THE SONS OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS tells the story of the gay men of New Orleans who created a vast and fantastic culture of wildly popular 'drag balls' starting in the late 1950s. These men worked with the traditions of Mardi Gras to bring gay culture into public settings in the early 1960s.
By 1969, there were four gay Mardi Gras clubs legally chartered by the state of Louisiana, throwing yearly extravaganzas at civic venues around the city. 'Society matrons begged for ball tickets from their hairdressers'.
They succeeded in bringing down the 'Jim Crow' type laws that targeted gay people during this period, staging a flamboyant, costumed revolution without politics and won freedoms during a time, as now, when laws and people fought against them.
Play | Title | Artist |
---|---|---|
The Sons of Tennessee Williams
|
||
St. James Infirmary
|
Preservation Hall Jazz Band:
Performer
|
|
A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody
|
||
Plain Song
|
||
Darktown Strutters Ball
|
||
Lena
|
|
|
There'll Be Some Changes Made
|
||
Petit Suite for Solo Cello
|
|
|
See Me Now
|
|
|
Hand Me Down My Walking Cane
|
|
|
Everything Old is New Again
|
|
|
A Kind of Kindness
|
|
|
La Marseillaise
|
|
|
Tootie Ma Is a Big Fine Thing
|
|
|
You want a Piece of Me
|
|
|
New York, New York
|
|
|
Toot, Toot, Tootsie
|
|
|
Dance Macabre
|
|
|
Come on a my House
|
|
|
Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans
|
|
|
Ride of the Valkyries
|
|
|
Wedding In Egypt
|
|
|
Make Way
|
|
|
Ascent
|
|
|
Lena / It's Carnival Time
|
Al Johnson:
Writer
|
|
See Me Now / Finale
|
|
|
Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful
|
|
|
The Teddy Bear's Picnic
|
|
|
Lena / It's Carnival Time
|
Al Johnson:
Performer
|
|
There'll Be Some Changes Made
|
Billy Higgins:
Performer
|
|
Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful
|
Ratty Scurvics:
Performer
|
|
The Teddy Bear's Picnic
|
John W. Bratton:
Performer
|
|