| THRUMMING TO THE WORK OF ART: A READING | Friday, March 27
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.
| $10.00 | |
| BOOKS AND BEIGNETS WITH GARY RICHARDS: THE ROSE TATTOO BY TENNESSEE WILLIAMS | 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.
| $40.00 | |
| TRIBUTE READING: FUGITIVE BEAUTY, TENDER FEELINGS, & SPARTAN ENDURANCE—THE WOMEN OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS | Thursday, March 26
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.
| $45.00 | |
