Like Silence of the Lambs, parts of The NOLA Project’s season opener take place in a prison. Measure for Measure is one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays” whose “happily ever after” ending is morally ambiguous, not entirely happy, and utterly suited to our troubled times. Yet this shall not be Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, but rather the world-premiere of a modern-verse version by Aditi Brennan Kapil, a nationally produced female playwright of Bulgarian and Indian descent. This adaptation was commissioned as part of Play On Shakespeare, an initiative by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to commission 36 modern American playwrights to “translate” Shakespeare’s works into contemporary modern English. Directed by Mark Routhier, this Shakespeare/Kapil Measure will be staged with a 15-member cast in the Great Hall of the New Orleans Museum of Art and runs September 10-29. Should be interesting. “Morally ambiguous, not entirely happy, and utterly suited to our troubled times” might well describe Tracy Letts’ AUGUST: Osage County and its family that includes a vanished father, a pill-popping mother, and three sisters harboring shady little secrets. Southern Rep gives this Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning play its belated New Orleans debut at its home on Bayou Road from Sept. 11 through Oct. 6. AUGUST’s 13-member ensemble will feature Lara Grice, Aimée Hayes, John Neisler, Lance Nichols, Troy Poplous, Nick Thompson, and Mandy Zirkenbach among others. Jason Kirkpatrick helms the cast which will have to negotiate scenic designer David Raphel’s functional three-story house. Measure for Measure and AUGUST: Osage County may be “problem plays” but at least their problems
are merely fictional. In Roleplay, they’re real. Inspired by the results of the 2018 Tulane University Survey on Sexual Misconduct revealing that 41% of female students and 19% of male students reported being sexually assaulted during their time on campus, Roleplay follows 11 students through their sophomore year of college and explores these young people’s experiences with love, sex, power, and consent. This new theatrical work was created by a team of student performers and New Orleans artists including Tulane professors Darci Fulcher and Jenny Mercein, and members of local theater company Goat in the Road Productions, Shannon Flaherty and Chris Kaminstein. Roleplay will be presented at Tulane University’s Lupin Theatre Sept. 5-15. Tickets are free, but must be reserved at www.goatintheroadproductions.org. And since I don’t want to leave you with a problem, fictional or non, the Jefferson Performing Arts Society (JPAS) breaks the stranglehold Halloween has with that sweet transvestite and presents The Rocky Horror Show directed by Bryce Slocumb at its Westwego Performing Arts Theatre from Sept. 27-Oct. 13. Chad Gearig-Howe, recently seen in Matilda the Musical, stars as Frank-N-Furter, while newcomer Kirkland Green portrays that glistening and gleaming Rocky who can do pressups, chin-ups and the snatch, clean, & jerk. Off the top of my head, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me could practically be the theme song for Decadence. I’m already shivering in antici...............................................pation! Please send press releases and notices of your upcoming shows to Brian Sands at bsnola2@hotmail.com.
MUSEUM SPOTLIGHT Williams Research Center Located in a beautiful Beaux Arts style building at 410 Chartres Street in the French Quarter, the Williams Research Center is the research arm of The Historic New Orleans Collection. The Historic New Orleans Collection’s holdings are available to the general public in the Williams Research Center (WRC). Through the assistance of the Center’s experienced reading room staff, patrons have access to more than 30,000 library items, more than two miles of documents and manuscripts, a microfilm collection, and more than 500,000 photographs, prints, drawings, and paintings, as well as beautiful and unusual three-dimensional objects. Rare documents and manuscripts are available in microform and in the original. The major research fields are co-
lonial Louisiana, the Louisiana Purchase, the Battle of New Orleans, the Civil War, Mississippi River life, cartography, transportation, plantations, urban development, Louisiana artists and writers, architecture, the French Quarter, jazz and other forms of early New Orleans music, historic preservation, and Mardi Gras. The collections reflect aspects of the history and culture of the Gulf South, Louisiana, and New Orleans. Most materials are available to researchers in the Center’s Reading Room. The reading room at the Williams Research Center is open from 9:30am to 4:30pm, Tuesday through Saturday, excluding holidays. Access to the research center begins with an interview with reading room staff and the consultation of online catalogues.
20 · The Official Gay Magazine of the Gulf South™: www.AmbushMag.com · August 27 - September 9, 2019 · Official Southern Decadence Guide™ · www.SouthernDecadence.com