Shows
LETTERS READLETTERS READ INCUBATOR XIX: How Activism ActivatesListen to this research outtake about how one Louisiana woman decided to take action about the first direct hit to destroy abortion rights. Letters Read director first interviewed Allyn Goff in 2025 for the Terri Bartlett reading. Goff became close to Bartlett as they both worked tirelessly for reproductive rights in Louisiana.Allyn Goff joined NOW, National Organization for Women in 1989 and became president of the Louisiana chapter.In 1989, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, a United States Supreme Court decision upheld a Missouri law imposing "restrictions on the use of state funds, facilities, and employees in...
2026-02-0903 min
New York StandardEpisode 271 – Xmas 2025This year’s Christmas episode is the longest show I think I’ve ever done…clocking in at 6 hours & 54 minutes!!!
It’s intended to be enjoyed as you cook, bake, wrap presents, shop for presents or whatever it is you love to do during the holiday season!
The Boston Pops
Mel Tormé
Perry Como
Andy Williams
George Winston
Bing Crosby
Perry Como
Nat “King” Cole
Bono
U2
The Pogues
Luther Vandross
Ray Anthony
Jimmy McGriff
Alvin Stoller
Pearl Bailey
Capital Studio Orchestra
Les Brown & His Band of Renown
Lou Rawls
Otis Redding
Olivia Olson
Bessie Smith
John Lee Hook...
2025-12-206h 54
I Reckon I’ll Read ItEpisode 7: Beccah Gets "Fall" Mixed UpWelcome back to I Reckon I’ll Read It, a podcast where two Okie gals talk books, share recs, and don’t hold back on their mighty big opinions. Join Beccah and Summer in some good-old-fashioned book talk.
This week, we kick things off with another Reading Roundup: two books we’ve finished, two we’re currently reading (more or less,) and two that are up next. We share a moment of pure chaos when Beccah reads the back of a book she swears she just finished – only to realize live that she was reading from a completely...
2025-11-101h 32
LETTERS READVision, Voice & ValorRemembering the Legacy of Terri Bartlett.In 1984, Terri Bartlett moved to New Orleans to found Planned Parenthood Louisiana. For more than a decade thereafter, Bartlett fought tirelessly for reproductive rights and human dignity in this state.This performance endeavors to serve as an inspiring model for grassroots and political activism, justice, and equal rights for all. Watch a video of the live event, HERE.And, watch this brief story about the event on NOLA NPR with Dave Walker and The Museum Goer.
2025-10-3032 min
Cap Chat TexasS2E1 - From Ice Age to Space Age with Robert HaneyCap Chat Texas returns for Season Two with an insightful conversation featuring Robert Haney, whose journey to the heart of Texas politics began by shagging golf balls. Over his 20-year tenure as Chief Clerk of the Texas House, Haney served under five different Speakers, playing a crucial role in keeping the legislative gears turning.From navigating procedural hurdles and managing the complexities of the state budget, to knowing how to mix a proper Yellow Tail, this episode pulls back the curtain on the inner workings of the Clerk’s Office, revealing a side of the legislative process mo...
2025-09-2933 min
LETTERS READSex, Love, Gender, and TrustWelcome to the first, full, 2025 Letters Read episode. This program was recorded in two locations. The overlying structure in a studio. The other in a noisy restaurant near Lake Pontchartrain, New Orleans, during lunch. You will be able to hear the difference. Thanks to Steve Czyck who engineered it all together.In this podcast, we meet Angela Breckenridge, PhD educator and Mr. Tedd Walley, cartoon artist, designer, and educator.They were mature adults when they met, fell in love, and married. This is truly a love story. More it is—as the title suggests—about sex...
2025-06-0119 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ INCUBATOR XVIII: Lust vs LoveThis mini-podcast continues the 2025 season about sex. Today’s reading is about love letters. Inspired by documentation of love, two letters in particular.Moreover this segment focuses on how love works. Like when two people fall for each other. What’s the motivation? Is it simply physical attraction, raw sex appeal? Or is feeling love something more?Listen and learn.
2025-05-1208 min
80s TV LadiesWriting The Facts of Life and A Different World | Margie Peters -- Part 2Susan and Sharon continue their conversation with legendary 80s TV Lady -- and The Facts of Life writer/producer -- Margie Peters! In Part 2, the conversation turns to the challenges of making comedy out of date rape and toxic masculinity; “comedy sparring” in the Different World writer’s room with Debbie Allen, Thad Mumford and Susan Fales-Hill; the creative opportunities for “women of a certain age”; and the lasting impact of the cruel moniker “The FATS of Life”. Margie Peters has written and produced over 140 hours of television, including The Love Boat, Valerie, One Day at a Time and A Different...
2025-04-0958 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: 2025 The Sex Cycle IntroductionHello! Welcome to Letters Read. The ongoing series in which letters and written documents about culturally vital individuals from various times and Louisiana communities are interpreted into spoken word performances. These are free, open to the general public, live sometimes, and other podcasts. This is the ninth consecutive season.This season is about sex. The physical activity we engage in for pleasure, sport, and procreation. Part of this investigation is gender and words we use to define how and with whom we have sex. For 2025 Letters Read, the word “sex” is a corporal act, and “gender” a political...
2025-04-0804 min
Author's Afterword118: Gill Paul (Scandalous Women)Charlie and Gill Paul (Scandalous Women) discuss Jackie Collins, Jacqueline Susann, and the way the 1960s publishing industry treated women. A transcript is available on my site General references: My other episodes with Gill are 42 and 86 The Love Machine (movie) Some of Richard Osman's words on the subject can be found here Once Upon A Time In America Lady Boss trailer Mad Men Feud: Capote Vs His Swans Cold Blooded: The Clutter Family Murders I spoke to Èric Chacour in episode 115 The three books with a Mira in them were Eliza Chan's Fathomfolk, Èric Chacour's Wh...
2025-03-2443 minNew York StandardEpisode 268 – Xmas 2024This year’s Christmas episode is the longest show I think I’ve ever done…clocking in at 6 & a half hours. It’s intended to be enjoyed as you cook, bake, wrap presents, shop for presents or whatever it is you love to do during the holiday season!
Perry Como
Bing Crosby
Perry Como
Nat “King” Cole
Billy Porter
Andy Williams
Doris Day
Ella Fitzgerald
Alvin Stoller
Jimmy McGriff
Ray Anthony
Otis Redding
Pearl Bailey
Capital Studio Orchestra
Les Brown & His Band of Renown
Lou Rawls
Luther Vandross
Olivia Olson
Bessie Smith
Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings
John Lee Hooker
N...
2024-12-176h 23New York StandardEpisode 268 – Xmas 2024This year’s Christmas episode is the longest show I think I’ve ever done…clocking in at 6 & a half hours. It’s intended to be enjoyed as you cook, bake, wrap presents, shop for presents or whatever it is you love to do during the holiday season!
Perry Como
Bing Crosby
Perry Como
Nat “King” Cole
Billy Porter
Andy Williams
Doris Day
Ella Fitzgerald
Alvin Stoller
Jimmy McGriff
Ray Anthony
Otis Redding
Pearl Bailey
Capital Studio Orchestra
Les Brown & His Band of Renown
Lou Rawls
Luther Vandross
Olivia Olson
Bessie Smith
Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings
John Lee Hooker
N...
2024-12-176h 23
LETTERS READLETTERS READ INCUBATOR XVIII - AIDS Hospice with Hywel SimsThis podcast wraps up the 2024 incubator-style programming on the early days of HIV | AIDS.
This series is brought to you in support of the LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana.
Most productions in this series are short, mini-podcasts, five to seven minutes long. This podcast takes longer to wrap up a difficult and emotional topic.
It comprises Sims's experience in Los Angeles, ca. 1990s, as director of the second AIDS hospice facility in the country.
Sims talks, in a straightforward manner about AIDS, hospice, and dying. Interjecting levity, and, where appropriate, humor.
2024-12-1116 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ INCUBATOR XVII: Peter DeLanceyThis podcast, and one or two more before year’s end, wrap-up the 2024 incubator-style mini-series on the early days of HIV | AIDS. Brought to you in support of the LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana.
The recording is about Pierre Rene “Peter”, as he was known, DeLancey. A sad story with a bittersweet ending. He was queer. At a time when being gay or homosexual or light in one’s loafers was not okay in most polite societies.
Peter's story brings together two previous Letters Read subjects, Stewart Butler of The Faerie Playhouse and Skip Ward. Both pro...
2024-12-0406 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: The Josephine Louise Newcomb StoryOctober 29 at 7:00 pm CDTNewcomb InstituteDiboll Gallery, room 3003rd floor of the Commons43 Newcomb PlaceTulane University campus.
A second reading from the archives of Josephine Louise Newcomb. This one performed, live, at Newcomb Institute.
Emcee and Readers: Nick Slie, Lisa Shattuck, Shadow Angelina Starkey, and Robert Valley
H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College was established by Josephine Louise Monnier Newcomb (“Jo”) as she was called, 1816 to 1901) as a memorial to her daughter Sophie who died at the age of 15. At a time when women were discouraged from...
2024-11-0829 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ INCUBATOR XVI: Brad Ott, Activism & Independent PublishingFrom 1981 to 1998, K. (Kenneth) Brad Ott wrote, edited, and published the grassroots Dialogue Newsjournal reporting community activism and activities in New Orleans.
This third mini podcast in the four-part LETTERS READ series is produced in support of LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana and New Orleans AIDS MemoryProject. Antenna is LETTERS READ fiscal sponsor.
This podcast is about activism. Independent publishing in the later part of the 20th Century.
At a time when mainstream media would not, The Dialogue Newsjournal published progressive ideas in New Orleans questioning social issues such as: immigration and poverty...
2024-10-1807 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ INCUBATOR XV: NO/AIDS, Crescent Care, & Noel TwilbeckSegment 3 in the mini-series about the early days of the New Orleans HIV|AIDS epidemic.
Comprising two recorded clips from an interview with Noel Twilbeck. In the first, Twillbeck explains the origins of NO/AIDS Task Force. Describing the beginning of the HIV|AIDS epidemic. Early 1980s. The second clip refers to a letter. “The Letter”. Notice of the award from HRSA documenting their new status as an FQHC. As Twillbeck explained, “HRSA” is the Bureau of Primary Health Care. A federal institution funding affordable, accessible, and high-quality primary health care to underserved communities. A game-changer for NO/AIDS T...
2024-08-0909 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ INCUBATOR XIV: ACT UP New OrleansIn conjunction with LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana, Letters Read brings you this first of four, mini podcasts on the early days of HIV|AIDS.
This segment is based on original source material from the 1990s ACT UP organization, here. These ACT UP New Orleans records, from the second, local itiration, were collected, and stored, by Mark Gonzalez. A loyal and very active member. I thank him for allowing me access to these files and for answering my many many questions about the organization and the arc of the group’s history.
Photo: Early New York City ACT UP demonstration. A...
2024-08-0811 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ INCUBATOR XIII: Introduction to HIV|AIDS in the Early DaysAllow us to introduce the 2024 mini-series of letters and documents from the early days of HIV|AIDS. A late 20th century crisis. Most of the material is New Orleans in particular, Louisiana, and then the country at large. This mini-series is produced in partnership with the LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana and I thank them for their diligence preserving history and for helping in this production.
Each mini launches at noon, Central time, on the following dates and remain available thereafter.
June 6 Mark Gonzalez, protest and ACT UP
Aug 8 Noel Twillbeck and Crescent Care
Oct 3 Brad...
2024-06-0505 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ INCUBATOR XII: Josephine Louise Newcomb NotesListen to this clip from an interview with Jarret Lofstead whose role it was to wade through, and strategically process, thousands, and thousands, of pages of court documents building the Letters Read narrative for the Jospehine Louise Newcomb readings.
Lofstead is a writer/researcher and producer at The Bend Media + Productions. Whose recent release is the documentary film, George Dureau: New Orleans Artist.
Lofstead spends a fair amount of his career dealing with topics in the humanities. Including social justice and jurisprudince. Two prominent Letters Read themes.
Lofstead was instrumental in bringing information...
2024-06-0304 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: The Letters of Josephine Louise NewcombRecorded Saturday, April 13 2024 in front of a live audience at Catapult in New Orleans.
Featured Readers:Emcee Chris Kamenstein, Director Nancy Sharon Collins, Shadow Angelina Starkey, and Robert Valley.
H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College was established by Josephine Louise Monnier Newcomb (“Jo”) as she was called, 1816 to 1901) as a memorial to her daughter Sophie who died at the age of 15. At a time when women were discouraged from education, an institution devoted to higher learning for women was a revolutionary idea.
Ladies of Mrs. Newcomb’s privileged class were instead taught to have “...
2024-04-1826 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ INCUBATOR XI: Water & SaltThis production was created from material collected during the creation of Drugs, Sex, Rock & Roll: A Year of Magic and Wonder. Which coincided with the project’s director/writer’s move back from New York to New Orleans. Quoting from the script, Collins’s observation was that moving home was “kind of like sleeping with an old lover.”
Meanwhile, significant municipal water issues collided in both cities and, in the Middle East.
Audio production is by Steve Chyzyk, Sonic Canvas Studio.
Want to support this compelling series, we'd love you to. Go to https://lettersread.net...
2023-11-0512 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: DRUGS, SEX, ROCK & ROLL. A Year of Magic and WonderListen to this iteration of an oft-told tale. How easily an innocent out of towner is drawn to the dark side of New Orleans. This specific story, ca. 1985, focuses on one year, one incredibly transformative year. For one man. Emblematic of many lured to the Big Easy, a famously lurid city.
Counter intuitively, this potentially tragic tale resolves itself into a beautiful, tie-dye butterfly. In which a Tulane undergraduate magically emerges going on to a fulfilling queer life and hugely successful, big city, New York City career.
Geoff Munsterman reads as the subject named James, just James...
2023-10-2018 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: Robert Moses & The Riverfront ExpresswayContinuing our New York/New Orleans journey, we bring you the only project Robert Moses ever did in the Crescent City. Locally referred to as the Riverfront Expressway.
Robert Moses, the greatest builder New York has ever known, is so often credited with it. Even though it never happened. As frequently, he is also incorrectly blamed for the Claiborne Expressway. That, horrendously, did.
This podcast is part of the ongoing script development for a fully realized live performance later this year about Moses, his engagement in this project, and the historic outcomes.
The reading...
2023-07-1617 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ INCUBATOR X: Introducing the 2023 Season, Director’s NoteIntroducing Season 7. Letters Read director, stationer, Nancy Sharon Collins talks about this year’s theme: the two very different cities that she loves. And, a lagniappe as they say in south Louisiana. A little something extra to maybe pull at your heartstrings, just a little.
Audio production is by Steve Chyzyk, Sonic Canvas Studio.
2023-03-2006 min
The Letter from Ireland PodcastCome into This World of Celtic Music (#801)In this episode we explore not just the world of Irish music - but 10 tracks from the extended Celtic family. We use music featured on the TV programme - "The Transatlantic Sessions" - to bring you music and song from Ireland, Scotland, the USA and much more. With lots of chat between each song.MUSICAL TRACKS FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE:"Magic Foot" - Performed by Sharon Shannon and the Transatlantic Sessions house band."My heart's tonight in Ireland - in the west County Clare" - Performed by Andy Irvine and the Transatlantic Sessions house band."Aragon...
2023-01-051h 00
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: Lady Louisiana Artist Magen Raine GladdenPremiering 6:00 pm EDT New Years’ Eve 2022, LEMONS TO LEMONADE. And available here thereafter.
Finishing up the Lady Louisiana Artist series for 2022 is a true lemons to lemonade story. Magen Raine Gladden. Commercial artist. She was born into a hippy dirt road collective along River Road in South Louisiana with a lifetime of health challenges. Now a leader through the lens of workplace equity and inclusivity rights. This podcast goes live on December 31st.
Shadow Angelina Starkey reads as Gladden. Shadow is a Cajun poet and photographer whose family has called New Orleans home since 1727.
Geo...
2023-01-0123 min
Open to Explore DevotionsA Festival of Lessons and CarolsOpen to Explore Devotions podcast gladly presents, A Festival of Lessons and Carols. This was first presented on Sunday morning, December 18, 2022, in the sanctuary of First Baptist Church, Athens, GA. Tom Granum, the Interim Director of Music Ministries for First Baptist Church, directed the service. Festival of Lessons and CarolsDecember 18, 2022 Gathering Music: Wait for the Lord (Psalm 40), Wait for the LordO Come, Emmanuel, Alice ParkerComfort Ye from Messiah, G. F. Handel, Charles Hooper, TenorAnd the Glory fro...
2022-12-241h 04
LETTERS READLETTERS READ INCUBATOR IX: Takin' it from the StreetAs our name suggests, Letters Read focuses on letters. Personal and business. From institutional archives and special collections, private and commercial libraries. In addition to letters, in our programming, we read other forms of written correspondence. Like faxes, text messages, emails, and now this collection of letters literally picked up off of New Orleans streets.
Describing these as letters may be a stretch. The best manner of talking about them is as missives. Notes. Notes to self. Lists. To-do lists. Some reading like poetry. Formulas, recipes.
This is one of our incubator presentations. Works in pr...
2022-11-2407 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: Lady Louisiana Artist Angela GregoryCo-hosted by Neal Auction Company.
Angela Gregory was born to the New Orleans intellectual white elite in 1903. A time when proper ladies accompanied their mother to country club tea. With her parent’s blessing, Angela took a different path. At an early age, she knew that she wanted to be an artist. Not just an artist, a sculptress in stone, to be precise!
Her earliest influence was her mother, Selina Brès Gregory. A Newcomb College alum and recognized Newcomb Pottery artist. Angela was precocious. When 14, she learned clay modeling and relief casting from Ellsworth Wood...
2022-09-2820 min
The Cup of Glo PodcastEpisode 118 Get More Out of LifeCongratulations, you’ve retired from your job!
Now what?
Travel the world…ooh yeah…Europe is great! Let’s go!
Disney with the grand kids…yippee…give them what they want!
This special edition of the Cup of Glo provides suggestions of activities of interest from several Milestone Divas.
First, we have Janis David who teaches belly dance.
Sue Healy on finding satisfaction through watercolor.
Nancy Redig from sea to land.
Robin Collins tracing lineage with genealogy and more Robin on her lifelong enjoyment of singing.
Kelly Broderick, on breeding dogs.
Sharon Schwerzel, telling stories with Hula and Tahitian dance.
Jessie Whiteh...
2022-06-2613 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: Lady Louisiana Artist Michel VariscoFirst in the 2022 mini-series, Lady Louisiana Artist is letters and missives to and from eco-feminist artist, and Letters Read Executive Advisory Board member, Michel Varisco.
Our subject in this recording creates photography, assemblages, and installations that bear witness to our relationship with nature as observed in architecture, engineered, and the wild.
Varisco writes further about the promotional image for this listing...“Sr. Alison McCrary, the radical nun and lawyer is holding a dead yellow warbler. She had told me she was mourning the slow death of the Catholic Church, while I mourn the disconnect of re...
2022-06-2319 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: The Only Person Brought to Trial for Conspiracy to Assassinate President John F. KennedyWrapping-up the previous programming season, Doing Business in New Orleans, we present the story of Clay Shaw. On March 1, 1967, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison arrested him on conspiracy charges. Shaw was a beloved, successful, local businessman, and closeted queer man.
On January 29, 1969, Garrison tried Shaw in Orleans Parish Criminal Court on three conspiracy charges. A little over a month later the jury took less than one hour to acquit Shaw.
After, “…jurors expressed their bewilderment as to motive. Respectable socialite Clay Shaw, it strained credulity as to why he would become involved in the murd...
2022-04-0126 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ INCUBATOR VIII: Mid-20th Century Foreign Intrigue & the Almighty American DollarWrapping-up the 2021 Doing Business in New Orleans season is a true, rags to riches story. Another incubator-style, informal production, with stuff found along the way. That may or may not fit into full-length Letters Read, Louisiana and New Orleans-centric, programming. This material surfaced while researching the Clay Shaw story. That story is postponed until 2022. Shaw is referred to more than once in this reading because there’s a rhyme in it, a theme that repeats in this story, and in Clay Shaw’s. Throughout, the reader is Letters Read Director, Nancy Sharon Collins. Additionally, a link to the 2008 panel disc...
2022-01-0112 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: Mad Men New Orleans-style!Premiering Thursday, November 25, letters and ephemera created in 1962 by a local professional association for graphic designers.
If you liked the TV show, Mad Men, you’ll love the real thing, New Orleans-style. Art Directors and Designers Association of New Orleans (ADDA) was chartered in 1961. Illustrators, lettering artists, art directors, photographers, commercial artists, and graphic designers banded together and promoted themselves to advertising executives throughout the Gulf South.
Central to this was a promotional slideshow presentation. Digitized in 2008. You can view an animation of it HERE.
If you are curious about the then new-fangled entert...
2021-11-2620 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ INCUBATOR VIII: The Power of a Personal LetterAs prelude to the Thanksgiving, 2021 reading, we share advertising executive Ron Thomson's story about the letter he wrote to motion picture actress, Audrey Hepburn, and the friendship that ensued. Thomson is President - Marketing, Beuerman Miller Fitzgerald, Inc. The oldest agency in the southern United States. By the time they met, Hepburn had already starred in Breakfast at Tiffany's, Charade, and My Fair Lady. Winning Academy, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Awards.
When Thomson sent the pivotal letter, Hepburn was devoting herself to UNICEF. Her work with UNICEF was the reason Thomson became emboldened enough to write to...
2021-11-0705 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: Bananas Anyone?Welcome to this reading from a handmade, 1906 photo-album compiled in response to the last documented yellow fever outbreak in New Orleans and the United States.
The podcast is fourteenth in the ongoing, Letters Read project. Readers are William Bowling and Grace Kennedy with audio production by Steve Chyzyk and Sonic Canvas Studio. Antenna is the project’s fiscal partner, and, 2021 is the fifth consecutive season.
In photographs and text, “Quarantine Tour of Central America and Panama by Health Authorities as guests of The United Fruit Company” presents the idea that bananas imported by the largest importe...
2021-07-1629 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ INCUBATOR VII: Yellow Fever, Mosquitos, and MonkeysListen now. A brief prelude to tomorrow’s “Bananas Anyone” podcast launching July 15, 2021, at 6:00 pm CDT. Here on anchor.fm/lettersread.
In this recording, Letters Read project director Nancy Sharon Collins puts forth a science fiction theory on her neighbor, microbiology scholar Claiborne Christian, Ph.D., Tulane University, New Orleans.
The following snippet was recorded on her deck, during a typical, New Orleans thunderstorm. You will hear the pouring rain.
The distinct sound of the rain is an ironic nod to the subject of tomorrow's Letters Read.
Image: Scientific illust...
2021-07-1401 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ INCUBATOR VII: Yellow Fever, Mosquitos, and MonkeysAs a bit of comic relief to the July 15th, 2021 podcast, "Bananas Anyone", Letters Read project director Nancy Sharon Collins puts forth her science fiction theory to her neighbor, microbiology scholar Claiborne Christian, Ph.D., Tulane University, New Orleans.
The following snippet was recorded on her deck, during a typical, New Orleans thunderstorm. You will hear the pouring rain.
The distinct sound of the rain is an ironic nod to the subject of tomorrow's Letters Read.
Image: Scientific illustration of the “Aedes aegypti” mosquito, the primary carrier of the Zika virus. (Illustration by Vich...
2021-07-1201 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: The Letters of Edgar DegasThis reading is of personal letters from Edgar Degas surrounding his 4-month stay in Reconstruction-era New Orleans.
Christopher Kamenstein reads as Degas; audio production is by Steve Chyzyk and Sonic Canvas studio. The event is emceed by stationer and Letters Read director Nancy Sharon Collins.
Join us here for an intimate listen to thoughts and emotions experienced by Edgar Degas as he visits his mother’s family in the Crescent City as it strives to heal post-antebellum wounds after the American Civil War. Business, money, family, property ownership, class, race, and privilege, all play important ro...
2021-03-2630 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ INCUBATOR VI: Michel Musson, 1849A prelude to the March 25, 2021 reading, The Letters of Edgar Degas, hosted by Pitot House and co-promoted by Alliance Française de La Nouvelle-Orléans. Michel is Edgar Degas’s maternal uncle. Pitot House was once owned by Degas's maternal grandmother.
In this reading, Michel writes of his son, Eugene Henri, 9 years of age, whose illness and death are documented.
The letters, September 8th, and 9th are from the Degas and Musson family's papers, Manuscripts Collection 226, Louisiana Research Collection, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana.
Michel’s father, to whom these letters a...
2021-03-1912 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: A Conversation with Two ActorsDecember 31st, 2020: A remote interview with two professional actors, George Saucier and Colin Miller in Lafayette, Louisiana. With ten questions as a format, this production threads excerpts from a two-hour conversation between George and Colin about being an actor, theatre as an art form, ruminations about Tennessee Williams, the Southern Gothic genre, and the arc of one’s career. In collaboration with Acting Up (In Acadiana) and Amy Waguespack, Artistic Director, and founder of Acting Up.
The audio production is by Steve Steve Chyzyk, and Steve Himelfarb, Sonic Canvas Studio in New Orleans.
The original con...
2021-01-0132 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ INCUBATOR V: George & Colin Talk about Southern Stereotypes that some Tennessee Williams Figures have BecomeThis outtake is from the 16th full LETTERS READ production, to be podcast here on New Year’s Eve this year. George Saucier talks about the theatricality of southern archetypes while Collin Miller responds.
Intended for a March 2020 reading, from which the full-production and this snippet evolved, this event was to restage the 2018 Letters Read script about the arc of Tennessee Williams's career. Planned with Acting Up (in Acadiana) company members in association with the Acadiana Center for the Arts in Lafayette, Louisiana, this was to be a live performance.
Then, COVID-19 happened, and the id...
2020-12-2600 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ INCUBATOR IV: Baron Joseph-Xavier Delfau de Pontalba & the Yellow Fever Epidemic in New OrleansYesterday, the number of people with the coronavirus who died in the United States exceeded 300,000.
Today we offer another incubator-style, experimental reading from primary source material: Excerpted letters from Baron Joseph-Xavier Delfau de Pontalba written from New Orleans during the first documented Yellow Fever epidemic there.
It was recorded in Sonic Canvas Studio with audio producers Steve Chyzyk and Steve Himmelfarb. The original music is also by Steve. Our reader is Colin Miller.
The material in this reading was graciously translated and provided to us by Pierre Delfau de Pontalba, the Pontalba family h...
2020-12-1512 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: The Letters of Robert W. StuartNovember 30, 2020, hosted by Bastion | Community of Resilience, Gentilly, New Orleans. Featuring William Bowling, reader, Steve Chyzyk, and Steve Himelfarb, audio producers.
Robert, “Bob” Stuart was born in 1923, just three years after women in this country were allowed to vote. Originally from Shreveport, Louisiana. He served in the Navy during WWII, was honorably discharged in May 1946, and lived a long and productive life as a civil servant in New Orleans. This during a time in the middle of the 20th century when identifying, or being identified as gay—or queer—could cause a dishonorable discharge from the military, strip yo...
2020-11-3034 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: The Letters of Skip WardThursday, August 20, 2020: Blanchard, “Skip” Ward was a gay activist in rural Louisiana during the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and into the beginning of the 21st century. His home was in Pineville.
Skip became increasingly involved in LGBTQIA activism in the early 1980s when he first came out. Or, as he would have phrased it, “came up front” about his sexuality. He co-founded the Unitarian/Universalist Church’s Gay Caucus. He also created Louisiana’s first publication tailored to its gay population, called Le Beau Monde. Ward held some form of membership with nearly every Louisiana LGBTQIA organization from the 1970s onw...
2020-08-2048 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: The Letters of Stewart ButlerThe 14th Letters Read event and first produced entirely as a podcast.
The usual, live reading was scheduled for March 26, 2020 at Frenchman Art & Books on Frenchmen Street in New Orleans. It was preempted by the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak. Listen to Dylan Hunter as the voice of our subject. Rebecca Hollingsworth is Anne. Both self-recorded in the safety of their own home. Our emcee is Frank Perez, President of LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana. Frank was recorded through a telephone conversation with Dylan. Dylan is also our audio engineer for this event. Music is written and...
2020-04-2631 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ INCUBATOR III: A Preliminary Reading of Personal Letters to Stewart ButlerAs an experiment with potential material for LETTERS READ, this was the first in a series of live recordings for the 2020 programming season. A work in progress, this set of letters developed into the April, 2020 podcast of Stewart Butler letters.
The letters in both readings were from a large wooden chest in Butler’s home, the Faerie Playhouse. A Letters Read sponsor, the LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana, regularly met there.
We listen to a set of letters from 1967. Written to Butler, they were authored by Anne Garza. At the time these letters were accessed, Butler was 89. While his memory wa...
2020-01-1017 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: A Narrative of Baroness de PontalbaWednesday, September 25, 2019
The Cabildo Louisiana State Museum
The Louisiana Museum Foundation, Louisiana State Museum, Letters Read, Antenna, and stationer Nancy Sharon Collins bring an intimate, performative evening celebrating our love for history and architecture, and a unique understanding of our relationship with property.
A special reading in which professional actors read and interpret contemporary and historic communications surrounding the current exhibit The Baroness de Pontalba & the Rise of Jackson Square at the Louisiana State Museum’s Cabildo.
This event weaves the legacy of Don Andrés Almonester (1728–1798), his formidable daughter, Micaela, the Baroness de...
2019-10-1559 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: Codex IISaturday, July 20, 2019
6:00 to 7:30 pm
Crescent City Books
124 Baronne Street, New Orleans, across from the Roosevelt Hotel.
Thanks to Susan Larson and George Ingmire for this recording and including it on their show, Thinking Outside the Book on New Orleans Public Radio.
ABC@PM, Crescent City Books, and LETTERS READ present a second open mic night for book nerds. CODEX is a conversation about the physicality and context of interacting with and using books. Attendees are encouraged to bring any book they’d like sharing! Loads of conversations about the interaction with and what is...
2019-08-1704 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: The Nature of Property Ownership, and the Origins of Felicity RedevelopmentSunday November 25, 2018
3:30 to 5:00pm
St. John the Baptist Catholic Church
1139 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd.
New Orleans, LA.
Twenty years ago, a Northshore, LA developer worked with New Orleans Mayor Morial, two City Council members and two Central City clergymen to demolish a 4-square city block area between St. Mary and Polymnia streets, Baronne and an altered Carondelet Streets. What was planned to replace historic, architecturally important homes was a suburban strip mall-style Albertsons grocery store more than 60,000 square feet large. Two of the four city blocks were planned to become a parking lot.
Locals a...
2019-05-0539 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: The Desegregation of New Orleans Public LibrariesWednesday, February 13, 2019
6:00 to 7:30 pm
Nora Navra Library, 1902 St. Bernard Avenue
Free and open to the public.
Mack Guillory III, Emcee.
Julie Dietz, Reader.
The historic fight for civil rights in New Orleans is more complicated than most movements in the other 49 United States. Prior to Reconstruction, and the Jim Crow era, free people of color here could legally own property. Free persons of color could even own slaves.
Another anomaly, albeit post-Jim Crow, is how and when our libraries changed from a separate but equal policy to total desegregation...
2019-02-2036 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: Janet Mary RileyThough Janet Mary Riley did not define herself as a second wave feminist, by today’s standards, she was a quiet but fierce civil rights advocate and tireless women’s rights activist.
Throughout her life, she fought for equal pay in the workplace.
This event is dedicated to her successful efforts to revise Louisiana’s community property laws giving women equal management rights of a marriage’s community property. Prior to Riley’s heroic efforts, under Louisiana law, no married woman owned the right to manage her own property. That right was given, by law in marriage, to her husband. The law wa...
2018-06-3044 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ INCUBATOR II: Dorian Bennett Talks about His Friend Tennessee WilliamsAs part of researching the world of Tennessee Williams and his later life living, part-time, in New Orleans French Quarter, LETTERS READ producer Nancy Sharon Collins interviewed Dorian Bennett. Williams befriended Bennett in the 1980s, This is an edited moment from that interview.
Image: 722 Toulouse Street, ca. 1930s: A photo of 722 Toulouse Street that is thought to date to the 1930s. At the end of the 1930s, Williams made his way to New Orleans and, shortly after, to an apartment in this building. ~ Source: The Historic New Orleans Collection, Gift of Mrs. Solis Seiferth, acc. no. 1985.120.141
2018-06-0201 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: The Luck of FriendshipWelcome to LETTERS READ, sixth in the series of live events in which local artists interpret personal letters written by culturally vital individuals from various times and New Orleans communities presented by stationer Nancy Sharon Collins and Antenna.
Thanks to New Orleans Tennessee Williams Literary Festival and especially to Susan Larson whose idea it was for LETTERS READ to perform The Luck of Friendship, The Letters of Tennessee Williams and James Laughlin, edited by Peggy Fox and Thomas Keith. Thanks also goe to readers Jean Allemond, Dante Fuoco, Reed Everette, Colin Miller, Robert Valley, Dorian Bennett, Augustin Correro, Wes McWhorter, Nick...
2018-03-3059 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: Text Dating Part IIWelcome to PART II of LETTERS READ: Text Dating. This is sixth in the ongoing series of live events in which local artists interpret personal letters written by culturally vital individuals from various times and New Orleans communities presented by me, Nancy Sharon Collins, and Antenna.
Thanks go to Antenna, Press Street, Paper Machine! If you don’t already know, Paper Machine is the new, bricks and mortar printing center in Old Arabi owned and operated by Antenna. It also houses Artist Book Collection.
2018-03-3025 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: Text Dating Part IWelcome to PART I in the fifth installment of LETTERS READ. The ongoing series of live events in which local artists interpret personal letters written by culturally vital individuals from various times and New Orleans communities presented by me, Nancy Sharon Collins, and Antenna.
Thanks to Antenna, Press Street, Paper Machine, and to contributors Mikita Brottman, Kyle Petrozza, John Rushing, Cate Root, Erin Callais, Folwell Dunbar, Chris Kamenstein, Charles Thomas T. Strider, and to emcee Adam Newman.
2018-03-3049 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ INCUBATOR I: Peter Rogers Meets Tennessee Williams & Vivien LeighWhen Peter Rogers was a young man, he moved from Hattiesburg, MS, to Manhattan. He was so poor he took in a roommate to help share the rent. Introduced by fellow Hattiesburg-ites back home, Peter's roommate was non other than Jim Adams, Tennessee Williams’s cousin. In this short, Rogers recalls the evening Williams breezed into town, treated them to the Broadway play, Duel of Angels, with Vivien Leigh. After, Williams took them backstage to meet the beautiful Ms. Leigh, who went on to become Scarlett O'Hara in the movie, Gone with the Wind. Williams continued the evening entertainment with a...
2018-02-2303 min
LETTERS READLETTERS READ: Veterans DayThrough live readings of letters written during War I and World War II, LETTERS READ: Veterans Day presented little moments where lives of military service members and civilians intersected.
The November 11, 2017 reading focused on love letters from The National World War II Museum, letters from United States Army Air Force officer Francis I. Cervantes (1922-1945) to his mother while training for and serving in WWII, and correspondence between individuals organizing, administrating, and serving in World War I Newcomb Relief Unit overseas.
This special event was held at Bastion, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. It is an intentionally designed community for returning...
2017-11-1247 min
The Art of the MatterThe Art of the Matter - A Listening Room in Carmel, German Artist at the Athenaeum, & Landscapes in SpeedwayThe Warehouse in Carmel has become known as a small "listening room" that features some pretty big names in the music industry, including Josh Kaufman, Judy Collins, Joan Osborne, Leon Russell, and many more. Travis DiNicola spoke with Heather Ramsey Clark to find out how she is bringing such big names to this intimate venue. For "You Have Ten Minutes," visual artist Katherine Hilden's new exhibition of prints at the Athenaeum in July, she drew on a remarkable chapter of history and her own German heritage. Here's Katherine's conversation with Sharon Gamble. Landscape painter Nancy Maxwell has a show of...
2016-07-0200 min