and still do go along with Williams’s personal fame, the fame of his works, and the fame of the actors and directors involved.
Moderator: Bess Rowen, Villanova University
Panelists: Kelly I. Aliano, New-York Historical Society; Jaclyn Bethany, Independent Scholar; Michael S. D. Hooper, Independent Scholar; David Kaplan, Independent Scholar
Williams Research Center, $10 or Scholars Conference Pass, VIP Pass, or LitPass

11:30 AM – 12:45 PM—Writer’s Craft Session
CHRISTOPHER CASTELLANI—THE ART OF PERSPECTIVE
The success of any work of fiction or narrative nonfiction depends almost entirely on its narrative strategy: not only which character(s) tell(s) the story, from what vantage point, in the past or present, but why those choices are optimal and how they contribute to the overall effect. In this session, we will begin by defining narrative strategy, then discuss its relationship to an author’s choice of perspective and his/her manipulation of narrative distance. Participants should expect to discuss a few short examples from literature, do a writing exercise or two, and brainstorm solutions for their own projects.
Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal Salon, $25 or VIP Pass.

11:30 AM – 12:45 PM—Literary Discussion
HARD DRINKS, HARDER INK: WRITING NEW ORLEANS NOIR
New Orleans can be a difficult place to write. Poet and essayist Benjamin Morris will moderate a panel exploring the challenges of bringing this unique American city to life. Tom Andes’ Wait There Till You Hear from Me features a reluctant detective searching for his wealthy fiancée’s missing brother. Ariadne Blayde’s Ash Tuesday uses a modern twist on the Southern Gothic to explore the French Quarter’s culture through its notorious ghost tours. Bill Loehfelm’s Maureen Coughlin novels take the perspective of a white, working-class woman from Staten Island who becomes a New Orleans cop. And P.M. Raymond’s short story collection, Things Are As They Should Be, explores the city through the lens of psychological horror. These writers will discuss how they use noir fiction to bring fresh perspectives to writing about a city that can’t help but be a character itself.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

1 – 2:15 PM—Literary Discussion
CULTURAL TREASURES: NEW ORLEANS’ HISTORIC SOPHISTICATION IN MUSIC, DANCE, AND VISUAL ART
This panel explores New Orleans’ remarkable history as a sophisticated center of the arts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. During this period, New Orleans was home to highly respected and internationally acclaimed musical composers, ballet dancers, and theatrical productions, as well as a superior level of painters and furniture artisans. Many of the varied and talented artists reflect New Orleans’ sizable community of Free Persons of Color, as well as the city’s ties to Latin America, the Caribbean, and France, thereby distinguishing the community’s cultural exceptionalism within the United States. The panel is led by historian Dr. Molly Mitchell of the University of New Orleans, and will feature Givonna Joseph of OperaCréole, Nina Bozak of the Historic New Orleans Collection, Katie Burlison of the Historic Hermann-Grima Gallier House, and Charles D. Chamberlain, author of New Orleans, A Concise History of an Exceptional City (LSU 2025).
Supported by the Herman and Ethel Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

1 – 2:15 PM—Writer’s Craft Session
LAURA VENITA GREEN—DEVILS, DOPPELGÄNGERS, GHOSTS, AND CREEPY DOLLS: INCORPORATING ENTITY INTO YOUR FICTION TO TELL VERY HUMAN STORIES
Serious literature doesn’t necessarily mean realist literature. Often, adding speculative elements into our fiction can help us reach a deeper level of truth and meaning, amplifying any subject we’re attempting to tackle, such as family, relationships, mental health, motherhood, growing up, and belonging. Introducing devils, demons, dogs, doppelgängers, or any number of non-human or superhuman entities is a great technique for underpinning characters’ psychological states, flaws, and behaviors. It’s also a strategy that can be used to reach toward the inarticulable messiness of the human condition. Each of us contains entire worlds—how do we contend with a truth that large? Through group discussion, targeted writing prompts, and examining contemporary genre-bending writers like Samanta Schweblin, ‘Pemi Aguda, Helen Phillips, and Ananda Lima, this craft session with novelist and translator Laura Venita Green will leave you with concrete ideas on how to incorporate some sort of entity or presence into your fiction to tell very human stories.
Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal Salon, $25 or VIP Pass.

1:30 – 3:30 PM—Walking Tour
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS IN HIS OWN WORDS
Tom Williams was very open and candid about his life through his letters, journals and memoirs. While some of what he had to say should be taken with a grain of salt, much can be traced and verified. In the 1930s, the French Quarter was a decadent mud puddle in the gutter of Southern gentility, perfectly suited for a decadent young man. Award-winning tour guide, Randy Bibb, will take you through the French Quarter visiting the sites and hangouts of Tennessee Williams. See the buildings in which he lived, where boiling water was poured through the cracks of the floor, where a plethora of vagrants, miscreants, artists, and society girls came and went through the architecture and art of his muse, the Vieux Carré. And hear his story as he told it. Randy’s knack for double entendre presents a narrative which puts a Chinese lantern over a naked light bulb with subtle humor. Randy is a native of St. Louis, Missouri, where he lived only blocks away from the Glass Menagerie apartment. He gave his first tour in New Orleans in 1988 and his commitment to historic accuracy has earned him three Global Guide Awards from TourHQ and the Cultural Preservation Award for tour guiding from the Black Storyville Babydolls. He has served as president of the Tour Guide Association of Greater New Orleans, Inc. and teaches Professional Tour Guiding and the History of The French Quarter at Delgado Community College. Randy is also a playwright and composer; his musical play Onepiece has enjoyed six productions in St. Louis and New Orleans.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Parlor, $40 or VIP Pass.

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS SCHOLARS CONFERENCE:
2:00–3:30 PM
Roundtable: Writers and Directors Influenced by Tennessee Williams
What do revered 20th-century playwright Lorraine Hansberry (author of A Raisin in the Sun), boundary-pushing auteur John Waters (director of Pink Flamingoes and Hairspray), celebrated Irish dramatist Brian Friel (author of Dancing at Lughnasa), and Pulitzer Prize–winning playwrights Eboni Booth (2024) and Branden Jacobs Jenkins (2025) have in common? Esteemed academics trace Williams’s surprising hidden and not-so-hidden influences on groundbreaking authors and works in two centuries.
Moderator: Bess Rowen, Villanova University
Panelists: Stephen Cedars, Graduate Center, City University of New York; Benjamin Gillespie, Santa Clara University; John “Ray” Proctor, Tulane University; Sara Warner, Cornell University
Williams Research Center, $10 or Scholars Conference Pass, VIP Pass, or LitPass

2:30 – 3:45 PM—Literary Discussion
LIVING THROUGH IT: EXPLORING PRESUMPTIONS OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND DYSTOPIAN NARRATIVES IN OUR MODERN-DAY WORLD
In this panel, novelists Moira Crone, Delaney Nolan, Olivia Clare Friedman, and Vanessa Saunders will discuss writing dystopian fiction in the face of climate catastrophes in the Gulf South. Moderated by NOCCA students Quinn Schwab, Alejandra Guzman, and Carly Mathas, panelists will delve into the possibilities, challenges, and rewards of writing in this genre.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

2:30 – 3:45 PM–Writer’s Craft Session
CHRISTINE MA-KELLAMS—GREAT BEGINNINGS
How does a story start? How well you answer this question dictates whether the reader turns the page and finds out what happens next. Novelist, psychologist, and culture/lifestyle writer Christine Ma-Kellams discusses the secret(s) to get a total stranger to stay a little while longer in the world you’ve introduced them to for no other reason than an irresistible urge to find out what happens next. This writing workshop will examine classic and recent opening lines—from the loaded observations in Virginia Woolf and Deesha Philyaw to the real life music video that inspired the first lines of Ma-Kellams’ The Band—and how they set up the narrative arc for the remainder of the story. We will discuss how to apply them across narrative formats, from novels to short stories and everything in between. We’ll spend the second half of the session workshopping your own opening lines, which will include writing exercises, sharing, and feedback.
Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal Salon, $25 or VIP Pass.

3 – 4:30 PM—Walking Tour
BIGGEST BEAT: THE EXCEPTIONAL MUSICAL HISTORY OF THE FRENCH QUARTER
This lively tour takes guests on a stroll through the Vieux Carré’s rich and varied musical past. The stroll includes historic sites spanning from the birth of Jazz to the African dances at Congo Square, and from the glamourous opera houses of the 1800s to the legends of rock ‘n’ roll. Highlights include the engaging experiences of great local artists such as Louis Armstrong, Fats Domino, Jelly Roll Morton, and Louis Moreau Gottschalk, as well as legendary visitors such as the Beatles, the Grateful Dead and Led Zeppelin. The tour is led by historian and musician Charles Chamberlain, author of New Orleans: A Concise History of an Exceptional City (LSU Press, 2025), and the forthcoming book The Beat: A History of New Orleans Music and Dance (LSU Press, 2026).
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Parlor, $35 or VIP Pass.

3:30 – 5 PM—Walking Tour
LGBTQ+ FRENCH QUARTER TOUR
This leisurely stroll through the French Quarter focuses on New Orleans’ enchanting past with an emphasis on the neighborhood’s queer history and its rich literary heritage. See where writers lived and wrote and learn about the incredible contributions lesbians and gay men have made to the city over its 300-year-old history. The tour is guided by long-time French Quarter resident Frank Perez, a local historian and professional tour guide who has written six books about French Quarter history. Perez also serves as the executive director of the LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Parlor, $35 or VIP Pass.

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS SCHOLARS CONFERENCE:
3:45–4:45 PM
Staged Reading: “Fin du Monde (A Postscript to the Casualty List)”
Theater director and emeritus professor Tom Mitchell and members of the University of Illinois theater company present a staged reading of a previously unpublished short story by Tennessee Williams, in which a gay couple in the French Quarter muses on how the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor stands to change the lives of artists and outsiders forever. An experienced editor and researcher, Mitchell provides additional historical context for the story and insight into Williams’s circle and way of life in the years before and during World War II.
Williams Research Center, $10 or Scholars Conference Pass, VIP Pass, or LitPass

4 – 5:00 PM—Special Event
THRUMMING TO THE WORK OF ART: A READING
We’re thrilled to present a reading of established and award-winning authors. Immerse yourself in imaginative worlds, engrossing characters, and powerful and unique voices. Robert Olen Butler is a Pulitzer Prize winning author known for his powerful American fiction and short story collections. He was also awarded the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature. Michael Cunningham received the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel The Hours, as well as the PEN/Faulkner Award. His new memoir, Unsayable, is forthcoming in the summer of 2026. Jewelle Gomez is an activist and the author of eight books, including the recently published collection of poetry, Still Water, which explores her multiple identities: Black, Native American, Lesbian, and Feminist. Playwright Martin Sherman has been nominated for two Tonys, two BAFTAS and two Oliviers. His memoir, On the Boardwalk, was published in September 2025. Justin Torres is the author of Blackouts, a novel centered around the erasure of queer history, which won the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction. The reading will be hosted by Maureen Corrigan, author and book critic for NPR’s Fresh Air.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

6:30 PM Arrival
7 PM Performances Begin
WE HAVE NOT LONG TO LOVE: A CELEBRATION OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
This marquee benefit performance showcases multiple works by Tennessee Williams in an immersive theatrical experience at the Historic BK House and Gardens. Rob Ashford, acclaimed director and choreographer, and winner of Tony, Olivier, Emmy, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards, conceived the event and will direct. The evening begins with cocktails in the sumptuous garden and a brief introduction to the house. In intimate rooms of the historic home, small groups will experience scenes from Sweet Bird of Youth, Orpheus Descending, and A Streetcar Named Desire. Rather than sitting and watching distantly from seats, this immersive theater experience places the audience inside the world of the play. As the audience is guided in small groups through the rooms of the house, the boundaries between stage, actors, and audience disappear. After a short intermission with hors d’oeuvres and a signature cocktail, guests will enter the courtyard for Suddenly Last Summer. The performances feature Michael Cerveris, two-time Tony award winner, Fun Home and Assassins; Christine Ebersole, two-time Tony award winner, Grey Gardens and 42nd Street; Marin Ireland (Sneaky Pete, The Irishman); Jennifer Laura Thompson (Dear Evan Hansen, Wicked, Nice Work if You Can Get It); Ansel Elgort, The Fault in our Stars, Baby Driver, West Side Story; Froy Gutierrez, Cruel Summer, Here’s to Us; Jennifer Nettles, Grammy award winning singer and actress (The Righteous Gemstones); Tony award winner Harriet Harris (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Frasier, and Desperate Housewives); Sam Rechner (The Fabelmans, Scream7); Micaela Diamond (The Cher Show, Parade); and Leslie Castay, The Big Short. Come see the stars in this dazzling yet intimate one-night-only event in one of the French Quarter’s most beautiful historic homes.
Historic BK House and Gardens, 1113 Chartres Street, $200, not available with VIP Pass.

9 – 10 PM—Theatre
THE MUDLARK PUPPETEERS PRESENT
THE GNÄDIGES FRÄULEIN BY TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
In a ramshackle cottage on a windswept coast, three failed Southern Belles compete for sustenance against their fellow misfits and a population of monstrous seabirds. This is a surrealist nightmare exposing the animal nature of social climbing, the elusiveness of belonging, and the ineluctability of collapse. And it is a comedy. Adapted for the stage by The Mudlark Puppeteers, told in rod puppetry, shadows, and marionettes.
Performance Schedule: Friday – Sunday, March 27 – 29 at 9 PM.
The Mudlark Public Theatre, 1200 Port Street. Tickets at https://www.neworleansgiantpuppetfest.com/ticketsandmerch/p/ticket-to-gndiges-frulein. Not available with VIP Pass.

10 PM Doors, Show at 10:30 PM – 12:20 AM—Theatre
LE VAMPRYE CABARET & THE SPIRIT OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS!
A deviously campy and deliciously macabre theater show with New Orleans’ most infamous Vampires, Madame Tsarina Magdalena Hellfire & Stanley Roy! Featuring acclaimed marionette artist Harry Mayronne as the spirit of Tennessee Williams. Also featuring Simone Del Mar as a bloodthirsty burlesque beauty and sideshow darling JuJu as our overly dramatic Human.
Le Vampyre Cabaret is a carnivorous coven of undead thespians who have traveled through centuries of debauchery, finally settling down in New Orleans. In The Big Easy, where the tourists roam free and the nightlife never sleeps, these Vaudevillian Vampires will glamor you with their live songs, lively storytelling, and good ole fashioned stripping!
The Twilight Room at The AllWays Lounge, 2240 Saint Claude Avenue. Tickets from $25.50 at https://LeVampyreCabaretTWfest.eventbrite.com. Not available with VIP Pass.

Saturday, March 28

8:30 – 9:45 AM—Special Event
BOOKS AND BEIGNETS WITH GARY RICHARDS
THE ROSE TATTOO BY TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
After recently focusing on other writers, our breakfast book group returns to Tennessee Williams himself, exploring his 1951 play The Rose Tattoo to commemorate its 75th anniversary. Consistently hailed as one of Williams’ warmest and most life-affirming plays from his major years, it charts the trauma and slow recovery of Serafina Delle Rose as she copes with her husband’s infidelity and death, her daughter’s burgeoning sexuality, and her own need for love, even if it takes her outside social conventions. Moreover, Williams complicates understandings of the US South, setting the play in a Sicilian-American community along the Gulf Coast and thus paying tribute to his longtime partner Frank Merlo, to whom he dedicates the play. Readers are invited to purchase and/or read the play included in the paperback Three by Tennessee (ISBN 978-0451529084).
Enjoy your book chat with southern literary scholar Gary Richards, along with pillowy golden beignets, an array of fresh fruit, coffee, and juices, all prepared by Dickie Brennan’s Bourbon House!
Dickie Brennan’s Bourbon House, 144 Bourbon Street. $40 or VIP Pass.

10 – 11:15 AM—Literary Discussion
WRITING AS PRACTICE: THE USES OF SPIRITUALITY IN THE CREATIVE LIFE
“Writing is a form of prayer,” Franz Kafka once wrote. Both rituals require contemplation, discipline and solitude; both are aimed at transcendence. This panel will look at how a sense of spirituality informs the creative process—and how the creative process comprises a kind of spirituality in and of itself. Charles Baxter, whose most recent essay collection, Wonderlands, discusses craft and fantasy, will be in conversation with Olivia Clare Friedman, whose new poetry collection, An Arm Fixed to a Wing, explores the desire to recover awe in the everyday. Joining them will be Rodger Kamenetz, whose Seeing into the Life of Things offers us rituals to help return the sacred to our lives. Miles Harvey, author of The Registry of Forgotten Objects, will moderate.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

10 – 11:15 AM—Literary Discussion
THE TALENT THAT SURVIVES—EDITING TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
Because he was so prolific and left behind such a massive amount of writing, quite a bit of previously unpublished material by Tennessee Williams—plays, poems, essays, stories, and letters—has been published after his death, over the last forty years ago, for the first time. How is the material chosen? Who makes the final decisions? How is it edited? Are there standards or guidelines for publication? Where does the material come from? These are some of the issues that will be discussed by Margit Longbrake, Senior Editor at the Historic New Orleans Collection; Tom Mitchell, theater director and Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois; and Thomas Keith, Consulting Editor for New Directions Publishing and Professor of Theater at Pace University, who have all edited Williams’ previously unpublished work. Jef Hall-Flavin will moderate.
Sponsored by Helen Ingram.
Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

11 AM – 12:30 PM—Walking Tour
BIGGEST BEAT: THE EXCEPTIONAL MUSICAL HISTORY OF THE FRENCH QUARTER
This lively tour takes guests on a stroll through the Vieux Carré’s rich and varied musical past. The stroll includes historic sites spanning from the birth of Jazz to the African dances at Congo Square, and from the glamourous opera houses of the 1800s to the legends of rock ‘n’ roll. Highlights include the engaging experiences of great local artists such as Louis Armstrong, Fats Domino, Jelly Roll Morton, and Louis Moreau Gottschalk, as well as legendary visitors such as the Beatles, the Grateful Dead and Led Zeppelin. The tour is led by historian and musician Charles Chamberlain, author of New Orleans: A Concise History of an Exceptional City (LSU Press, 2025), and the forthcoming book The Beat: A History of New Orleans Music and Dance (LSU Press, 2026).
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Parlor, $35 or VIP Pass.

11:30 AM – 12:45 PM—Literary Discussion
CONTROLLED CHAOS: FINDING FORM THROUGH REVISION
How does one bring an initial idea/impulse/sketch to final draft? This panel, made up of writers of fiction and nonfiction, short and long form works, includes Robert Olen Butler, Michael Cunningham, Cammie McGovern, and Timothy Schaffert. They will discuss their views of revision: is it a balance between control and creativity? When do you honor the “nonconforming oddities” and put them to the test? When do you expand—following what’s interesting, surprising, and worthy of exploration? When do you contract—cutting what isn’t earning its keep, tightening focus, and improving pacing? How do these writers re-see a draft again and again, how do they decide what belongs, and how do they know when it’s time to let the work go. Moderated by novelist and co-author of the craft book The Lab: Experiments in Writing Across Genre, Matthew Clark Davison.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

11:30 AM – 12:45 PM—Literary Discussion
MY NORTH STAR: TENNESSEE WILLIAMS’ INFLUENCE ON OTHER WRITERS
This panel will be a conversation among three of the many writers who have been influenced by Williams’ life and work. When someone is influenced by a great writer, it doesn’t mean they write exactly like that person or imitate their style. What they most often get is inspiration, beauty, and insight, and great writers are sometimes a beacon of hope for other writers. Novelist Christopher Castellani will share how Williams’ life story inspired him to write the novel Leading Men; Jonathan Alexander will talk about the ways in which Williams’ writing has inspired his essays and memoirs, such as Dear Queer Self; and playwright Martin Sherman, author of the memoir On the Boardwalk, as well as Bent and dozens of other plays and screenplays, will speak about how Williams’ plays and life were guideposts along the way to finding his voice as a fellow playwright. Moderated by Thomas Keith, consulting editor for New Directions.
Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

1 – 2:15 PM—Literary Discussion
WRITING LIFE INTO LANGUAGE: THE CRUCIBLE OF CRAFT
A writer’s material—for fact and for fiction—is mined from lived experience. But what we have lived and learned transforms as it passes into language, a transformation that raises questions about truth and form, privacy and compassion. Justin Torres, who burst onto the scene in 2011 with his intimate novel of boyhood, We the Animals, joins Michael Cunningham, whose forthcoming memoir, Unsayable, delves into these questions of language and life. Joining them in conversation are Christine Ma-Kellams, who brings her work as a psychologist to bear on her novel, The Band, and in personal essays about everything from her Costco addiction to her commute, and Cammie McGovern, who has made a career of writing books about and for children with disabilities, such as her 2021 memoir Hard Landing about her autistic son’s transition to adulthood. Miles Harvey, author of The Registry of Forgotten Objects, will moderate.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

1 – 2:15 PM—Literary Discussion
REMEMBERING ARTIST GEORGE DUREAU
New Orleans Painter/photographer George Dureau’s career spanned more than half a century. Reflecting on Dureau’s life and legacy will be gallery owner Arthur Roger; Jarret Lofstead, who produced a documentary on the artist; University of California (Irvine) English Professor Jonathan Alexander; Brian Sands, performing arts editor for Ambush Magazine, and Doug MacCash, arts and culture reporter for The Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate. Moderated by WYES-TV host/documentary producer Peggy Scott Laborde.
Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

1 – 2:15 PM—Literary Discussion
THE IMPORTANCE OF FEMALE VOICES IN CRIME FICTION
Presented by the Pinckley Prize for Crime Fiction
From intrepid sleuths to villainesses embracing their “feminine rage,” the feminine shows up in crime fiction in ways that are powerful, shocking, and cathartic. These panelists have reclaimed the mystery genre from hardboiled noir to nail-biting thrillers and infused them with their own unique voices. Maureen Corrigan, the distinguished book critic for Fresh Air and the Washington Post, moderates a discussion with bestselling authors Kristen L. Berry, Margot Douaihy, Cheryl A. Head, and J.M. Redmann, as they talk about feminist aspects of crime writing.
Hotel Monteleone, Riverview Room, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

2:30 – 3:45 PM—Literary Discussion
DEAD RECKONING: DEBUT NOVELISTS
Writers’ first books are often our most personal, the result of years of grappling with the big questions asked by our own (extremely examined) lives: What kind of a future can we have on this hobbled planet? How can we love the flawed humans around us? What should we do with our trauma—or our grief? Five debut novelists will discuss where such reckoning has led them, in literature and in life. The newest literary star from Mississippi (and now New Orleans) Addie Citchens tells the story of one upstanding Delta family’s struggle with the monster in their midst in her audacious debut, Dominion, while in her Southern Gothic novel, Sister Creatures, Laura Venita Green reinvents the rural Louisiana of her childhood to spin a tale of haunting—and the impossibility of returning home. Happy Bad, by Delaney Nolan, takes us into the desert of the near future, when a group of troubled girls must evacuate their treatment facility in search of safety, while Denne Michele Norris and Issa Quincy‘s characters are burdened by the past. In Norris’ debut When the Harvest Comes, a new marriage is challenged by the death of one groom’s estranged father, while Quincy’s Absence is motivated by memory: a poem read to the narrator in childhood recurs, connecting the lives of a beloved schoolteacher, a grieving sister, and a prodigal son through the theme of loss. Moderated by novelist C. Morgan Babst, author of The Floating World.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

2:30 – 3:45—Literary Discussion
HOME AND AWAY: CREATING THE SPACES OF HISTORICAL FICTION
A place is more than its geography or architecture or streets: it is the histories woven into its molecules, a truth acknowledged and explored by these four New Orleans-based authors. Jess Armstrong is the author of the Ruby Vaughn murder mysteries, which follow an American heiress in postwar Britain and her occult-tinged investigations. Tulane professor Ladee Hubbard’s fiction explores civil rights, superpowers, and the suburbs in timelines ranging from early 20th century America to the Obama years in novels such The Rib King and collections like The Last Suspicious Holdout. Christopher Louis Romaguera’s poetry, stories, and translations—most recently Charras—connect the greater Caribbean to his adopted hometown of New Orleans and beyond. And LSU professor Joshua Wheeler takes readers into the surrealities and strangeness of the American Southwest in essay collections like Acid West and novels like High Heaven. Moderated by Adam Karlin, author of Luna & the Heart of the Forest and four editions of the Lonely Planet guide to New Orleans.
Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

2:30 – 3:45—Writer’s Craft Session
PASSIONATE PLOTTING: CRUCIAL PLOT MOVES THAT KEEP READERS HOOKED—MARGOT DOUAIHY
Presented by the Diana Pinckley Prize for Crime Fiction
What is a plot, really? What’s the difference between a crucial plot point and a placeholder? In this craft session by novelist Margot Douaihy, we’ll sail past simple scaffolds and focus on precision plotting to augment any narrative style and structure. We’ll play with targeted exercises to sharpen your story’s momentum and honor your unique goals. We’ll examine exemplary plot strategies and put theory into action as we write 2-Minute Mysteries. This craft session is for any writer in any genre who wants to level up plot skills and become a passionate plotter!
Hotel Monteleone, Riverview Room, $25 or VIP Pass

4 – 5:15 PM—CONVERSATION
CONVERSATION WITH THOMAS MALLON & MARTIN SHERMAN
LED BY MAUREEN CORRIGAN
When fact is stranger than fiction, how do you tell a story that’s compelling, empathetic, and true? NPR’s Maureen Corrigan leads a discussion about interweaving humanity with history. Thomas Mallon is the author of The Very Heart of It, a New Yorker Best Book of the Year that chronicles his journal entries around New York City in the 1980s and 1990s, a gay coming of age story that takes readers through the AIDs crisis and beyond. He is also the author of nonfiction works about diaries, plagiarism, and letters, as well as a substantial body of work in historical fiction, from the Reagan years to Hurricane Katrina. Martin Sherman is the author of On the Boardwalk, a memoir that takes the reader on a darkly humorous journey of the author’s life growing up in a Jewish immigrant family and ending with his success on Broadway as the writer of the play Bent. Sherman is also known for his stage adaptations of Tennessee Williams’ The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone and E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, $10 or Lit Pass or VIP Pass.

4 — 5:15 PM—Writer’s Craft Session
CHARLES BAXTER: WRITING DURING A TIME OF POLITICAL TURMOIL
How do we write about social matters when the issues seem toxic and increasingly polarized? What does the writer have to do when every reader knows who the villain is? Using his recent experience as a citizen of Minneapolis, Charles Baxter will lead a discussion about using oblique means and unusual angles to address thorny political questions. Robert Penn Warren’s novel All the King’s Men and Allen Ginsberg’s poem “America” will serve as exemplary texts.
Hotel Monteleone, Royal Salon, $25 or VIP Pass.

4 – 5:15 PM—Special Event
PRESENTATION OF THE DIANA PINCKLEY PRIZES FOR CRIME FICTION
The Pinckley Prizes for Crime Fiction were established in 2012 for women writers to honor the memory of Diana Pinckley (1952 – 2012), a longtime crime fiction columnist for The New Orleans Times-Picayune, and her passion for mysteries. The initial prizes were presented in 2014 at the BK Historic House during the Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival, and the winners were Laura Lippman and Gwen Florio. This event honors the 2026 winners, J.M. Redmann, author of the Micky Knight mystery series, and Kristen L. Berry, author of the bestselling 2025 debut, We Don’t Talk About Carol.
Hotel Monteleone, Riverview Room, free and open to the public.

4 PM—Theatre
THE TENNESSEE WILLIAMS THEATRE COMPANY OF NEW ORLEANS PRESENTS
DEBBIE WITH A D’S TENNESSEE WITH THE TEA
REDRESSED & REBORN—A LAGNIAPPE PRODUCTION
TWTC is once again joining forces with Best of New Orleans #1 Drag Performer Debbie with a D to bring back the girls of Tennessee with the Tea! This adults-only drag story time will feature incredible queens recounting the stories of Williams’ most famous plays followed by lip sync performances inspired by them. You don’t want to miss out on all the shade, shenanigans, and she-said/she-said of this two-performances-only revival of last year’s hit!
The Twilight Room at The AllWays Lounge, 2240 St. Claude Avenue. Tickets at http://www.twtheatrenola.com/. Not available with VIP Pass.

4:30 – 6 PM—Cocktail Event & Conversation
HISTORIC HAPPY HOUR
TWFest is celebrating our 40th anniversary this year! How did the Festival get started? Why focus on Tennessee Williams? How has the Festival changed over the decades? We have two board members who have been with us throughout the years and know the answers to those questions and much more. Join Peggy Scott Laborde as she interviews Errol Laborde, who was there when the idea for the Festival was conceived and served as our founding board president. They will chat in the courtyard of the Celestine Hotel among the very spaces where Williams worked on A Streetcar Named Desire. It’s also the spot where Dick Cavett interviewed Williams in 1974. The Celestine’s Tennessee Williams Parlor was once Room 10 of the historic Maison de Ville, Williams’ favorite room when he stayed there. The event is free and you can purchase a cocktail to enjoy during the interview, including a Festival favorite in the early years—the mint julep!
The Celestine Hotel, 727 Toulouse Street, free and open to the public.

6:30 PM—Special Event
Doors and cash bar at 6 PM
THE LAST BOHEMIAN SOIRÉE: AN EVENING WITH BILLY EICHNER
Our Last Bohemia Soirée is in the opulent Queen Anne Ballroom at our host hotel, the Monteleone, and promises to be an unforgettable evening of conversation, music, and storytelling. Arrive at 6 PM for drinks and mingling, and at 6:30 enjoy some of New Orleans’ live local music with singer-songwriter Chloe Marie. Then prepare for a lively conversation with actor, comedian, writer, and producer Billy Eichner. Billy will share excerpts from his upcoming audio memoir, Billy on Billy, due out in May by Macmillan Audio. He’ll be joined by CBS news correspondent and Broadway playwright Jamie Wax to discuss the voice behind the viral sensation, Billy on the Street, Billy’s unlikely path to stardom, the artists that inspired him, and the forces that shaped him along the way. This year’s Soirée is a partner event with the Blue Roses Project, a New Orleans nonprofit dedicated to providing queer artists a platform to develop new plays.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, $50 or VIP Pass for reserved seats; $40 general admission; $20 student or industry professional.

7:30 – 9:15 PM—Walking Tour
FRENCH QUARTER GHOSTS AND LEGENDS
Join acclaimed local author and storyteller Ariadne Blayde for an immersive twilight walk exploring the dark local history and lore of the historic French Quarter, considered one of the most haunted districts in America. Learn about true crime, yellow fever, pirates, ghosts, and the city’s fascinating colonial history through visits to the Quarter’s most haunted places, including the infamous LaLaurie Mansion, the historic Mississippi riverfront, New Orleans’ oldest and most haunted bar, and more. Feel free to bring a drink!
Rodrigue Studios, 730 Royal Street, meet outside, $30 or VIP Pass.

Doors at 8 PM; Show at 9 PM—Theatre
LADYBEAST PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS
VAUDEVILLE REVIVAL
Vaudeville Revival is an annual LadyBEAST Productions spectacle—one night only, entirely new acts, and never to be repeated. This year’s show celebrates the electric lineage of circus and vaudeville, from historic legends to local heroes and international stars. Audiences can expect high-flying trapeze, iron jaw, cowboy antics, true clowning, comedy, and jaw-dropping variety, alongside tributes to the trailblazers who built these art forms and the artists boldly reinventing them today.
Vaudeville Revival is part of the Tennessee Williams Festival’s 40th Anniversary marquee events. Presented as part of this landmark celebration, the show honors New Orleans’ theatrical legacy through daring, dangerous, and gloriously alive circus and variety performance. The lineup includes LadyBEAST, Aria de la Noche, Aysa, Gigi Marx, Simone Del Mar, Sweet Tooth Simone, Anya Sapozhnirova, Kitten & Lou, Chris McDaniels, Angie Z, and Rebecca Ostroff, with each artist bringing their own distinct style, history, and edge to the stage. Vaudeville Revival is not a nostalgia act, it is a living, breathing spectacle. A reminder that circus is not frozen in time, but evolving, dangerous, funny, and fiercely alive. One night. New acts. A living spectacle. 21 and older, please.
The Joy Theater, 1200 Canal Street, $100 for VIP Cocktail Seating; $35 for General Admission. Not available with VIP Pass.

Sunday, March 29

10 – 11:15 AM—Literary Discussion
TAKE ME TO THE SOURCE! A RESEARCH BOOTCAMP FOR ALL WRITERS
A writer’s work has many wellsprings; archives and news sites, museums and YouTube, used bookstores and gossip mills can all be fonts of fact and inspiration. But how do you know where to start digging? And, once you’ve found yourself in a research rabbit hole, how do you get out? A multi-genre panel of writers will discuss where to find the facts you’re looking for and how to weave them into your work. Journalist and historian Daniel Brook researched his new book, The Einstein of Sex, while in Berlin on an Ina Caro Research/Travel Fellowship. He will be joined by Ethan Brown, who uses his investigative skills both as a journalist and a death row mitigation specialist; his most recent book is Murder on the Bayou: Who Killed the Women Known as the Jeff Davis 8? Miles Harvey, prize-winning author of both fiction and non-fiction, has turned to the short form in The Registry of Forgotten Objects, and Delaney Nolan, a journalist, essayist, and poet, has just published her speculative debut novel Happy Bad. Robert W. Fieseler, journalist and author of American Scare and Tinderbox, will moderate.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom. $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

10 – 11:15 AM–Literary Discussion
LIVES ILLUSTRATED: THE ART OF BIOGRAPHY IN GRAPHIC NOVELES
Graphic novels have transformed how we tell true stories—merging vivid artwork with narrative depth to bring real lives to the page. This panel explores the art of creating biographies that meld historical accuracy and visual imagination. A. Angélique Roché, author of First Freedom: The Story of Opal Lee and Juneteenth and Nick Weldon, editor of Monumental: Oscar Dunn and His Radical Fight in Reconstruction Louisiana join moderator Megan Holt to discuss how the medium challenges and expands our understanding of nonfiction storytelling.
Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal Salon. $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

10:30 AM – 12:15 PM—Walking Tour
WRITERS IN NEW ORLEANS: FINDING THEIR PLACE, DEFINING THE CITY
Walt Whitman and William Faulkner; Kate Chopin and Mark Twain; Charles Bukowski and Eudora Welty—these are just a few of the writers who resist comparison except in their response to the lure of New Orleans. Native writers who wrote about the city are equally disparate: George Washington Carver, Anne Rice, John Kennedy Toole, Sarah M. Broom, to mention just a few. Join tour guide Dana Criswell on a stroll through the French Quarter to explore the lives of these writers and others, including some lesser-known figures such as Lafcadio Hearn and Lyle Saxon, who helped create a mythic version of New Orleans that continues to inspire literary talent. Criswell began giving tours (French Quarter, cemetery, and literary) after she retired from the University of New Orleans, where she taught in the English department for almost a decade before shifting into an administrative position in International Education.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Parlor, $30 or VIP Pass.

11:30 AM – 12:45 PM—Literary Discussion
THE SHAPE OF OUR LIVES: MEMOIR’S MANY FORMS
“Was this what I wanted, to fission myself into bits?” Michael Lowenthal writes in his memoir in essays, Place Envy. To understand our lives, we must sometimes explode them, putting each fragment under the microscope, or explore them through investigation or reportage. Joining Lowenthal in conversation are Joshua Wheeler, author of the radioactive essay collection Acid West, about his New Mexican homeland; Gaar Adams, whose Guest Privileges—half-memoir, half-reportage—tells the story of queer community, migration, and desire around the Persian Gulf; and Jordan LaHaye Fontenot, who investigates the 1983 murder of her great-grandfather in Home of the Happy. Gil Z. Hochberg, author of the memoir My Father, the Messiah, will moderate.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom. $10 or Lit Pass or VIP Pass.

11:30 AM – 1 PM—Walking Tour
BIGGEST BEAT: THE EXCEPTIONAL MUSICAL HISTORY OF THE FRENCH QUARTER
This lively tour takes guests on a stroll through the Vieux Carré’s rich and varied musical past. The stroll includes historic sites spanning from the birth of Jazz to the African dances at Congo Square, and from the glamourous opera houses of the 1800s to the legends of rock ‘n’ roll. Highlights include the engaging experiences of great local artists such as Louis Armstrong, Fats Domino, Jelly Roll Morton, and Louis Moreau Gottschalk, as well as legendary visitors such as the Beatles, the Grateful Dead and Led Zeppelin. The tour is led by historian and musician Charles Chamberlain, author of New Orleans: A Concise History of an Exceptional City (LSU Press, 2025), and the forthcoming book The Beat: A History of New Orleans Music and Dance (LSU Press, 2026).
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Parlor, $35 or VIP Pass.

1 – 2:15 PM—Literary Discussion
GETTING TO YES: PITCHING AND SUBMITTING TO MAGAZINES AND JOURNALS
How do you know when a piece—or an idea—is ready to go out into the world? And how do you decide where to send it? Editors from journals publishing everything from poetry and fiction to graphic narrative and long-form essays will share the ins and outs of getting your work accepted, edited, and into readers’ hands. Authors themselves, they know the struggle. Miah Jeffra, co-founder of Foglifter Press, professor, and author of The Violence Almanac, will share advice on pitching essays and CNF with Boyce Upholt, founding editor of Southlands and author of The Great River. In addition, Denne Michelle Norris, editor-in-chief of Electric Literature and author of When The Harvest Comes, and Timothy Schaffert, editor-in-chief of Prairie Schooner and author of The Titanic Survivors’ Book Club, will share what makes a submission stand out from the slush. Jack B. Bedell, editor of Louisiana Literature and former Louisiana poet laureate, will moderate.
Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal Salon. $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

1 – 2:15 PM—Theatre
STAGED READING OF THE WINNING ONE-ACT PLAY
Join us for a staged reading of Ellipse: A Comet Play by Whitney Rowland, winner of our annual one-act play contest. Under the coordination of Diane Baas, Theatre Department Coordinator, Theatre UNO from the School of the Arts at the University of New Orleans, this reading is directed by Jyna Roots. Following the one-act reading, the winners of our other writing contests will read from their winning pieces: Tena Laing, Fiction; Tianyu Yi, Poetry; and Té V. Smith, Very Short Fiction. Join us in celebrating these contest winners as they share their work with us!
One-Act Contest sponsored by Janet and Stanwood Duval.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

1 – 4 PM—Theatre
IRENE COLLECTIVE PRESENTS
A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE BY TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
Set in post-World War II New Orleans, Streetcar tells the story of two sisters, Blanche DuBois and Stella Kowalski. Blanche, a former schoolteacher from Mississippi, arrives on her sister Stella’s New Orleans doorstep after suffering a series of personal losses. Her stay is met with resistance from Stella’s husband, Stanley, whose domineering and volatile ways threaten and ultimately crush Blanche.
Performance schedule: Wednesday – Sunday, March 25 – 29 at 7:30 PM; additional matinee on Sunday, 3/29 at 1 PM
Big Couch, 1045 Desire Street. Tickets at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-streetcar-named-desire-by-tennessee-williams-tickets-1982405509243?aff=oddtdtcreator Available with VIP Pass but must book in advance at info@tennesseewilliams.net.

2:30 – 3:45 PM—Festival Closing Event
FROM THE PAGE TO THE STAGE: CALL ME IZZY ROUNDTABLE
Go behind the scenes for a glimpse of what it’s like for a playwright to see the words on the page become lines spoken by actors on the stage. Our focus is Call Me Izzy, the Broadway tour de force that brought Jean Smart back to the stage. We begin with music: Adam Lozoya, ragtime virtuoso and composer, will play from the score of Call Me Izzy, composed by Grammy and Oscar-winning musician T-Bone Burnett and David Mansfield, a long-time collaborator of Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. The show’s playwright, Jamie Wax, and two-time Tony award nominee Johanna Day will present some selections from the poetry and monologues of the play. They will be joined by producer Charles D. Urstadt for a lively conversation hosted by Festival fave and Obie winner, actress Brenda Currin.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, free and open to the public..

3 – 4:45 PM—Theatre
THE TENNESSEE WILLIAMS THEATRE COMPANY OF NEW ORLEANS PRESENTS
SMALL CRAFT WARNINGS BY TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
In a forgotten seaside bar on the edge of nowhere, a ragtag band of drifters, dreamers, and outcasts cling to each other against the tide—searching for warmth, connection, and meaning before it’s too late. Small Craft Warnings is Tennessee Williams at his rawest, funniest, and most compassionate: an intimate, storm-tossed portrait of human desire, loneliness, and the fragile hope that keeps us afloat together. Filled with biting humor, aching vulnerability, and Williams’ unmistakable poetry, this rarely produced gem feels as urgent and alive today as when it first shocked audiences. Includes one 15-minute intermission.
Performance Schedule: Thursday – Saturday, March 26 – 28 at 7:30 PM; Sunday, March 29 at 3 PM.
The Lower Depths Theatre at Loyola University, 6363 St. Charles Avenue. Tickets at https://ci.ovationtix.com/35398/production/1255721. Available with VIP Pass but must book in advance at info@tennesseewilliams.net.

7 – 9 PM—Culinary
BIBI’S KITCHEN: A ROMANI CULINARY RITUAL
Join your slutty, stoner Aunties Bimbo Yaga and Moonbear as they lovingly share their kitchen witchery with you. This four-course family style meal will feature inspired dishes of Eastern European and Balkan Romani family food traditions with slight variations to accommodate gluten-free and vegetarian guests. Following dinner, your favorite aunties will guide you through a brief tea-leaf reading session. With live music and storytelling, this ritual of food is curated to nourish your spirits and fill your hearts with comfort. Our menu for this event is subject to change. 1st Course: Gluten-free kimmel soup with rye toast and horseradish cream cheese. 2nd Course: Delicious beef and veal or vegetarian buckwheat sarmas with cucumber and labneh salad. 3rd Course: A choice of vegetarian goulash with roasted eggplant and chickpeas or braised lamb goulash, served over baked herbed rice, garnished with whipped feta and lemon crème. 4th Course: Homemade rose and cardamom ice cream over a gluten free apple and oat crumble served with tea. Beverages: Iced Herbal Tea, Herb Infused Rose. When purchasing your ticket, please indicate vegetarian or meat. Note: dishes prepared with butter, onions, garlic, tomatoes, peppers. Because this is a family style dinner, we are not able to accommodate serious food allergies or make substitutions for dietary sensitivities.
Mister Gregory’s Shrimp Boil Cabaret, 830 North Rampart Street, $100. Not available with VIP pass.

7:30 – 9:30 PM—Reading
THIRD LANTERN LIT PRESENTS
THE FICTION SESSIONS: A READING OF NEW WORKS
The Fiction Sessions is New Orleans’ only all-fiction reading series featuring new and unpublished works and is hosted by local writing collective, Third Lantern Lit. This quarter’s theme is Romance and is the culmination of a workshop series this quarter to generate, revise, and practice performing new works of fiction. TWFest is proud to partner with Third Lantern Lit for this series of workshops and events supporting new works by local writers.
New Marigny Theatre, 2301 Marais Street, free and open to the public.