Arts & Culture Features

Mel Manuel hopes to unseat ultra-conservative Rep. Steve Scalise – Scalawag

When Katie Darling suggested Mel Manuel run against Steve Scalise in the 2024 congressional race for Louisiana's 1st District, Manuel laughed. They were standing outside the Covington Library in Covington, Louisiana, following a library board meeting. At that point, Manuel had been steadily expanding their reach as a progressive activist in St. Tammany Parish, a notoriously conservative region of the state, since moving back to their hometown in 2021. At the time, they were still a private perso...
Person receives a haircut in front of a round mirror

The New Orleans Hair Salon Where Customers Fly In for Appointments

Hair holds power, especially for members of the LGBTQ+ community, for whom a good haircut can be life changing. Not only is hair a tool for self expression and gender presentation, but an outlet for creativity and self care. New Orleans, a city with an abundance of queer pride, has one of the few places in the country where you can get a gorgeous gender-affirming cut and gossip openly about your love life, whatever it looks like: Bandit Hair Company.
Black-and-white picture of a woman holding a fish in one hand and a postcard in another wearing large headdress

Why April Fools Day in France Involves Fish Pranks

If you find yourself in France on April 1, don’t be surprised if something seems fishy. Maybe someone gives you a chocolate or a pastry in the shape of a cod? Perhaps you find a paper haddock stuck to your back, and then everyone erupts into laughter and starts pointing and shouting “poisson d’avril”? Don’t be alarmed, you’ve simply immersed yourself in the centuries-long French tradition of April Fool’s Day, known as poisson d’avril or “April Fish.”
Ice cream man wearing blue apron and red shirt smiles for portrait

Sam Caruso Is Forging a New Path With French-Style Custard in New Orleans

Salvatore “Sam” Caruso started making ice cream at home in 2018 with a two-quart Cuisinart machine, but he could never get the texture right. Despite his best efforts, it was always too icy, not smooth enough for his taste. Then, as the world shut down in March 2020, Caruso found himself with ample free time after being let go from his job. He used a serendipitous tax return check to buy a higher-quality ice cream machine for $1,300 and started experimenting.

Theater Journalism

Four women dressed in white nightgowns hold statuesque poses in a white walled room

Translator, Traitor, Truth-Teller

My theatre in translation story: the portal opened. The year was 2012. The place was Paris, France. I had convinced my study abroad program to grant me an independent study to translate a play from French into English. After hours weeding through the drama stacks at Gibert Jeune for a play (any contemporary play!) by a woman—which is a whole other soapbox—I found Louise, elle est folle (Louise, she’s crazy) by Leslie Kaplan.
Surreal theater characters around campfire

New Orleans’s Intramural Theater Centers Consent in Their Devising Model

Within the swirling sea of weird experiments in making that is New Orleans theatre, Intramural Theater, founded in 2015, has managed to stake out its own particular brand of weird. While Intramural produces traditional plays and hosts community events, such as a twenty-five hour play festival, their signature work is reflected in their devised shows, which are collectively created according to a specific devising method developed by the company’s founding artistic director, Bennett Kirschner.

On Translating Nobel Laureate Jon Fosse’s Works for American Audiences

Sarah Cameron Sunde is an interdisciplinary artist and director working at the intersection of performance, video, and public art. Her current practice, rooted in the visual arts, explores deep time, embodiment, and ecological crisis, and it is informed by her decades of experience as a theatremaker, director, and translator. Amelia Parenteau is a writer, translator, and theatremaker who has translated fifteen plays from French into English.
Two men hug on stage in spotlight

Black Southern Playwrights Take Center Stage

The interruption of the COVID-19 pandemic gave way to a time of reckoning for theatre and theatremakers. As we collectively emerge from the pandemic’s crucible, let me present a beacon of hope for what theatre in the United States can be, at its best: “adaptable, emergent, sustainable, and well.” I am quoting Lauren E. Turner (she/her), the founder and producing artistic director of New Orleans-based theatre company No Dream Deferred and the We Will Dream: New Works Festival.

Personal Essays

Translation

Smiling woman on stage holding a microphone gestures with her hand

On Translating, Adapting and Producing International Theater on the US Stage

Part of In Scena! Italian Theater Festival NY 2024 A panel following the experience of the Mentorship Hystrio Scrittura di Scena at In Scena! on Translating and Adapting. Featuring: Giulia Cowie, actor, translator Rossella Fava, Mentee, Hystrio Scritture di Scena at In Scena! Amelia Parenteau, writer, translator Frank J. Avella, Mentor – In Scena! 2023 Moderated by Laura Caparrotti, Artistic Director, In Scena!
South African woman on stage in petticoats

1789 at Sibikwa

VERY OCCASIONALLY, YOU feel that sense of privilege in the presence of an artwork that brings tears and goosebumps. From the very first roll of the snare drum with the thunder of a jembe and a dun-dun behind it, Sibikwa’s 1789 will have you transfixed. It’s immersion theatre like nothing you may have experienced before, and it will take your heart and spirit and shift it all seismically for an unspeakably fine 90 minutes.

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