Issuu

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

Together Through Music

Members of Kids' Orchestra performing during Live After Five concert in Baton Rouge.

For more than 15 years, Kids’ Orchestra has been bringing children from across southeast Louisiana together through community based music education. “BSF is proud to support Kids’ Orchestra because investing in our children is one of the most important things we can do.”

– Kelly Hurtado Vice President of Marketing Bank of St. Francisville

To learn more about Kids’ Orchestra, visit kidsorchestra.org.

Rooted in relationship 5700 Commerce Street St. Francisville

5505 Highland Road Baton Rouge

// S E P 2 6

Contents

SEPTEMBER 2026

Introduction

6 8

Features

REFLECTIONS

Practicing What We Preach by James Fox-Smith

NOTEWORTHIES

Arts anniversaries abound; Louisiana choreography in the Library of Congress; inside Baton Rouge's Dancer's Workshop

Events

VO LU M E 4 3 // I SS U E 9

BREAK A LEG

Farces and folleys, tragedy and toe shoes—Louisiana launches its fall performing arts season

40 44

INSIDE IMPROV Boomerang Comedy Theater is teaching Baton Rouge’s improv-curious the beauty of “Yes, and …” Story by Kristen Foster

THE HARD COUNTS The hidden devotion and discipline of the LSU Tiger Girls Story by Jeffrey Roedel

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL New Orleans theatre artists are embracing intimate storytelling to create work audiences don’t just watch—they feel

Culture

SOUPÇON Emeril gambles on Baton Rouge. The king's biscuits. Read the beans.

by CR staff

Outdoors

AN INSIDER'S GUIDE TO SEED HARVESTING Gathering autumn’s bounty, by the light of September’s harvest moon by Jess Cole

DYLAN DOWN SOUTH In 1989, Bob Dylan recorded Oh Mercy in a house on Soniat Street by Ingrid Marie Jensen

by Holly Duchmann

STRANGERS AT MY TABLE Fortified by good boots and better wine, a lost Tennessee Williams play comes to life

VOICE ACROSS TIME How Leontyne Price overcame Jim Crow-era segregation to become one of the Metropolitan Opera's biggest stars by Chris Turner-Neal

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

RAISED ON COFFEE MILK Crowd-sourcing the folk history of Acadiana’s sweet childhood indulgence by Megan Broussard Maughan

Escapes

by Chris Turner-Neal

Editorial Intern

Ingrid Marie Jensen

Creative Director

Kourtney Zimmerman

Contributors:

Art by Jimmy Block They say the world's a stage, and multi-disciplinary artist Jimmy Block interprets the world as a shadow box. "Production" begins with characters he creates, stories he imagines—often inspired by his home, New Orleans, a place where, as writer Brett Barnes puts it in his feature story "Up Close and Personal," theatricality finds a home not only behind the curtain but "walk[ing] down the street, gather[ing] in courtyards, join[ing] a parade, enter[ing] a barroom, and continu[ing] long after the formal performance has ended." Using prints, photos, and materials from various sources, Block captures the whimsy and delight that motivates our regional dance artists, comedians, playwrights, actors, and storytellers. He captures the magic and the sense of play that the theatre brings to life, and that life brings to the theatre. Find his work at LeMieux Galleries in New Orleans or at jimblockart.com.

Arts & Entertainment Editor

Story by Brett Barnes

"PUPPET"

Managing Editor

Jordan LaHaye Fontenot Jacqueline DeRobertis-Braun

LUMA AND SÔLT Lighting up Hammond’s coffeehouse culture, one cup at a time

Associate Publisher

Ashley Fox-Smith

On the Cover

Cuisine

Publisher

James Fox-Smith

STORIES FROM THE LITTLE THEATRE In Bay St. Louis, a beloved home for community theatre has endured for more than eighty years Story by Kara Martinez Bachman

Perspectives

MISSISSIPPI CALLS William Dunlap can’t escape his Southern roots by Jacqueline DeRobertis-Braun

Odessa Barattieri, Brett Barnes, Megan Broussard Maughan, Jess Cole, Holly Duchmann, Kristen Foster, Kara Martinez Bachman, Jeffrey Roedel, Chris Turner-Neal

Cover Artist

Jimmy Block

Advertising

SALES@COUNTRYROADSMAG.COM

Sales Team

Heather Gammill, Heather Gibbons, Mary Margaret Lindsey

Operations Coordinator

Molly C. McNeal

President

Dorcas Woods Brown

Country Roads Magazine P.O. Box 490 St. Francisville, LA 70775 Phone (225) 343-3714 Fax (815) 550-2272 EDITORIAL@COUNTRYROADSMAG.COM WWW.COUNTRYROADSMAG.COM

Mailed Subscriptions

87.30 for 12 months

ISSN #8756-906X

Copyrighted. All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced without permission of the publisher. The opinions expressed in Country Roads magazine are those of the authors or columnists and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, nor do they constitute an endorsement of products or services herein. Country Roads magazine retains the right to refuse any advertisement. Country Roads cannot be responsible for delays in subscription deliveries due to U.S. Post Office handling of first-class mail.

// S E P 2 6

Reflections FROM THE PUBLISHER

ne of the perks—and occasional hazards—of publishing Country Roads is that attending cultural, dining, and entertainment events and calling it “work” is not only tolerated, it’s expected. This is why, one hot August morning, my wife and I were in New Orleans, practicing what we preach. The Historic New Orleans Collection was hosting its annual Antiques Forum— which CR has sponsored for years. This lovely symposium, which brings in experts in material culture from around the country to speak on topics related to decorative arts in the South, was underway in various French Quarter locations, and the invitation to enjoy lectures and social events in the company of tweedy academics from places like Colonial Williamsburg and the Houston Museum of Fine Arts was too good to pass up. A couple of blocks over at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the annual Louisiana Contemporary exhibition had recently debuted. As the name suggests, Louisiana Contemporary presents fifty recent works by Louisiana artists judged exceptional by a visiting curator from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Given

that I have been entrusted by the good people at Louisiana Public Broadcasting to host its Art Rocks TV series again this fall, it felt important to acquaint myself with the work in this year’s exhibition. Within walking distance was Delacroix—a new seafood restaurant we’d been keen to try. I’d been longing to return to the Jewel of the South cocktail tavern since first darkening its periwinkle blue doors a year ago, and the peerless jazz trumpeter Kevin Louis was playing at Snug Harbor. So much! As someone who lives at the end of a gravel road in rural Louisiana, I tend to feel that country life is fine—so long as you can escape it once in a while. During late summer, when the garden is overtaken by weeds and the pool’s gone green, the urge to escape is strong. So, a weekend in the Crescent City, attending lectures about religious artifacts, roaming around art galleries, and enjoying a cocktail or two didn’t sound like “work” at all. Indeed, it sounded like the cure for what ailed us. In New Orleans, nothing happens in a vacuum. Arriving at lunchtime on Friday, we beat a path directly to Delacroix to celebrate the recent discovery that a shellfish allergy that has been depriving my wife of shrimp and crab for years (a culinary tragedy in Louisiana), had been a misdiagnosis. She was halfway through her Crabmeat Ravigote when in swept

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

Dawn, a running buddy from my wife's LSU days, resplendent in a red dress and on her way to join a tableful of welldressed business types. Dawn, who these days is the kind of high-powered New Orleans businesswoman who gets an industrial crane named after her, has remarkable powers of persuasion, because we somehow ended up joining her party for most of the evening—first for cocktails, and later at the restaurant GW Fins, where the erstwhile seafood allergy was ruled out once and for all. Dawn was the one dressed for the occasion, because also happening that weekend was the Red Dress Run, when thousands of participants clad in red dresses charge through the French Quarter, with stops for refreshments and socializing along the way. This created an interesting juxtaposition. When the well-dressed Antiques Forum crowd (tweedy academics, remember) let out for lunch, the streets were awash with red dress-wearing, beverage-clutching run-

ners of both sexes, making their way unsteadily hither and yon. The Antiques Forum’s lunch event was happening on the seventeenth floor at the Hotel Monteleone, and since the Monteleone, and specifically the Carousel Bar, was clearly a must-do pit stop for Red Dress Runners, the sight of pearl-strung Antiques Forum academics from Pennsylvania emerging, grinning but somewhat disheveled, from an elevator stuffed with large, sweaty, middle-aged men wearing poorly fitting red cocktail dresses, is one I’ll not soon forget. It occurs to me that a good weekend in New Orleans is performance art in its own right. You know those weekends: the ones in which every event, exhibition, artwork, cocktail, meal, musical performance, and chance encounter with an old friend or a new acquaintance, adds another verse to an evolving, somewhat improvisational theatrical experience. Despite the many challenges, frustrations, and shortcomings of life in Louisiana, of which we are constantly reminded, performing the art of living is something that New Orleans, and our culture as a whole, does rather well. As folks who call Louisiana home, it’s our responsibility, and our privilege, to make the most of it. —James Fox-Smith, publisher james@countryroadsmag.com

// S E P 2 6

Noteworthy

S E P T E M B E R 2 02 6

NEWS,

T I M E LY

TIDBITS,

AND

ASSORTED

CURIOSITIES

Milestones in the Capital City THE 2026–2027 SEASON REPRESENTS A MAJOR MILESTONE FOR THREE VENERABLE PERFORMING ARTS INSTITUTIONS IN THE CAPITAL CITY

péra Louisiane will launch its twentieth season with an evening of song, dance, and satire when it presents Life, Liberty and Laughs: The American Dream in Operetta, at the Manship Theatre on September 20. Across two decades, Opéra Louisane has evolved to become a pillar of the state’s performing arts community. Internationally renowned operatic tenor and Lake Charles native Paul Groves, who serves as the company’s General Director, said, “If you think opera is for the elite, you’re so wrong. It’s for everybody. That’s why Mozart wrote his operas. Verdi is about normal people and normal life. Rigoletto is about the struggles that we go through in life.” Local audiences have gotten the message. The company’s April production of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly at the Raising Cane’s River Center was packed almost to capacity. “With the downbeat of the last chord, the entire audience jumped to their feet and started screaming. It made all the hard work worth it,” Groves recalled. operalouisiane.com

LO O K C LO S E R

The Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge’s River City Jazz Masters performance series is also marking its twentieth anniversary. Each season the organization brings four concerts to Baton Rouge’s Manship Theatre featuring some of the finest jazz musicians in the world. Beyond the bright lights, another element of the series’s mission is an accompanying educational program that brings those same musicians into local classrooms. “Every year we try to identify at least three artists who are performing and bring them to a school,” said Jonathan Grimes, President of the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge. “It goes a long way to have a world-renowned professional tell you what they think you should be doing when it comes to mastering your craft.” River City Jazz Masters’ twentieth season kicks off at the Manship Theatre on October 7 with a performance by Cuban pianist, composer, and producer Alfredo Rodriguez. Recognized worldwide for his explosive blend of jazz, classical virtuosity, and Afro-Cuban roots, Rodriguez will be accompanied by his band, which features the percussionist Pedrito Martinez. Other performers

•

this season will include jazz trumpeter Wendell Brunious, and nine-time Grammy nominee Tierney Sutton. artsbr.org/river-city-jazz-masters/ As Baton Rouge’s premier contemporary dance theatre, Of Moving Colors has brought countless productions to local stages, enthralling audiences for generations. With programs such as Kick it Out! an annual show which gives kids from around Baton Rouge opportunities to get a taste of modern dance while performing alongside professional dancers, the company plays a vital role in nurturing young talent and promoting interest in contemporary dance. This year, the non-profit marks its fortieth anniversary of staging original productions and choreographies in the capital city. “One of the things that’s important to us as we celebrate our anniversary is that we focus on the dancers themselves,” said Artistic Director Garland Goodwin Wilson. On October 1, Of Moving Colors will present Partner Works at the John and Virginia Noland Black Box Studio at the Cary Saurage Community Arts Center. Wilson said that the program would present “a select group of world-class artists,” combining their creative efforts to meld an exciting, unique event to celebrate OMC’s landmark anniversary. ofmovingcolors.org —Ingrid Marie Jensen

Love Letters of WWII

NEW ORLEANS STORY OF SEPARATED WWII LOVERS TO BE PRESENTED AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS IN WASHINGTON D.C. From Mélange Dance Theatre's production of Love Letters of WWII; photo by Michael Dominici courtesy of Mélange Dance Theatre.

hile war devastates, love preserves. In a profoundly paradoxical way, some of the most enduring love stories have emerged during episodes of intense violence and conflict. On September 10, members of Metairie’s Mélange Dance Theatre will be in Washington, D.C. to present a performance of Love Letters of WWII at the Library of Congress, in partnership with the Veterans History Project. The production, which recounts the real-life love story of Yvette and Roger, a French couple separated during the largest conflict in human history, features original music by New Orleans-based musician Sarah Quintana, set to choreography by Mélange Dance Theatre Artistic Director, Monica Ordoñez. A decade ago, Love Letters originated as a collaborative endeavor between Quintana and Julie Rougé, the musician’s booking agent in Marseille, France. Quintana was looking for new inspiration when Rougé produced 8

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

a trove of love letters exchanged between her grandparents—the real-life Yvette and Roger. Inspired, Quintana composed an original score based on the couple’s story. In 2019, Quintana connected with Monica Ordoñez, and the duo began incorporating more stories of loveamid-conflict into the production. There were stories that recounted relationships between female members of the French resistance and Cajun “Frenchies” (bilingual French-speaking soldiers from Louisiana), who served the allied cause as interpreters or undercover operatives. There was a tale of a Jewish dancer and hero. The story of James Killion, Jr., provides an introduction to the Double V campaign—a significant movement among African American servicemen who found themselves simultaneously fighting for victory abroad, and against racism at home. “I discovered the Love Letters project after working with Quintana on a previous project, and instantly became enamored with it,” Ordoñez said. “As a choreographer, creating meaningful work that communicates tangible stories that our audiences can grasp onto, enjoy, and feel inspiration and hope is what drives me artistically … I knew I wanted to bring the story of Yvette and Roger to life.” In the years since its 2019 debut, Love Letters has evolved into an hour-and-forty minute amalgamation of authentic wartime stories, which brought Rougé across the Atlantic to Washington D.C. to see her grandparents’ story brought to life. The New Orleans Foundation for Francophone Cul-

tures (NOUS), a nonprofit dedicated to preserving Louisiana’s unique heritage cultures, facilitated the connection between the theatre and the Washington venue, when promotional materials for Mélange Dance Theatre’s program were featured in NOUS’s Le Lab program in 2025. The Library of Congress was on NOUS’s mailing list. “Given Louisiana's unique history and cultural excellence, it is an absolute honor for us to be the first Louisiana-born dance theatre company to present an original, full-length dance production at the Library of Congress—especially one that delves into Louisiana history while keeping important WWII stories alive,” said Ordoñez. Nominated for two 2020 Big Easy Classical Arts Awards, Love Letters of WWII unites a multifaceted cast of twenty-two artists. Featuring Adrienne Simmons as Yvette, Cade Garafola as Roger, and Emily Thibodeaux as the production’s bilingual narrator, Love Letters harnesses the theme of universal love that drove millions to sacrifice their lives in the name of justice. “It is certainly a highlight of my career as a choreographer.” Ordoñez said. Performances of Love Letters of WWII take place in New Orleans on August 28—30 at The Josephine, and at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. on September 10. melangedanceofnola.com —Odessa Barattieri

Ballet Is For Everyone

AS A NEW PERFORMING ARTS SEASON GETS UNDERWAY, THE DANCER’S WORKSHOP OFFERS BALLET CLASSES FOR ALL AGES AND SKILL LEVELS

articipating in ballet means joining an artistic tradition that has endured for more than half a millennium. The form evolved in Italy at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Catherine de Medici brought ballet to France when she married Henry II in 1553. From there, the craze grew. Louis XIV of France became so enamored with ballet that in 1661, he established the Académie Royale de la Danse, the first formal school of its kind in the Western world. As ballet spread around the globe, various teaching methodologies evolved. The goal, though, remained the same: to tell complex, human stories through a genre of dance centered around total harmony and spellbinding athletics. The Dancer’s Workshop, which was founded in Baton Rouge in 1973 by Molly Buchmann and Sharon Mathews, continues that long tradition. Although The Dancer’s Workshop and Buchmann and Mathews’ other lifelong project—Baton Rouge Ballet Theatre—are separate entities, they share a common goal: ensuring that Louisiana’s capital city retains an active ballet company. Training to become a ballet dancer is a long pro-

Photo courtesy of The Dancer's Workshop.

cess that requires a strong, supportive community. For many young hopefuls, classes at The Dancer’s Workshop represent the first steps of a journey towards one day joining the Baton Rouge Ballet Theatre. “That’s the goal for most of our dancers,” Rebecca Acosta, one of the workshop’s associate directors and the daughter of Sharon Mathews, said. “The Baton Rouge Ballet Theatre has a youth ballet program that we audition, starting at ten years old. Then we have our company, our semi-professional dancers. They’re high schoolers, and a few college kids. They perform in the big performances, like The Nutcracker: A Tale from the Bayou and our spring show. Once they start, they get the bug. The goal is to go all the way through.” Both Acosta and Associate Director Jonna Cox are trained to teach the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet Method. Pioneered by Marcia Dale Weary in the 1950s, the CPYB curriculum draws on the teachings of Russian pedagogue Agrippina Vaganova, while adding distinctive American flair. With a focus on clean lines and neat, quicksilver technique, CPYB method training provides an essential foundation for any young dancer.

Recently, ballet classes for adults have experienced a surge in popularity. Whether or not one has grown up taking lessons, the benefits of ballet for building strength, flexibility, stamina and coordination are well documented. The Dancer’s Workshop was well ahead of the current trend—the school has offered classes for adults since the late 1990s. In response to the current interest in adult dance classes, the Workshop has amped up its roster even more. Classical ballet at both beginner’s and intermediate levels, modern dance, and tap-dancing are all available to adult students. “Dance is a wonderful physical activity,” Cox said. “You don’t have to necessarily be professionally minded to come and be a part of ballet.” “Technically, it’s the hardest style of dance,” Acosta said. “A lot of the time audiences don’t appreciate it, or they don’t understand what they’re watching. People who actually come in and take class have a new appreciation for the love of ballet.” dancersworkshopbr.com —Ingrid Marie Jensen

// S E P 2 6

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

Events

S E P T E M B E R 2 02 6

SURE,

IT'S STILL

HOT

…

BUT THIS

CALENDAR

S H OW U P / O U T

ROLLS

IT'S

NOT

•

A scene from the Marigny Opera Ballet's recent production of Tchaikovsky's Maid of Orleans, presented in collaboration with Verismo Opera. This month, New Orleans's Marigny Opera House opens the curtains on its 13th season with a ballet-opera rendition of Biblically inspired Cain, or the First Homicide, unearthed from the Baroque era. Showings from September 11–18 (see page 18).

UNTIL SEP 6th

UPCYCLINGS "GAIN OF FUNCTION" New Orleans, Louisiana

In a solo exhibition at Sibyl Gallery, artist Kyle McLean presents sculptures created from found, thrifted, or "harmlessly stolen" materials—collected while walking the same routes day in and day out. McLean's art practice also relates to Pond Coffee in the Marigny, which he coowns, emphasizing his creative approach as community-driven and oriented. He works to bring the discarded and the unwanted back into the world, creating connection and continuity where the lines had been broken. sibylgallery.com. 1

UNTIL SEP 6th

ART EXHIBITIONS "SOUTH ARTS SOUTHERN PRIZE & STATE FELLOWSHIPS FOR VISUAL ARTS" Baton Rouge, Louisiana

South Arts Southern Prize & State Fellowships for Visual Arts at The LSU Museum of Art features a touring exhibition of artwork by the 2025 Southern Prize & State Fellowship for Visual Arts recipients. The program celebrates contemporary art in the American South, with this year's cohort specializing in a number of mediums,

such as quilting and African maskmaking, and tackling universal narratives of migration, labor, and identity. southarts.org. lsumoa.org. 1

UNTIL SEP 25th

UNTIL SEP 6th

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

VISUAL ART "CAREFUL MAN" AT SIBYL GALLERY New Orleans, Louisiana

Artist Neil Hancock's solo exhibition at Sibyl Gallery makes use of both language and signs as material, blurring the boundary between drawing and writing across paper and canvas with acrylic paint, pencil, and marker. By embracing endless repetition, Hancock engages in restriction and discipline, his subject matter borrowed from his daily life, his themes focusing on his recent sobriety. sibylgallery.com. 1

UNTIL SEP 12

ART EXHIBITIONS STAA SUMMER SHOW Covington, Louisiana

For over fifty years running, the St. Tammany Art Association has organized the national juried art exhibition, the Summer Show. The show runs through September 12, closing with a reception from 6 pm–9 pm. Entrance to the gallery is free. sttammanyartassociation.org. 1

BLACK JOY BREATH OF GOD: A LOVE LETTER TO BLACK MEN AND BLACK WOMEN Breath of God: A Love Letter to Black Men and Black Women, a joint exhibition by photographer Jacquel Curry and multidisciplinary artist Ashli Ognelodh Curry, celebrates Black identity and centers beauty, resilience, and joy. Black men and women have long been the keepers of strength and initiators of culture, but oftentimes their labor, love, and light have gone unrecognized or misunderstood. This exhibition, hosted by the Cary Saurage Community Arts Center, implores the audience towards a different gaze: one that sees Black men and women not through struggle and trauma, but through reverence and pure joy. Free. Closing reception

Elizabethan Gallery More Than Just a Frame Shop ONE DAY FRAMING AVAILABLE

JOIN US ON

September 8TH to celebrate 39 years of business in the Baton Rouge area! Champagne Toasts and Store-wide Specials (All month long!)

September 24, 6 pm–9 pm. artsbr.org. 1

UNTIL SEP 27th

ARTISTIC ICONS "MICHALOPOULOS: MYSTICAL EXPRESSIONISM" New Orleans, Louisiana

The Cabildo hosts a celebration and exploration of the prolific forty-year career of James Michalopoulos and his efforts to immortalize New Orleans's vernacular architecture. From depictions

Heidi Bergeron, Gallery Manager, Liz Walker, Gallery Owner & Anna Joslyn, Sales & Framing 680 Jefferson Highway, BR, LA 70806 225-924-6437 Elizabethangallery.com // S E P 2 6

Events

Until September 2nd of Creole cottages to ornate Victorian facades, Michalopoulos's pieces burst with color, energy, and life. The exhibition features more than sixty paintings.

art, archival photographs, and artifacts, the exhibition highlights the railway's critical role in shaping Baton Rouge throughout the twentieth century. lasm.org. 1

louisianastatemuseum.org. 1

UNTIL SEP 28

UNTIL OCT 10th

VISUAL ART RIVER ROAD SHOW

CREATIVE COMPETITIONS AMOA'S 39TH ANNUAL SEPTEMBER COMPETITION

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Alexandria, Louisiana

The Art Guild of Louisiana presents its 56th Annual River Road Show, a national juried show at the Louisiana State Archives. Marc Hanson is juror and judge for the exhibition; he is a Master Signature Member of Oil Painters of America.

It's time for the annual September Competition at the Alexandria Museum of Art, a juried exhibition featuring contemporary artwork from around the country and displayed in the Lipsey Gallery. In its thirty-ninth iteration, the exhibition includes sixty artworks by fifty artists representing twenty-one states and two countries, spanning a variety of mediums.

artguildlouisiana.org. 1

UNTIL OCT 1st

OFF THE RAILS "CROSSROADS & CONNECTIONS: A CENTURY OF THE RAILWAY IN BATON ROUGE" Baton Rouge, Louisiana

The Louisiana Art & Science Museum commemorates the 100th anniversary of the former Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Depot it's housed in. Through

themuseum.org. 1

UNTIL NOV 8th

BRIGHT EYED & BUSHY TAILED "WHAT THE FOX KNOWS" Port Allen, Louisiana

The West Baton Rouge Museum presents What the Fox Knows, a journey of art and poetry through the

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

"Swampland Rhapsody" by Lake Charles artist and former McNeese State University professor Bill Iles, will be part of a solo exhibition featuring Iles's vibrant landscape paintings that opens at NUNU Arts & Culture Collective in Arnaudville on September 11 (see page 18).

eyes of a fox from artist Kathy Miller Stone and author Jacqueline Simon. westbatonrougemuseum.org. 1

SEP 2nd

AUTHOR TALKS EVENING EXCHANGE WITH DR. FRANCES KOLB TURNBELL Online

Join LSU's Rural Life Museum for a virtual evening session with Dr. Frances Kolb Turnbell on her book, Spanish Louisiana: Contest for Borderlands, 1763–1803. Her talk will focus on Louisiana during the

American Revolutionary War, exploring how the Lower Mississippi became a strategic frontier where Spain, Britain, American revolutionaries, Native nations, and enslaved people influenced the course of history. 6 pm. Free. Details on Facebook. 1

SEP 2nd

CREATIVE CONNECTIONS CULTURE COLLISION 15 New Orleans, Louisiana

Someone once likened Culture Collision to a trade show, but that isn't quite correct—it's much more than that.

// S E P 2 6

Events

Beginning September 2nd - 5th Effectively, it is an annual happy hour to kick off New Orleans's vibrant cultural season, where the movers and shakers therein can connect and share their projects and talents. The one-night-only affair presented by LSU New Orleans and WWNO 89.9 takes place at LSU New Orleans's University Center this year and features dozens of performing and visual arts participants, all with diverse and colorful visions for the coming year. It's devoted to one goal: introducing potential audience members, volunteers, patrons, and artists to the diverse mix of arts that the city has to offer. 5:30 pm–7:30 pm. Free. culturenola.org. 1

SEP 2nd - SEP 30th FROLIC TWILIGHT AT LONGUE VUE GARDENS New Orleans, Louisiana

Longue Vue House and Gardens are always beautiful to behold, but a certain magic settles in during the cooler evening hours. Add the gentle serenade of live music performances each Wednesday during the Twilight at Longue Vue series, and the result is spectacular. Bring your

own wine, snacks, and lawn chairs, and enjoy the serenity of music wafting on the evening breeze. 5 pm–7 pm. $15. longuevue.com. 1

SEP 3rd

WWII INTERVIEWING NEW ORLEANS HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS New Orleans, Louisiana

John Menszer's decades-long effort to document the lives of Holocaust survivors in New Orleans began in 1993 as a photography project and evolved into a respected traveling exhibition and website; his collection of photographs and interviews with Holocaust Survivors are featured in the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience's current exhibition, Holocaust Survivors in a New Land: The New Americans Social Club of New Orleans. His method of documenting survivors' stories—returning for clarification, photographing survivors in their homes, and supporting them as they revisited painful memories—created deep personal bonds and what he described as an “extended family.” In this program, Menszer will take us beyond the exhibit

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

and into the living rooms of the survivors as he was conducting the interviews and will present selected outtakes from his interviews, audio clips, family photos, documentary photographs and ephemera from his collection. 6 pm. Free in person or online, with donation requested and registration required at msje.org. 1

SEP 3rd - SEP 7th

SHRIMPLY THE BEST SHRIMP AND PETROLEUM FESTIVAL Morgan City, Louisiana

Booth after booth after booth of festival food is the calling card of the longrunning Shrimp and Petroleum Festival, which has returned to Morgan City every summertime for more than ninety years. That first parade is remembered as a ragtag procession of local frog and alligator hunters, shrimpers, crabbers, and oystermen demonstrating on Labor Day. Famous for its Historic Blessing of the Fleet and boat parade, which features decorated shrimp boats, pleasure crafts, offshore supply boats, and some of the biggest "muscle" boats of the offshore industry, this festival has been rated a Top 20 Southeast Tourism Society event. Time magazine described it as "...the best, the most unusual, the most downhome, the most moving and the most fun that the country has to offer." This

five-day crustacean celebration is one of Louisiana's oldest harvest festivals, a lively celebration of men and women working in the region's seafood and petroleum industries and the ways they work handin-hand culturally and environmentally. Entertainment includes continuous live music by local and national acts, an arts & crafts show and sale, a children's village, fireworks, a car show, bass & softball tournaments, the huge Cajun Culinary Classic cooking contest, and lots more. Event locations vary, with most of the action centered around downtown Morgan City's Lawrence Park. Free. shrimpandpetroleum.org . 1

SEP 3rd - SEP 7th

PRIDE IN STRIDE SOUTHERN DECADENCE New Orleans, Louisiana

Back in 1972, friends living in a cottage in Treme threw together a small "Come As Your Favorite Southern Decadent" party and impromptu parade, and through the years that intimate fête has mushroomed into a full-blown carnival, featuring a parade and all sorts of flamboyant (and risqué) festivities. Since the early eighties, Southern Decadence has evolved to become New Orleans's "Gay Mardi Gras," celebrating the South's LGBTQ+ communities with live music from local musicians and

DJs, street dancing, costume contests, and so on. It all leads up to the annual Southern Decadence Parade on Sunday, which gathers steam from Royal Street's Golden Lantern. Recent iterations have attracted more than 100,000 visitors to the French Quarter. Full details at southerndecadence.com. 1

SEP 4th

ARTS & CRAFTS CREATE N' TAKE: CALDERSTYLE MOBILES WITH LAURALI MANIERI Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi

Inspired by the playful kinetic designs of Alexander Calder, students of this workshop at The Arts Hancock County will explore how shape, weight, balance, and placement work together while constructing their own hanging mobile. Instructor Laurali Manieri will guide participants through the basic principles and techniques of kinetic mobile design, including assembling, balancing, and adjusting each element to create movement. No previous experience is required, and all materials are provided. Students will leave with a completed mobile and new techniques they can apply to future creative projects. Recommended for ages fifteen and up; pre-registration advised. 6 pm–8 pm. $35 non-members, $30 members. hancockarts.org. 1

SEP 4th

SEP 4th - SEP 6th

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Mandeville, Louisiana

COMEDY BUTTERR AND FRIENDS: AN IMPROV COLLIDER SHOW Baton Rouge’s improv scene is colliding once again for a night of off-the-cuff comedy. Butterr & Friends brings together some of the best improv teams at the Hartley/Vey Studio Theatre for a showcase of unscripted hilarity, unexpected moments, and big laughs. Each team will take the stage to showcase its unique improv styles, leading up to a grand mashup finale where all three groups join forces for an unforgettable collaborative performance. 7:30 pm. $14. manshiptheatre.org . 1

SEP 4th - SEP 6th

THE FUNNIES YOU'RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN New Iberia, Louisiana

Join the Iberia Performing Arts League for a production of the beloved show featuring characters from Charles Schulz's timeless comic strip. Charlie Brown and the entire Peanuts gang explore life’s great questions as they play baseball, struggle with homework, sing songs, swoon over their crushes and celebrate the joy of friendship. Fridays and Saturdays at 7 pm; Sundays at 2 pm. $22.50. ipaltheater.com. 1

THEATRE "LATE SHIFT" AT 30 BY NINETY THEATRE From local playwright David Armand, Late Shift is a play in two acts set during the Y2K panic on New Year’s Eve 1999, to be staged by the folks at 30 by Ninety Theatre. The story centers on two siblings and their widowed mother as they navigate family tensions, uncertainty about the future, and unexpected connections. One of the siblings meets Russell, a semi-retired Army veteran, on New Year’s Eve, setting in motion a series of discoveries that unfold as the world waits to see what midnight will bring. Friday and Saturday 8 pm, Sunday 2:30 pm. $22, with discounts for seniors, kids, students, and veterans. 30byninety.com. 1

festival takes hold at the Yambilee Ag Arena starting at noon and continuing until the wee hours of the following morning. Look forward to performances by the best zydeco artists in the region, including but not limited to Chubby Carrier & the Bayou Swamp Band, Rusty Metoyer and Zydeco Krush, Geno Delafose and French Rockin’ Boogie, Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Chas, C. J. Chenier & the Red-Hot Louisiana Band, Leroy Thomas and the Zydeco Roadrunners, and Mike Broussard and Nu’Edition. $25; $5 for kids twelve and younger. RV parking is $10 per day. zydeco.org. 1

SEP 5th

STEM SCIENCE SATURDAY AT LIGO Livingston, Louisiana

SEP 5th

FAIS-DO-DO SOUTHWEST LOUISIANA ZYDECO MUSIC FESTIVAL Opelousas, Louisiana

Nestled in the heart of Cajun Country, Opelousas hosts the world's largest zydeco music festival, celebrating the rich culture of Louisiana Creoles and Cajuns by highlighting, documenting, preserving, and enhancing their funloving heritage. For over forty years, the

The Laser Interferometer GravitationalWave Observatory, also known as LIGO Livingston, is hosting their monthly Science Saturday. During the event, tours of the control room will be offered every half hour, along with more than forty interactive science exhibits, and activities. The exhibit hall will be open for the event from 10 pm–4 pm (though please arrive by 2:30 if you plan to take a tour); the event is free. For more information, visit ligo.caltech.edu. 1

// S E P 2 6

Events

Beginning September 5 - 11 th

SEP 5th - SEP 6th

SEP 6th

New Iberia, Louisiana

Port Allen, Louisiana

Isle of Iberia RV Resort invites one and all to its concert series—Beats on the Bayou. Coming up this fall:

On the first Sunday of the month, learn an artisanal skill at the West Baton Rouge Museum. This time is blacksmithing with Ben Deshotels, who will prepare grilling tools within the Big Red Barn. 2 pm–5 pm.

EVENING JAMS BEATS ON THE BAYOU

September 5: Matthew Ewing All-Star Band September 6: The Cast All performances run from 6 pm–9 pm. $10; entertainment is included if you're camping at the resort. isleofiberia.com. 1

SEP 5th - SEP 30th

VISUAL ARTS "COMING FROM CHIANCIANO" AT GALLERY 600 JULIA New Orleans, Louisiana

OLD SCHOOL BEHIND BARN DOORS

Free. westbatonrougemuseum.org. 1

SEP 6th

CREATIVE VENTURES FREE FIRST SUNDAY AT LSU MOA Baton Rouge, Louisiana

This month, explore the Folk Art Gallery a the LSU Museum of Art and try your hands at collage portraits inspired by the works on view. 1 pm–4 pm. Free, as the

your chance to to put your money where your posterior would like to be. Join artisan Jo Rusin at The Arts Hancock County for a four- to five-week course (last session is optional) that will walk you through recaning the seat of a chair or stool. Students will learn how to weave traditional laced cane and a splint chair seat, as well as how to restore a loom woven/pressed cane seat. Bring your own chair or contact The Arts Hancock County about acquiring one. Sundays, 1:30 pm–4 pm.. $120 members, $140 non-members, $26 supply fee. hancockarts.org. 1

Association presents two separate two-part talks this month:

SEP 10th - SEP 13th

DOWN HOME DANCING MAMOU CAJUN MUSIC FESTIVAL

MOVEMENTS INTERNATIONAL DANCE FESTIVAL NOLA

Mamou, Louisiana

Head down to Grande Mamou for this intimate world of Cajun music on the

Zachary, Louisiana

gallery600julia.com. 1

Many of us enjoy being seated, and here's

The East Baton Rouge Master Gardeners

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

SEP 11th - SEP 12th

For the fourth year, the New Orleans contemporary dance company BODYART presents the International Dance Festival New Orleans. The festival is made up of performances and masterclasses by local and international artists. Some events are free! Find the full schedule at idfnola.com. 1

Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi

Both talks are free and begin at 6:30 pm. ebrmg.wildapricot.org . 1

two day festival, and get a glimpse of the

title might imply. lsumoa.org. 1

HANDIWORK INTRO TO CHAIR SEAT WEAVING

September 24: " Seed Starting" with Bert Hammett, followed by "Growing Herbs" with Kathy Mullin, at the Jones Creek Library.

New Orleans, Louisiana

Fresh off a triumph at the Chianciano Biennale in Tuscany and preparing for an upcoming solo show at the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center, contemporary artist Carol Scott shares her work at Gallery 600 Julia. Opening reception September 5, 6 pm–8 pm.

SEP 6th - SEP 27th

September 10: "Fall Vegetables in Raised Beds" with David Breaux, followed by "Cool Season Flowers" with Bridget Kaigler, at the Zachary Branch Library.

SEP 10 - SEP 24 th

GREEN THUMBS MASTER GARDENER TALKS

prairie. This year's lineup includes Kade Domec & Full Throttle, Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys, Jace Goulas & the Breaux Bridge Aces, and more. Details at mamoucajunmusicfestival.com. 1

SEP 11th - SEP 18th

CURTAIN CALL "CAIN, OR THE FIRST HOMICIDE" New Orleans, Louisiana

Marigny Opera Ballet opens its 13th season with Cain, overo il primo homicidio (Cain,

// S E P 2 6

Events

SEP 12th

BRUSH UP "A STUDY IN BLUE" WATERCOLOR WORKSHOP

Beginning September 11th - 12th or the first homicide) a ballet set to music by Baroque master Domenico Scarlatti, and performed by the musicians and dancers of the company in partnership with Verismo Opera. (If you're nervous about your first opera, never fear; shows run under ninety minutes and feature English supertitles.) Details at marignyoperaballet.org. 1

SEP 11th - SEP 19th

THEATRE THE LOUISIANA SHAKESPEARE COMPANY PRESENTS "HAMLET" Baton Rouge, Louisiana

The Louisiana Shakespeare Company will stage its first tragedy with Hamlet. Ghosts, swordfights, poison, skulls, and revenge, all presented in the immortal cadence of one of the English language's most celebrated poets and playwrights. Fridays and Saturdays 7:30 pm, Sunday matinee 2 pm. $30.

Denham Springs, Louisiana

smash Dear Evan Hansen. Shy, socially anxious, and desperate to fit in, seventeenyear-old Evan Hansen has spent his life feeling invisible. When a tragic misunderstanding suddenly places him at the center of his community's attention, Evan is given something he's always wanted: the chance to finally belong. But as one small lie grows into something far bigger than he ever imagined, he must confront the heartbreaking consequences of the life he's created. September 11, 12, 17, 18, and 19 at 7:30 pm 2 pm matinees Spetember 13 and 20. Tickets from $20. midcitycivic.org. 1

SEP 11 - NOV 1 th

ART EXHIBITION BILL ILES AT NUNU Arnaudville, Louisiana

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Bill Iles is a painter and mixed-media artist in Lake Charles, known for landscape paintings inspired by the forests, swamps, and waterways of Louisiana. Visit NUNU Arts & Culture Collective and take in an exhibition of Iles's work. Free opening reception September 11, 6 pm–9 pm.

Mid City Civic Theatre presents Broadway

nunucollective.org. 1

lashakes.org. 1

SEP 11th - SEP 20th

THEATRE "DEAR EVAN HANSEN"

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

Join artist Kathryn McCardle at the Arts Council of Livingston Parish for a watercolor class focusing on fan-favorite color blue. Thirteen and up. 10:30 am– 12:30 pm. $30. artslivingston.org . 1

SEP 12th

SEA-SONAL BILOXI SEAFOOD FESTIVAL Biloxi, Mississippi

Celebrating its serendipitous proximity to the Gulf's bounty, the city of Biloxi invites all to its enormous annual Seafood Festival on the Lawn at Harrah's. This Gulf Coast happening attracts tens of thousands of people and is consistently ranked as a top event in the Southeast. With succulent seafood, music, and arts & crafts, who couldn't find something to like? 9 am–9 pm, $5, kids 10 and under free. mscoastchamber.com. 1

SEP 12

BTS NEW ORLEANS OPERA SCENIC STUDIO OPEN HOUSE Metairie, Louisiana

New Orleans Opera invites curious

theatregoers to step behind the curtain and discover the artistry, creativity, and craftsmanship that bring every production to life. At this tour of the company's Scenic Studio, you'll explore where towering sets are built, costumes are prepared, and productions begin to take shape. Wander through the costume collection, get up close to the scenery and props that have appeared on stage, and capture a few fun photos along the way. Throughout the afternoon, you'll also enjoy a live musical performance at 1 pm, interactive photo opportunities with scenic pieces and theatrical props, a behind-the-scenes look at the costume collection and production spaces, complimentary light refreshments, and a special keepsake to remember your visit. 11:30 am–3 pm. Free, but please RSVP via Eventbrite. Full details at neworleansopera.com. 1

SEP 12th

VISUAL ARTS ARTIST TALK: AARON COLLIER Lafayette, Louisiana

Join Acadiana Center for the Arts Visual Arts Director Jaik Faulk in conversation with exhibiting artist Aaron Collier. Collier teaches drawing and painting at Tulane University as an associate professor. His work has appeared in exhibitions across and beyond New

Orleans, and the artist has received residencies from the Ragdale Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Open Ateliers Zuidoost in Amsterdam among others. 4:30 pm. Free.

the summer and fall months. The sixshow lineup falls every second Saturday, inviting guests into a full-sensory experience set to musical favorites, including the following:

skill participants can continue using today. 9:30 am–1:30 pm. $5; kids six and

acadianacenterforthearts.org. 1

September 12: Laser U2

SEP 12

October 10: Laser Zeppelin

SHOP LOCAL ST. GABRIEL’S FIREFLY MARKET

HERITAGE HARVEST ON THE TECHE New Iberia, Louisiana

Hit The Harvest Room in New Iberia for the first installment of a new festival celebrating the agriculture, food, and culture of Louisiana’s Teche Region. The event will feature a Louisiana cook-off, vendor marketplace, live music, agricultural demonstrations, kids’ activities, raffles, and more. 9 am–4 pm. $10 ; $7 for young people eleven to twenty years old, ten and under free. Tickets at zeffy.com. 1

SEP 12

BEAMING LASM “ROCK THE DOME” PLANETARIUM LASER SERIES Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Prepare for a high energy, electrifying experience featuring laser light, music, and motion. The Louisiana Art & Science Museum (LASM) presents a Rock the Dome Laser Series at the Irene W. Pennington Planetarium throughout

November 14: Laser Metallica 6 pm. $20 for general admission; $25 for VIP early seating; $100 for a Rock the Dome package. lasm.org. 1

SEP 12th

HANDIWORK DISCOVERY DAY: STITCHING HISTORY Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Discover the history behind an everyday skill at Capitol Park Museum’s "Discovery Day: Stitching History." Inspired by textiles displayed in the museum’s galleries, this beginner-friendly program will introduce participants to basic sewing techniques, including how to make a simple stitch and sew on a button. No previous sewing experience is required. Visitors will also learn about the importance of sewing needles 250 years ago and the influence of Spanish trade on the needle market in colonial Louisiana. The program connects these historical objects and traditions with a practical

under free. louisianastatemuseum.org. 1

SEP 12th

Saint Gabriel, Louisiana

At the Chatsworth House in St. Gabriel, the Firefly Market hosts more than sixty vendors serving beer, wine, cocktails, fresh produce, jelly, jams, seasonings, food, and more—alongside all sorts of traditional arts and crafts. Come for the wares, stay to enjoy the breeze and shade beneath the historic oaks. 4 pm–8 pm. Free off-street parking available. info@stgabrielfarmersmarket.com. 1

SEP 12th

CHOW DOWNS LYDIA CAJUN FOOD FEST New Iberia, Louisiana

Food, cars, and Cajun music—and all to help financially aid local cancer patients. Things kick off at Weeks Park. where at 10 am, a walk honoring cancer survivors will take place. A fabulous lineup of local talent keeps the party going until 9 pm. All this, in addition to a car show, Cajun food, a cook-off, arts and crafts, and more. 9 am–11 pm. lydiacancerassociation.org. 1

SEP 12th

ALL A-FLUTTER HAYNESVILLE CELEBRATION OF THE BUTTERFLIES Haynesville, Louisiana

Haynesville residents will gather in the Claiborne Parish Fair Complex to celebrate the season's winged beauties. Marvel at displays of various butterfly species, take part in butterfly gardening workshops led by entomologists and conservationists, and enjoy all the trappings of a small town festival: live music, arts and crafts vendors, children's activities, and delicious local food. Be sure to catch the butterfly release, one of the most magical moments of the festival, as well as the butterfly parade—featuring brilliant costumes and floats inspired by one of our region's most beautiful, and important, insects. haynesvillela.org. 1

SEP 12th

TURN IT UP GROOVE FOR GOOD: A CELEBRATION OF MUSIC AND COMMUNITY New Orleans, Louisiana

This special evening of extraordinary music and community spirit will ensure that the Jazz and Blues Market again becomes a vibrant hub for music community and culture. The benefit celebration will feature live sets by Judith Owen (appearing with her band, led by David Torkonowski),

// S E P 2 6

Events

Beginning September 12th - 17th Donald Harrison, Bill Summers, Kermit Ruffins, Herlin Riley, Shannon Powell, Jamison Ross, Tonya Boyd Cannon, DJ Soul Sister, and more. 8 pm. Tickets from

SEP 12th - SEP 13th

$114. jazzandbluesmarket.com. 1

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

SEP 12 - SEP 13 th

MUSICAL LEGENDS JIMMY BUFFETT: SON OF A SON OF A SAILOR EXPERIENCE GRAND OPENING Mobile, Alabama

Jimmy Buffett diehards can now further celebrate the life of the legendary musician. The National Maritime Museum of the Gulf is debuting the Jimmy Buffett Son of a Son of a Sailor Experience, a first-of-itskind exhibit celebrating the life, music, storytelling, and cultural influence of one of the Gulf Coast’s favorite sons. (Remember, Pascagoula-born Buffett grew up in Mobile.) Over 130 artifacts from Buffett’s life will be on display, including handwritten lyrics, guitars, and a full-size replica of Shrimp Boat Sound (his iconic Key West recording studio). $19 includes admission to the rest of the museum. nmmog.org. 1

GOOD EATS OLDIES BUT GOODIES FEST & BBQ COOK-OFF Go back to the good old days with the Oldies But Goodies Fest & BBQ Cook-Off, held at the West Baton Rouge Convention & Visitors Bureau. The celebration kicks off with the Smokin Oldies BBQ CookOff on Saturday from noon–4 pm, with food vendors and crafters on site. Then, on Sunday, don your bell bottoms, a white t-shirt, and some sneakers for a day of hula hoop and jitterbug contests, an antique car show, and live music from That 70s Band from noon–4 pm. Grab some grub from local food and beverage vendors and enjoy the fun. westbatonrouge.net. 1

SEP 12th - SEP 19th OUTDOOR CONCERTS JAZZ'N THE VINES SEPTEMBER LINEUP Bush, Louisiana

Wild Bush Farm + Vineyard's long-running outdoor concert series, Jazz'n the Vines, brings celebrated Louisiana musicians to a

2 0 S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

gorgeous pastoral setting against a spring backdrop of summer breezes and golden hour evenings. September 12: HollyRock September 19: River Eckert 6:30 pm–9 pm at 81250 Highway 1082. Bring a picnic blanket and lawn chairs. The vineyard supplies the wines; food will be available for sale from local vendors. $12 in advance; $15 at the gate. wildbushfarmandvineyard.com. 1

SEP 12th - SEP 19th

LIVE MUSIC LEVITT AMP MUSIC SERIES Moss Point, Mississippi

Roundups gather together artists and creatives for a casual night of making connections while also making art, with the goal of encouraging dialogue and collaboration across artistic disciplines. In this session, led by dancer Cissy Whip, participants will build community and spark joy through creative movement. Through dance, she will guide guests to respond to the visual artwork in the Artists' Alliance show and reflect on the artwork and the various movement explorations. This is a low-stress workshop that does not require prior knowledge of dance and can be adapted for any age or ability. Dress comfortably! 6 pm. Free.

acadianacenterforthearts.org. 1 Enjoy free community concerts at Riverfront Park in downtown Moss Point, Mississippi, on Saturdays this fall. September 12: Nik Parr and the Selfless Lovers, 5 pm–9 pm.

SEP 16th

ENCORE THE BODEANS AT THE MANSHIP

September 19: Daniel Stallworth, 1 pm– Baton Rouge, Louisiana 5 pm. It's been forty years since the release of Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams, the debut album levittampmosspoint.info. 1 by alternative rock band the BoDeans, a '90s touchstone for their theme song to SEP th "Party of Five." To celebrate the milestone, DANCE the BoDeans are touring with a set list ARTIST ROUND UP: CREATIVE containing songs from all fourteen of their MOVEMENT FOR CREATIVE albums, along with a video retrospective, PEOPLE WITH CISSY WHIPP Lafayette, Louisiana with a date slated for the Manship Theatre.

The Acadiana Center for the Arts' Artist 7:30 pm. $51. manshiptheatre.org. 1

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

September 2026

YOGA & Fitness Cottonport Unity Park September 5, 12, 19, 26, 2026 @ 9:00am Unity Park Cottonport Louisiana Craig Morgan Paragon Casino Resort September 05. 2026 @ 8:00pm www.paragoncasinoresort.com Plein Air-Avoyelles Avoyelles Art Gallery • September 12, 2026 318.240.1826 St. Martin of Tours Church Fair Belledeau, LA • September 12 & 13, 2026 318.240.0007

On September 6, come to LSU Museum of Art's Free First Sunday program and try your hand at creating a collage portrait inspired by the works in LSU MOA's Folk Art Gallery (see page 16).

SEP 16th

DANCE GUEST ARTISTS FROM THE NEW ORLEANS INTERNATIONAL DANCE FESTIVAL Lafayette, Louisiana

The Acadiana Center for the Arts presents a dynamic evening featuring artists from the 2026 International Dance Festival New Orleans. Choreographers and performers bring their original works to the Spotlight Series, creating a rich intermingling of local spirit and global contemporary dance. Aina Alegre's "At Dawn" brings together Gulf South dancers and an all-female New Orleans brass band in a vibrant exploration of ritual, celebration, and collective movement. Diana Salles' "Delusional" fuses circus arts and contemporary dances, showcasing extraordinary physicality and theatrical imagination. And internationally recognized body percussionist Ryan Johnson transfers the human body into a complete musical instrument. 7:30 pm. $35. acadianacenterforthearts.org. 1

SEP 17th

BIOPICS WALTER ANDERSON FILM AND EXHIBITION OPENING Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Enjoy a screening of Walter Anderson: The

Extraordinary Life and Art of the Islander, followed by a panel discussion featuring the filmmaker Anthony Thaxton, the artist’s son, John Anderson, and Mattie Codling, the Director of the Walter Anderson Museum in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. The screening and panel take place in the Manship Theatre, with a reception and book signing following in the LSU Museum of Art to celebrate the opening of the museum's exhibition, The South's Most Elusive Artist: Walter Inglis Anderson, on view September 17, 2026–January 3, 2027. 6 pm. Free. lsumoa.org. 1

SEP 17th

MUSIC ELLIS ISLAND: THE DREAM OF AMERICA

Mangé de Moncla St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Moncla September 12, 2026 @ 5:00pm-7:00pm (Kim) 318-305-8267 or (Scoobie) 318-305-0337 Boots & Blues III Paragon Casino Resort • September 19, 2026 @7:30pm www.paragoncasinoresort.com ww St. Perter & St. Michael Church Fair Bordelonville, LA • September 19 & 20, 2026 318.500.0417 Our Lady of Lourdes Parish Hall Fifth Ward September 19 & 20, 2026 • 318.240.0641 St. Francis De Sales Church Fair Echo, LA • September 26 & 27, 2026 318.709.0443 Alligator Feeding Show Paragon Hotel Atrium • September 26, 2026 @ 4:00pm www.paragoncasinoresort.com

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

The Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra offers an all-American night of music at the River Center Theatre, presenting Leonard Bernstein's "Candide Overture," beloved heartbreaker "Adagio for Strings" by Samuel Barber, "Piano Concerto in One Movement" by Black composer Florence Price, and Peter Boyer's "Ellis Island: The Dream of America." 7:30 pm. $25–$80 ($20 for students). Tickets and more details at brso.org. 1

8592 Hwy 1, Mansura, LA 800.833.4195 travelavoyelles.com // S E P 2 6

Events

Beginning September 17th - 18th SEP 17

CURTAIN CALL LOUISIANA PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA PRESENTS BRAHMS AND RACHMANINOFF New Orleans, Louisiana

The Louisiana Philharmonic opens its 2026 season with this packed program at Orpheum Theatre. First up is Anna Clyne’s boisterous "Masquerade," followed by Rachmaninoff’s "Piano Concerto No. 2," to be performed by a medalist from the New Orleans International Piano Competition, and Brahms’s majestic Symphony No. 4. 7:30 pm. Ticketing details at lpomusic.com. 1

SEP 17th

ON STAGE STAGED READING OF "LAUREL CANYON 1979" New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans theatre company Irene Collective presents a staged reading (with an all-local cast) of Laurel Canyon 1979 by Grace Caroline Curley at the New Marigny Theatre. Well past the neighborhood's heyday, a group of Laurel Canyon residents, living with

mother-hippie Marigold, cling to a time gone by. When a new neighbor moves in, Marigold and her friends must come to terms with the world changing around them. 7:30 pm. Free, with donations accepted. irenecollective.net. 1

SEP 17th - SEP 20th

MUSIC FESTIVALS A TASTE OF THE DEEP SOUTH Baton Rouge, Louisiana

The 9th annual Taste of the Deep South emphasizes world music among other numerous genres. A pre-party Thursday, September 17, takes place at Henry Turner Jr.’s Listening Room with music from Henry Turner Jr. & Flavor, the Listening Room All-Stars, and special guest artists from around the country who will perform at the festival. 7 pm– midnight; tickets are $25 in advance, $30 at the door, and include buffet and no-host bar. The main festival lights up Saturday and Sunday at the Main Library at Goodwood, with music, craft fair, food, and for the competitive, a Henry Turner Jr. look-a-like contest and

2 2 S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

watermelon eating contest. Noon–8 pm both days. Free, with VIP tiers available from $25. htj day.com. 1

SEP 17th - SEP 20th

SING-SONG MISSISSIPPI SONGWRITERS FESTIVAL Natchez, Mississippi

Celebrate the Gulf Coast's thriving musical and creative spirit at the Capital River Region's inaugural edition of the Mississippi Songwriters Festival in various locations across Natchez. Over four days, songwriting talent from Nashville and Mississippi are sure to captivate. Details at msafestival.org. 1

SEP 17 - SEP 26 th

HISTORIC TOURS NATCHEZ FALL PILGRIMAGE Natchez, Mississippi

"The most extensive tours of the most extravagant antebellum homes in America." That's the way the Pilgrimage Garden Club describes the Natchez Pilgrimage—the spring and fall tour of homes that has kept visitors coming back to Natchez since 1932. Natchez was once home to more millionaires per capita than any other city in America, and the city has managed to preserve the extraordinary architectural legacy of that

wealth while somberly reflecting on the human lives sold and lost in the process of building it. Today, Natchez's streets remain lined with the palatial mansions and filigreed townhouses, and each year the families that occupy them allow guests to nose through two hundred-yearold homes, meet descendants, hear tales, sip a mint julep, stay in one of more than fifty historic B&Bs, and generally get a residents' eye view of life in this most historic of Southern cities. Find details at natchezpilgrimage.com . 1

SEP 17th - SEP 26th

SPOOKS ECHOES OF LONGWOOD: GHOSTS IN THE OCTAGON Natchez, Mississippi

Experience an immersive nighttime experience while rambling through one of America’s most hauntingly beautiful homes. Located in historic Natchez, Mississippi, Longwood—also known as “Nutt’s Folly”—is a towering octagonal mansion left eerily unfinished since 1861. (Guess what happened.) By lantern light, guests are guided through the mansion’s richly furnished basement and into tales of sorrow, loss, and lingering spirits. Hear the tragic story of Haller Nutt, the heartbroken owner whose dream was shattered by the Civil War—and whose presence is still felt on the upper floors he

never saw completed. Listen closely for the faint laughter of the Nutt children, rumored to play with their toys long after dark. And pause at the grand staircase, where sightings of Julia Nutt have sent chills down many a spine. This sixty-minute tour blends verified historical accounts with bone-chilling ghost stories passed down through generations. Wear comfortable shoes and bring your courage. Suitable for children eight and up. 7 pm Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays September 17– October 31. $25. natchezpilgrimage.com. 1

SEP 17th - JAN 3rd

ARTISTIC ICONS THE SOUTH'S MOST ELUSIVE ARTIST: WALTER INGLIS ANDERSON Baton Rouge, Louisiana

The LSU Museum of Art hosts The South’s Most Elusive Artist: Walter Inglis Anderson, an exhibition of over forty works organized by the Walter Anderson Museum of Art (WAMA) in Ocean Springs. This show draws from WAMA’s permanent collection and that of the estate of Walter Anderson to present rarely seen watercolors, block prints, ceramics, and sketches alongside some of Anderson’s most recognizable and iconic works. lsumoa.org. 1

SEP 18th

FUN-DRAISERS THE CURTAIN CALL BALL

SEP 18th

LIVE MUSIC HISTORICAL HAPPY HOUR

good ol', perfectly seasoned, beef and pork meat pies that Natchitoches is famous for, taking center-stage at this action-and-food-

New Orleans, Louisiana

Port Allen, Louisiana

packed free festival held at the Riverbank

Celebrate in style at the Curtain Call Ball at Le Petit Theatre, where the evening will be filled with tasty food, freely-flowing drinks, a live and silent auction, and entertainment by a cast of local favorites and Young Conservatory artists. The night will begin with cocktails and cuisine at Tableau Restaurant before moving to the historic playhouse for live performances of favorite Broadway tunes. $250; $150 for a "young players" ticket for those below age forty.

September's edition of the West Baton Rouge Museum's Historical Happy Hour features solo singer-songwriter BreAura and singer-songwriter Teena May. 6 pm–8 pm.

in Downtown Natchitoches. The weekend

Free. westbatonrougemuseum.org. 1

eat. meatpiefestival.com. 1

SEP 18th

SEP 18th - SEP 19th

Crowley, Louisiana

QUILT SHOW Shreveport, Louisiana

FREAKSHOW & TELL CIRQUE US: "STORIES"

second annual MAP: Music, Art, Poetry

Crowley's Grand Opera House hosts the circus collective Cirque Us for two presentations of their award-winning show "Cirque Us Stories." The show uses circus performances like juggling, clowning, acrobatics, contortionism and more to tell the troupe's favorite stories about community and identity, all interwoven with fresh retellings. 10 am student performance, 7 pm public show.

event celebrates Black creativity. An

thegrandoperahouse.org. 1

6:30 pm. lepetittheatre.com. 1

SEP 18th

CULTURAL CELEBRATIONS MAP 2026: THE ART OF BLACKNESS Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Hosted by Creatives for the Culture, the

immersive cultural experience at Pura Vida Coffee Bar, the evening includes visual art and installations, live poetry and dance, song and spoken word presentations, fashion and style exhibitions, DJ sets,

SEP 18th - SEP 19th

GOOD EATS NATCHITOCHES MEAT PIE FESTIVAL

will feature children's activities, art vendors, a Brew Fest, and of course all of the flakey, richly savory meat pies you could possibly

ARTS & CRAFTS RED RIVER QUILTERS

The Red River Quilters Quilt Show, this year with the theme "Stars, Stripes & Stitches," is a must-attend event for passionate quilters and crafting aficionados. Held at the Louisiana State Fair Grounds Ag Building, the event includes plenty of quilts, a silent auction, a special exhibit titled Our Quilting Heritage, a new a quilt collection for the veterans' home, and more. 9 am–6 pm Friday; 9 am–4 pm Saturday. $10; $5 ages five to ten; Free for children under five. redriverquilters.com. 1

SEP 18th - SEP 27th

bites and sweet treats, and interactive

Natchitoches, Louisiana

PINK LADIES GREASE: THE MUSICAL

cultural installations. 7 pm–10 pm. $45.

Not to worry, these aren't the London meat

Lake Charles, Louisiana

creativesfortheculture.net. 1

pies of the Sweeney Todd fame. Just the

Slick back your hair and get ready to

// S E P 2 6

Events

Beginning September 18th - 20th rock with the Lake Charles Little Theatre's production of 1950s-set crowd-pleaser Grease. Fridays and Saturdays 7 pm, Sundays 2 pm. $40 adults, $35 seniors, $30 students. ci.ovationtix.com. 1

SEP 19th

SHOP LOCAL “CANVAS & CHORDS” ART STROLL Covington, Louisiana

In this free event to support the Northshore Arts Community, head to TerraBella Village in Covington for an evening of art, live music, food trucks, beer, wine, cocktails, and open houses (and be sure to wear your brightest, boldest colors to boot). A portion of the night's proceeds will support the St. Tammany Art Association. 4:30 pm–8:30

features original members of the Texas Outlaw Comics group Andy Huggins and Jimmy Pineapple, along with comrades T-Sean Shannon, Juan Villareal, and Slade Ham. Billed as "the baddest, fastest, jokeslinging comics in Texas," the posse storms into Cité des Arts for a special performance. 7 pm. $25. citedesarts.org. 1

SEP 19th

TURN IT UP HIGHLAND JAZZ & BLUES FESTIVAL Shreveport, Louisiana

The Highland Jazz & Blues Festival returns to Columbia Park with a day full of nonstop, unforgettable jazz and blues performances. There will also be food and artwork at this "party in the park." Free.

pm. Free. terrabellavillage.com. 1

highlandjazzandblues.org. 1

SEP 19th

CAHOOTS OUTLAW COMICS Lafayette, Louisiana

A dream team in the mold of The Magnificent Seven or Ocean's Eleven, the refreshed lineup of the Outlaw Comics

CHEERS GULF BREW Lafayette, Louisiana

Gulf Brew is back with over two hundred Louisiana breweries and brewpubs to showcase their newest craft beers, along

2 4 S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

Two live music stages bring some of Louisiana's best-loved zydeco, Cajun, and country bands back to Morgan City for the annual Shrimp and Petroleum Festival, September 3–7 (see page 14).

with live music stages, craft booths, and more coming together for the outdoor festival along Jefferson Street in downtown Lafayette. Formerly organized by the Acadiana Center for the Arts, Gulf Brew is now a project of Downtown Lafayette, while still dedicating funds to support ACA programs. 3 pm–7 pm. General admission $45; VIP $100; designated driver $25. acadianacenterforthearts.org. 1

SEP 19th

DO-SI-DO CONTRA DANCING

dancing at St. Alban's Chapel is sure to get you moving. A traditional American social dance, similar to square dancing but done in two long lines, contra dancing requires no experience, with both singles and couples welcome. Newcomer orientation 2:45 pm–3 pm; dance 3 pm– 5:30 pm. $7, free for first time attendees. louisianacontrasandsquares.com. 1

SEP 19th

THE FUNNIES BUNNY DAY

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

New Orleans, Louisiana

Put on your dancing shoes: Contra

From the 1980s on, cartoonist and writer

Bunny Matthews captured the weird and wacky minutiae of New Orleans life through his signature characters, Vic and Nat’ly. Join the Historic New Orleans Collection to celebrate the grand opening of their newest exhibit, Bunny Matthews: His Life, Art, and Obsessions. The event starts at 11:30 am with an author talk and book signing with authors Alison Fensterstock and Michael Tisserand, followed by a captivating lecture on the iconic “Yat” accent, and closes with a Vic and Nat’ly costume contest hosted by Peggy Scott Laborde with guest judges including Bunny's son, Jude Matthews. The day’s sessions will take place at the Williams Research Center at 410 Chartres Street, with the Vic and Nat’ly costume party following at HNOC’s museum at 520 Royal Street. 11:30 am–4 pm. Free. hnoc.org. 1

SEP 19th - SEP 20th

HISTORICAL REENACTMENTS SIEGE OF FORT NEW RICHMOND Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Step back in time at a living history event commemorating Bernardo de Galvez’s capture of British-held Baton Rouge in 1779. Explore 18th-century encampments and civilian life with interactive demonstrations, performances, and reenactments. Throughout the weekend, visitors can enjoy military drill demonstrations and battle reenactments, Revolutionary-era music and dance, open-hearth cooking, colonial games and pastimes, living history demonstrations, and more. Whether you’re a history enthusiast or simply looking for a unique weekend, the Siege of Fort New Richmond offers an unforgettable opportunity to witness the people, traditions, and events that helped shape Louisiana’s role in the American Revolution. 9 am–4:30 pm Saturday, 9 am–3 pm Sunday. Free for Rural Life Museum members; museum general admission prices for others. Learn more at lsu.edu/rurallife. 1

SEP 19th - FEB 20th

PHOTOGRAPHY A CENTURY IN FOCUS: IMAGES FROM WOMEN PHOTOGRAPHERS OF THE 20TH CENTURY Lafayette, Louisiana

Photography changed how the twentieth century saw itself. So did the women who mastered it. Working through decades of upheaval, war, depression, migration, and rapid industrial change, the ten artists in this exhibition at the Hilliard Art Museum pushed photography past pure documentation and made it an art form. Each found a different way in. Dorothea Lange and Sabine Weiss turned photojournalism toward the hardships of ordinary life. Anne W. Brigman and

Ruth Bernhard leaned into experiment and abstraction. Together they produced some of the most enduring images of the modern era. The practices of these artists challenged narratives long controlled by men and opened the medium to the women who came after. It shaped how we picture identity, family, memory, and struggle, and it still speaks to those questions now. Drawn entirely from the Hilliard's permanent collection, these photographs trace a century in focus. On display through February 20, 2027. hilliardartmuseum.org. 1

SEP 20th

CURTAIN CALL LIFE, LIBERTY, AND LAUGHS! WITH OPÉRA LOUISIANE Baton Rouge, Louisiana

With Life, Liberty, and Laughs! , Opéra Louisiane celebrates the American spirit through an evening of song, dance, and delightful satire. This spirited program offers a tongue-in-cheek look at Americans from our own perspective, while also exploring how our European and British counterparts have viewed us through the lens of operetta. The result is a joyful, witty, and distinctly operatic tribute to the people, personalities, and peculiarities that make America unique. 3 pm on the Manship stage. $50. operalouisiane.com. 1

SEP 20th

ANIM-ALES THE WILD POUR Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Brew at the Zoo has undergone a metamorphosis into The Wild Pour: same goal of bolstering education and animal welfare efforts, but even more options of food and drink to enjoy, with offerings expanding into wine and cocktails. Drink, dance, and raise a glass to the animals, in support of conservation and education at Baton Rouge's beloved zoo. Admittance is for those 21 and older. $55; $110-$150 for VIP packages; $30 and a grateful thanks for designated drivers. 2:30 pm–5:30 pm, with early entry for VIPs. thewildpourbr.org. 1

SEP 20th

OPEN MIC SEPTEMBER STORY SLAM Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi

Story Slam returns to The Arts Hancock County for an evening of anecdotes, laughs, and connection. September's event features the theme "Happy Birthday... Or Not," so come ready to celebrate celebrations that went sideways. Participants are limited to five minutes, telling their own story, on theme. Attendees can bring a beverage or snack to settle in and listen. 5:30 pm–7 pm. Free. hancockarts.org . 1 // S E P 2 6

Events

Beginning September 20th - 25th SEP 20

CULTURAL CELEBRATIONS LAGO FEST Mandeville, Louisiana

Head to the Mandeville Trailhead Amphitheater for Hola Northshore's Lago Fest, presented in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month to honor Louisiana's Latinx community and their many cultural contributions to the region. Put on your dancing shoes for salsa lessons and listen to live music from Hispanic bands while enjoying authentic drinks and food from area Hispanic restaurants. There's plenty for the kids too, including face painting and piñatas. Begins at 11 am. Free. For more information, see the Hola Northshore la Facebook Page and holanorthshore.com. 1

SEP 22

BUG OUT DISCOVER NATURE SERIES PRESENTS TERI GEGENHEIMER: OVERWINTERING HABITATS FOR BENEFICIAL INSECTS Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Hilltop Arboretum's Discover Nature Series welcomes Teri Gegenheimer for a

presentation on the fascinating world of overwintering insects and how gardeners can create landscapes that support these essential members of our ecosystems throughout the year. Insects are the unsung heroes of healthy, thriving landscapes, serving as pollinators, decomposers, and a critical food source for birds and other wildlife. As temperatures cool, many species seek refuge beneath leaf litter, inside hollow stems, under loose bark, and in other natural spaces that help them survive until spring. During this program, participants will learn about the diverse habitats insects depend on during the winter months and discover practical, attractive ways to incorporate these features into home landscapes. 6:30–8 pm. $15 public, $10 students and members of the arboretum or Louisiana Master Naturalists of Greater Baton Rouge, free for Magnolia Members and above. lsu.edu/hilltop. 1

SEP 24th

FRESH EATS BREADA'S FARM FÊTE Baton Rouge, Louisiana

From the folks who bring you the Red Stick Farmers Market and Main Street

2 6 S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

Market—Farm Fête brings together all the things we love about local produce and producers. At the Main Street Market, attendees can enjoy unique farmers market-inspired bites whipped up by local chefs from Bergeron's City Market, Chef Celeste Gill, Chow Yum, City Club of Baton Rouge, Cocha, Cozy Griddle, Eliza Restaurant & Bar, Eloise Market & Cakery, Houmas House, Josephine's Italian Bistro, Louisiana Crave-A-Ball, Mestizo Louisiana Mexican Cuisine, and Vivian's Rotisserie & Grill; craft cocktails, beer, wine, and coffee; a raffle; live music and dancing and a display of items to be auctioned. Come hungry and ready to be inspired by our city's local fare. 6 pm–9 pm. $125; $20 for a raffle ticket. breada.org. 1

SEP 24th

MUSICAL HOMAGE JOHN COLTRANE DAY New Orleans, Louisiana

Critically acclaimed and community celebrated, musical icon John Coltrane influenced the saxophone family throughout his life, connecting with his listeners through rich, smooth, and spiritual jazz. The Congo Square Jazz Orchestra will pay homage to the master with a concert in the New Orleans Jazz Museum's third-floor Performance Center. 2 pm. Free. nolajazzmuseum.org. 1

SEP 24th - SEP 25th

YEEHAW BUCKIN’ ON THE BIGBEE RODEO Burnsville, Mississippi

Burnsville, Mississippi, is gearing up for the Buckin’ On the Bigbee Rodeo, bookending the 33rd Annual Burnsville Waterway Festival. At the rodeo Friday and Saturday nights, bull riding, barrel racing, and calf roping events will showcase the incredible talents of cowboys and cowgirls from near and far, and rodeo clowns will add welcome safety and laughs. Saturday during the day, the Waterway Festival offers crafts, entertainment, a car show, food, bingo and more. Details at Burnsville Waterway Festival on Facebook. 1

SEP 24th - SEP 27th SNAPPY SHINDIGS ALLIGATOR FESTIVAL Luling, Louisiana

See ya' later alligator—at St. Charles Parish's annual Alligator Festival—where, no, there are no crocodiles to be found. Held at West Bank Bridge Park, the festival takes place over four days filled with carnival rides, craft vendors, live music, and plenty of gator fare—fried, grilled, frittered, in a sausage and in a sauce piquante too. Thursday is "Locals' Night" with free admission from 6 pm–9 pm; Friday the festival is open from 6 pm–11 pm; Saturday

11 am–11 pm; Sunday 11 am–9 pm. $5.

great William Faulkner, who wrote his

alligatorfestival.org. 1

first novel while living on Pirate's Alley

SEP 24th - SEP 27th

SUGAR RUSH LOUISIANA SUGARCANE FESTIVAL New Iberia, Louisiana

winner Sarah Broom and the actual-factual Countess of Derby are just two of the many exciting guests. For schedule, authors, and free and ticketed event information, email: faulkhouse@aol.com. For specifics visit

This eighty three-year-old New Iberia festival launches the annual grinding season with a sweet, sweet celebration of local farmers. The festival honors the industry with a blessing of the crop, a 5K race, the naming of a King and Queen, food, Cajun music, and the procession of several parades down Main Street. Plus, the SugArena at the Acadiana Fairgrounds will host a 4-H livestock show, and Farm Fest will take place at Shadows on the Teche on Thursday. Free. Find schedule and more information at hisugar.org. 1

faulknersociety.org. 1

SEP 24th - OCT 4th

COMEDY "POTUS: OR, BEHIND EVERY GREAT DUMBASS ARE SEVEN GREAT WOMEN TRYING TO KEEP HIM ALIVE" Baton Rouge, Louisiana

LSU's Theatre & Film Department opens their 2026 season with POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Great Women Trying To Keep Him Alive ,

SEP 24 - SEP 28 th

in New Orleans. National Book Award

INKLINGS PIRATE'S ALLEY FAULKNER FESTIVAL

a political comedy following the women working behind the scenes to contain a political crisis. Tickets and details available at lsu.edu/cmda/theatre. 1

SEP 25 - SEP 26 th

Faulkner Society fall festival, "Faulkner for

SPOOKS FRIGHT TRAIL

All!" is here. The Pirate’s Alley Faulkner

Lafayette, Louisiana

Society, Inc. was founded in the 1990s to

The woods outside of Lafayette are full of things that go bump (and growl, and

celebrate writers, taking its name from the

extra for treats. frighttrail.com . 1

SEP 25 - SEP 26 th

TURN IT UP BOGALUSA BLUES FESTIVAL

New Orleans, Louisiana

Dust off your copies of As I Lay Dying and The Sound and the Fury: The annual

rawr) in the night. Are you brave enough to wander through them? Find out on the Fright Trail, founded by Literacy Inc., the nonprofit dedicated to fighting the growing illiteracy rate among America's teens. Through twenty miles of deep, dark, haunted woods, wanderers might run into any sort of bump in the night— the creators pull out all the stops for this outdoor open house: props, animatronics, displays, sets, and scare actors galore. How long does it take? (Generally, thirtyfive minutes.) How fast can you run? Due to the outdoor nature of the event, no open-toed shoes, high heels, or flip-flops; old shoes or boots are recommended. Not recommended for children under eight years of age, children under ten years of age must be accompanied by an adult. Friday and Saturday nights from 7 pm–11 pm. $30; $40 for Saturday Frights Without Lights. Cash only; bring a little

Bogalusa, Louisiana

"What New Orleans is to jazz, Bogalusa is to the blues," boasts the Wahsington Parish city, and they're inviting the world to come see for itself. Concerts, food, a 5K run, children's activities, and opportunities to camp (and thus not

miss a minute of fun) fill the weekend calendar. Details, maps, lineups, and more at bogalusablues.com. 1

SEP 25th - SEP 27th

CULTURAL CELEBRATIONS HUNGARIAN FESTIVAL Springfield, Louisiana

It's Budapest in the Florida Parishes at the inaugural Hungarian Festival. Celebrate Hungarian heritage with a weekend full of family fun, delicious food, music, and entertainment at Fayard Field in Springfield, with traditional Hungarian dancing and entertainment all day, live music from local entertainers, vendors, and most exciting of all, authentic Hungarian foods and pastries. Details at Árpádhon Hungarian Settlement Cultural Association on Facebook or albanymagyars@gmail.com. 1

SEP 25th - SEP 27th THEATRE "A DOLL'S HOUSE" AT CITÉ DES ARTS Lafayette, Louisiana

Ibsen's A Doll's House was a controversial success at its premiere in 1879; today, Cité des Arts presents a contemporary adaptation by Amy Herzog, refreshing the story of a woman trapped within her role in society to resonate even more strongly with modern audiences.

// S E P 2 6

Events

SEP 26th

Beginning September 25 - 26 New York productions of this version were nominated for Tony awards and nabbed three Drama Desk awards, including Best Adaptation. Opening night, September 25, offers a gala at 6:30 pm before a 7:30 curtain for $35. Remaining shows are at 7:30 pm Fridays and Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays, and $25. citedesarts.org. 1

SEP 25th - SEP 27th GHOST STORIES "BLITHE SPIRIT" AT SULLIVAN THEATER Central, Louisiana

The Sullivan Theatre presents a classic (and ghostly) farce by Noel Coward. Blithe Spirit tells the story of Charles Condomine, a novelist searching for his next inspiration in the world of the supernatural. When he hires a spiritual medium to host a séance, she accidentally summons the spirit of Charles’s deceased first wife, Elvira. Elvira does not like Charles’s new wife, Ruth, and makes it immediately known through a series of haunting shenanigans. 7:30 pm Thursdays–Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Tickets from $28. sullivantheater.com. 1

SEP 25th - NOV 28th

TWEETS HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT!: NATIONAL BIRD PHOTOGRAPHY Lake Charles, Louisiana

This juried photographic exhibition includes fifty images from wildlife photographers across the U.S. and birds from around the world, celebrating the joys of birdwatching. Opening reception September 25, 5:30 pm–7:30 pm. Free. gallerybythelakeswla@gmail.com. 1

SEP 26th

MOVEMENTS WALK TO END ALZHEIMER'S Covington, Louisiana

The Northshore Alzheimer's Association invites all residents of the region affected by the illness to take part in their efforts to combat Alzheimer's by fundraising, walking, or helping care for and support patients and their families. Register a team to participate in the fundraising walk at Lakeview Regional Medical Center at alz.org/ louisianawalk. 1

2 8 S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

BOOKMARK THIS MISSISSIPPI BOOK FESTIVAL Jackson, Mississippi

Authors and literature lovers from across the South and beyond will flock to downtown Jackson for the latest iteration of the Mississippi Book Festival. From book signings, to author talks, to family activities, to panel discussions, the free festival packs a huge variety of bookish education and fun into airconditioned venues and on the lawn surrounding the Mississippi State Capitol. Attending authors this year include George Saunders, Deesha Philyaw, Kate McKinnon, Belle Burden, Mychal Threets, and many more. 9 am– 5 pm. Free. Find more information at msbookfestival.com. 1

SEP 26th

WORDSMITHS PICAYUNE WRITERS GROUP'S ANNUAL WRITERS SYMPOSIUM Picayune, Mississippi

Calling all writers looking to sharpen their skill sets and share work at the Crosby Memorial Library. The Picayune Writers Group's annual Writers Symposium offers participants chances to learn new writing pointers while networking with fellow scribes. The

symposium is open to all with dreams of publishing and those writing for personal fulfillment alike. Talks will address finding space to write in everyday life, where to share your writing, working with your rough draft, and marketing for introverts. Free; pre-registration not required but appreciated. Continental breakfast and lunch is included. 8:30 am–4 pm. 203 Goodyear Boulevard. picayunewritersgroup@gmail.com. 1

SEP 26th

GREEN THUMBS PILGRIMAGE GARDEN CLUB SYMPOSIUM Natchez, Mississippi

Join the Pilgrimage Garden Club at Stanton Hall for an afternoon of of engaging presentations exploring the people, places, and events that shaped Natchez before the Civil War. The symposium will examine the lives of the enslaved families who lived and worked at Longwood, highlighting how dependency buildings provide invaluable insight into their daily experiences. Additional presentations will explore the impact of the Mississippi River through LaSalle’s exploration, the transformation of the cotton industry following Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin, and the importance of preserving these stories and historic resources for future generations.

The Hit Me With Your Best Shot juried photographic exhibition celebrates the joy of birdwatching with fifty astonishing images by wildlife photographers from across the country and the world. Opens September 25 at Lake Charles's Gallery by the Lake.

Light refreshments included. 2 pm–5 pm. $25. natchezpilgrimage.com. 1

SEP 26th

KID STUFFS "BUILDING BLOCKS" AT THE CAPITOL PARK MUSEUM Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Building Blocks will transform the Capitol Park Museum into a large, interactive city grid. Children will be invited to step into the role of city builders: receiving an official building permit, being assigned a specific block and zoning type, and using craft materials to design and construct buildings that contribute to a shared city. Through guided play, kids will explore how cities are planned, how different uses fit together, and how collaboration turns individual ideas into something greater. Building Blocks is designed to be immersive, educational, and joyful, giving young participants a meaningful opportunity to imagine, plan, and build the cities of tomorrow. 9 am–noon. Free. louisianastatemuseum.org. 1

SEP 28th

MEMOIRS RETURNING: A SEARCH FOR HOME ACROSS THREE CENTURIES New Orleans, Louisiana

Join the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience for an author talk and book signing with Nicholas Lemann. Lemann, a veteran New Yorker correspondent, grew up in New Orleans, the son of German Jews in a world of gilded privilege. Yet in contrast to his parents’ generation, which always sought to downplay their religious background, Lemann was intrigued by his roots. In Returning, Lemann delves deeply into the family story from their arrival in the 1830s as peddlers from Germany, to their becoming plantation owners and department store owners after the Civil War, to their emergence as aspirants in the aristocratic world of

New Orleans, where they could never quite belong. Keenly aware of these contradictions, Lemann ultimately rejects this cossetted, assimilated society, embraces religion, and chooses, along with his wife, to raise his children in a Jewish world. Registration details upcoming at msje.org. 1

SEP 28th

MUSICALS JERSEY BOYS AT THE RIVER CENTER THEATRE Baton Rouge, Louisiana

More than twenty million people around the world have seen the multiaward-winning Jersey Boys. The musical recounts the true story of how four blue-collar kids became one of the greatest successes in pop music history. They wrote their own songs, invented their own sounds and sold 175 million records worldwide–all before they were 30. Revisit Rock-and-Roll Hall of Famers The Four Seasons: Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito, and Nick Massi in this celebrated broadway production at the River Center Theatre. 7:30 pm. Tickets begin at $76. theatre.raisingcanesrivercenter.com. 1

SEP 29th

BIG STRETCH YOGA WORKSHOP AT THE WEST BATON ROUGE MUSEUM Port Allen, Louisiana

Join nearly thirty-year veteran instructor Elena Moreno-Keegan for a special yoga workshop at the West Baton Rouge Museum's Brick Gallery. Moreno-Keegan will lead students of every age, shape, size, fitness and skill level in a stretching and breathing session as part of Port Allen Cultural District's wellness initiative programming. Bring a yoga mat, wear comfy clothes, and don't eat one hour before class. Held the last Tuesday of every month at 6 pm. Free. westbatonrougemuseum.org. 1 // S E P 2 6

Events

Beginning September 30

.........................................................................................................................................

SEP 30th

FRANCOPHILES LA TABLE FRANÇAISE AT VIEUX VILLAGE Opelousas, Louisiana

Over in St. Landry Parish, folks are working hard to preserve French, their langue maternelle. Join the conversation at this monthly gathering for French speakers of all levels. On occasion, the gathering catches impromptu performances from local French musicians. 8:30 am–9:30 am at the Whiteville Schoolhouse in Le Vieux Village Heritage Park. Practice, learn, and share—tous sont bienvenus. Free. cajuntravel.com. 1

SEP 30th

REELS MANHATTAN SHORT FILM FESTIVAL 2026 Baton Rouge, Louisiana

C PE

I A L OFFE R

On September 19, downtown Lafayette goes "bottoms-up" when the annual Gulf Brew craft beer festival converts Jefferson Street into a walkable, outdoor beer tasting festival. More than two hundred Louisiana breweries and brew pubs take part, so designating a driver will be de rigeur (see page 25).

$50 OFF YO U R FI R S T SE R V IC E

Don’t let rodents live rent-free. This rodent season, trust J&J Exterminating to help protect the home you love. Call 225-263-4992 today to claim your offer. *New customers only. Must sign up for our pest control program. This offer is valid for 6 months.

3 0 S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

The Manship Theatre is one of 500 worldwide venues hosting simultaneous showings of the the ten finalists in the Manhattan Short Film Festival—a format that offers attendees the chance to view, then vote for, their favorite films and performers. And with past finalists having For more events visit gone on to receive Oscar countryroadsmag. nominations in the "short com/events-andfilm" category, the festival festivals. has become known as a breeding ground for the next big thing in film. You be the judge. 7 pm Thursday. $9.50 with optional $35 add-on for dinner from Capital City Grill. manshiptheatre.org. 1

LOOK FOR OUR OCTOBER EDITION

Myths & Legends

// S E P 2 6

Three Ways to Play Three upcoming, family-friendly seasonal events make autumn the perfect time to “fall” for historic New Roads, LA

t’s easy to understand why summer is a busy season in New Roads, Louisiana. With a lakeside location on the banks of False River, and public boat ramps, fishing piers and places to drink and dine overlooking the water, the historic town (pop. 5,000) is a picturesque summertime destination for boaters, fishers, and day-trippers looking to spend a day on the water. But in early fall, when temperatures cool and the kids are back in school, the SUVs pulling trailered pontoon boats along the area’s rural highways are joined by rumbling cane trucks hauling freshly harvested sugarcane to the mill yard. It’s a reminder that Pointe Coupée parish is a place where Acadiana’s thriving agricultural and tourism economies go hand-in-hand. During fall, the parish seat of historic New Roads plays host to distinctive events and festivals that showcase the best of both. Here are three opportunities to visit, play, and stay. Check out newroads.net to learn more.

Boo and Brew

Sunday, October 25

Goblins, ghouls, and gremlins fill New Roads’ historic lakeside district with frightful fun, creative costuming, and lots of seasonally appropriate drinks, eats, and games during the town’s annual Halloween spectacular. Up and down West Main Street, local businesses roll out the blood-red carpet, hosting trick-or-treating, face-painting, balloon-animal-making, yard games, and more. An inflatable Haunted House Maze is sure to be a hit with younger visitors, while the town’s petting zoo and mechanical bull ride are perennially popular attractions with all ages. Street vendors offer craft beers and specialty cocktails for grownups; there’re even Halloween-themed specialty drinks for kids. Dress to impress; you might win a prize in the costume competition. 3 pm–6 pm throughout historic downtown New Roads. $11 adults; $5.86 kids ages three to twelve; free for ages two and younger; food and drinks sold separately. Learn more at boobrewnr.com

3 2 S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

Harvest Festival on False River

October 30—November 1

Make your way back to Main Street for the annual Harvest Festival on False River, the traditional fall celebration of Pointe Coupée’s community and agricultural heritage. This fest transforms New Roads’ downtown waterfront with carnival rides, arts and crafts vendors, food vendors, contests, and two live music stages to celebrate the local harvest. This year's live music lineup welcomes Lil Nate and The Remnants (Friday), Parish County Line, Tucka, The Drunk Uncles, and Lil Runt (Saturday), and Arthur & Friends, Raccoon Band, and Kenny Neal (Sunday). $10/day or $20 for a three-day weekend pass. https://www.harvestfestnr.com/

Holiday Market at the Mill

November 20—22

Find one-of-a-kind holiday gifts at this annual holiday edition of the Market at the Mill in historic New Roads. Just in time for the holidays, New Roads’ semi-annual shopping spectacular returns. The Market at the Mill packs New Roads’ forty-thousand-square-foot Cottonseed Oil Mill building to its historic rafters with wares brought by more than 130 local and regional vendors, who come to offer country furniture, architectural pieces, pottery, glassware, ceramics, art, woodwork, metalwork, and, this being Pointe Coupee parish, lots of community-fueled good cheer, too. 10 am–5 pm Friday, 9 am–4 pm Saturday, 11 am–4 pm Sunday. $11 early admission (Friday and Saturday only), $5.86 Sunday. Get tickets in advance; as many as five thousand shoppers typically attend. marketatthemillnewroads.com.

Visit New Roads COME FOR THE CULTURE. STAY FOR THE SUNSETS.

We are a general store, hardware, feed, home accessories, and seasonal garden center! Featuring a wide selection of garden plants & items

Open 7 days a week 2442 Morganza Hwy, New Roads, LA 70760 225-240-7673

// S E P 2 6

3 4 S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

// S E P 2 6

Features

SEPTEMBER 2026

BARE YOUR EMOTIONS

3 6 I F I N D O U B T , I M P R O V I S E // 4 9 D A N C E S W I T H T I G E R S // 4 4 L E A N F O R W A R D A N D L I S T E N

•

MAKING IT UP AS WE GO

Inside Improv

BOOMERANG COMEDY THEATER IS TEACHING BATON ROUGE’S IMPROV-CURIOUS THE BEAUTY OF “YES, AND …” Story by Kristen Foster

A high school English teacher by day, writer Kristen Foster performs and teaches long-form improv by night at Baton Rouge's Boomerang Comedy Theater. Photo by Amanda Kitch, Media Desperado.

have performed an emergency appendectomy on a squirrel in zero gravity. I have been the bellhop of an ill-fated ice hotel. I have survived the balloon apocalypse, the sneauxpocalypse, and the apocalypse apocalypse (to name a few). But what I have never done, not one single time, is know I was going to do any of these things until the moment I was doing them, on stage, in front of a paying audience. Improv comedy came to me at a time in my life when, like most newly-minted adults, I was trying to figure out who I was and what I was meant to be. I had just moved to the North Carolina coast to pursue my undergraduate degree when I stumbled into a friendship with members of The Other Side, a local improv comedy troupe. They were unlike 36

any people I had ever met before. There was an uncanny harmony to their interactions—a quickfire back-and-forth banter I’d only later recognize as the “yes, and …” philosophy that is foundational to the art of improv. At the time, though, I only knew two things: I had never laughed so hard in my life, and I needed to learn how to do what they did. My years performing with The Other Side didn’t give me a cheat code to finding myself, but the experience did provide me with the invaluable opportunity to bolt headlong into uncertainty every Tuesday night with a stalwart group who, no matter what I said or did, would, without question, follow me there. In this environment of absolute trust, I learned to fail without fearing failure. I learned to listen to the person across from me instead of waiting for

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

my turn to talk. But, most importantly, I learned that comedy isn’t about trying to be funny at all; it’s about earnest commitment to often absurd circumstances—and isn’t that what life asks of us every day anyway? When I moved to Baton Rouge in 2005 for my masters program, I once again felt untethered; however, this time I had a template for reorienting myself. I sought out and soon joined The Family Dinner, Baton Rouge’s longest-running short-form improv comedy troupe. As a result, a city I’d lived in for all of three months started to feel like a place I belonged, rather than just a place I’d landed. That’s part of what improv does: it turns strangers into a support system faster than anything else. Through The Family Dinner, I connected with the well-established and

vibrant Silverbacks Improv Theatre in Lafayette, Louisiana, commuting from Baton Rouge to perform with multiple theatre-affiliated troupes, including the all-female troupe, Rag Tag, and the musical troupe, Tempo Tantrums. Leaning into more specialized forms has allowed me to find additional ways to express myself creatively while forming unique connections over common ground and adding new techniques to my improv repertoire. However, the hour-long drive to Lafayette, while always well worth the time and mileage, led me to seek longform improv performance opportunities closer to home. While there will always be a seat for me at The Family Dinner table, they are a short-form troupe built on quick games and ongoing audience suggestions. This highly entertaining, punch-

“I LEARNED THAT COMEDY ISN’T ABOUT TRYING TO BE FUNNY AT ALL; IT’S ABOUT EARNEST COMMITMENT TO OFTEN ABSURD CIRCUMSTANCES—AND ISN’T THAT WHAT LIFE ASKS OF US EVERY DAY ANYWAY?”

line-heavy style is what comes to mind when most people think of improv comedy, and it is the reason The Family Dinner has been going strong for almost twenty-five years. In long form, a single audience suggestion stretches into twenty to forty minutes of interconnected scenes. Characters recur, plot threads take their time paying off, and themes and situations from previous scenes resurface when you least expect them. The result is a more nuanced style of storytelling—one that rewards an audience for listening. They allow themselves to be transported to a completely new place in time and space, with characters who have never been seen before and will never be seen again. There’s no defined game to fall back on in long-form, or trick you can practice to save a scene that’s going nowhere. It’s just a group of people building an entire world in real time and trusting each other to bring it to life and keep it alive. Populating these worlds, even fleetingly, allows me to detach from the well-worn concerns of a reality I can’t control. When I’m on stage, I am no longer trapped in the daily doomscroll of cata-

Performing improv comedy taught writer Kristen Foster how to fail without fearing failure, and to listen to the person opposite her rather than waiting for her turn to talk. Photos by Amanda Kitch, Media Desperado.

strophic headlines looping in my mind; instead, I am an anthropomorphic bear being interviewed about his alleged involvement in the consumption of a canary. This freedom to be ridiculous is addictive, and I knew I needed to find a local fix. Luckily, I didn’t have to search far. Baton Rouge, as it turned out, already had a long-form comedy theatre that was just gaining momentum under new ownership when I found them. Travis Noote and Angi Christensen Noote, like me, sought out improv when first moving to Baton Rouge. “When we spend any time in a new town, we always take an improv class,” Travis recalled. So, they took

// S E P 2 6

one from what was then the Leather Apron Theatre Company (LATCo.). Then they took another, caught a couple of shows, and soon learned the theatre’s owners were about to shutter their doors permanently. So, Travis and Angi said, “yes, and …” to a new business venture. After creating a bespoke improv curriculum with veteran improviser and instructor, Dr. Nico Zaunbrecher, the duo produced their first shows under the new name Boomerang Comedy Theater (a portmanteau of Travis’s nickname, Boomer, and Angi), in February, 2022. Their first classes started that June, and I signed up for one of them, but not for long-form, and not even for short-form. I signed up for a stand-up class, the one form of comedy that still scared me. Long-form taught me how to collaborate with an ensemble, short-form sharpened my comic timing, but stand-up offered none of that. It was just the microphone, the silence, and me. However, from the moment I stepped through the door into the cozy dark of that black box theatre, my apprehensions evaporated. Boomerang immediately felt like a room full of people already rooting for me rather than waiting for me to prove myself. It was after this class that I knew I had found my local comedy home, and I have been there ever since, graduating from a student to an instructor of advanced long-form classes. Angi has a line she tells every incoming class that I’ve adopted with my own students: “I’m not trying to teach them to be funny,” she says, “I’m trying to teach them to be a good scene partner. To listen. To stay open to an idea instead of steering away from it, being present enough to actually notice the person in front of you.” She adds,“Those aren’t just scene skills. They're the same things that foster connection anywhere else in a person’s life, on stage or off.” Travis puts it another

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

way. He says he’s “lost count of how many people who have told him improv was the thing they didn’t know they needed.” The idea of meeting that intangible need is the framework on which the theatre has built its growing success. It provides a supportive-enough environment that anyone willing to listen, be genuine, and stay coachable can find something on the Boomerang stage that stretches them beyond their own preconceptions of themselves. Travis and Angi strive to dispel the assumption most people walk in with: that improv is an extrovert’s game. In Travis and Angi’s experience, it’s often the opposite. They maintain that introverts tend to be the best listeners in the room, which makes them, more often than not, the best improvisers. This year, The Boomerang Comedy Theater outgrew its original location on Hearthstone Drive, moving down the road to a new space at 1600 Government Street, across from The Electric Depot. Boomerang’s offerings have grown alongside the space: the theatre now offers murder mystery experiences and team building workshops to private clients and companies in Baton Rouge. “It’s a great time to be here,” Travis says of the new location, which is benefitting from updates taking place on either side of the building. After watching this place turn person after person into slightly braver versions of themselves, I believe him. Renovated storefronts might be revitalizing the block, but Boomerang has been revitalizing the people who walk through its door for years, and I am one of them. Though the cities and stages have changed over the years, the lessons I’ve learned as an improv comedian have carried me through unforeseen challenges in my professional life as a high school English teacher and my personal life as a parent of teenagers. The audience may not always be watching from the dark, but a

classroom of freshmen and two teenagers of my own have made it clear that “yes, and …” works just as well in real life as it does on stage. Some days that’s all any of us can do anyway: show up, say “yes” to whatever chaos walks in the door, and find a way to build something meaningful out of it anyway. If you’ve ever felt like you needed permission to be a little ridiculous, or just wanted an excuse to make new friends, then I’ll tell you what I tell every stranger who lingers after a show, looking like they want to ask something but aren’t sure what to say. Just sign up. You don’t need to be funny, and you don't even need to want to be funny. You just need to be willing to listen to another person and commit to building something neither of you planned. Sydney Gaskins, a former student who now performs with the house troupe, Something Else, puts it better than I ever could: “If it looks like fun, that’s because it is fun.” 1

The Family Dinner (Baton Rouge) Facebook: @familydinnerimprov The Silverbacks Improv Theatre (Lafayette) Facebook: @SilverbacksImprovTheatre Instagram: @silverbacksimprov Boomerang Comedy Theater (Baton Rouge) boomerangcomedy.com Kristen Foster is a long-form improv instructor and performer at Boomerang Comedy Theater in Baton Rouge. She is a high school English teacher by day and the parent of two teenagers, both of which are roles that provide ongoing improv training.

// S E P 2 6

IN PURSUIT OF PERFECTION

The Hard Counts

THE HIDDEN DEVOTION AND DISCIPLINE OF THE LSU TIGER GIRLS Story by Jeffrey Roedel

The LSU Tiger Girls dance team—a blur of motion and color at game time—trains for longer than any other sport on campus. All photos courtesy of Kandace Hale.

he beat drops long before anyone in Tiger Stadium hears it. There is a lot of counting in a rehearsal—sharp, focused, completely unglamorous. Arms snap into place with military precision. A mistake is called out. The team runs it back. No crowd. No cameras. Just a lot of sweat, and the kind of passion that pursues only perfection. One more time. What is seen on a Saturday night feels as explosive as the fireworks that soar when the team charges out through the tunnel. The Tiger Girls dance team is a blur of motion and color and sound at a game, but this glimpse is only where their story shines brightest, not where it begins. “They train for longer than any other sport on our campus,” said LSU Associate Athletic Director Ashleigh Clare-Kearney Thigpen. “And they have more mental toughness than anybody else.” It is not a claim Thigpen, a former Tiger gymnast, makes lightly. As an institution, Louisiana State University (LSU) is built on championship realities, not dreams. But if winning is the language in Baton Rouge, the Tiger Girls are becoming fluent. In 2022 and 2024, the team won a national title in Division 1A Hip Hop at the UDA/UCA College National Competition, and has multiple Top 3 finishes in Jazz, too. They are led by head coach Kandace 40

Hale, a Mandeville native and currently the longest serving active head coach on campus since being hired by LSU in 2015. After years teaching dance in Arizona, she moved back to Louisiana with one mission: engineer the Tiger Girls dance team into a machine. Tiger Girls videos from Nationals now go viral online. Their title-winning performance from 2022 has 2.6 million YouTube views, and they are pushing 200,000 followers on Instagram. It is a dynamic squad, and it almost feels omnipresent, even within an athletic department saturated with stars and teams operating with far bigger budgets. “We’ve been a lot more progressive in dance than most schools,” Thigpen said. “Our Tiger Girls have their own trainer and training space, which is almost unheard of in college.” Progressive is one word. Relentless is another. The team averages more than sixty game performances and appearances each academic year, Hale estimates. “They’re in the spotlight a lot,” the long-time coach and mother of two said. “They represent LSU really well, and they always bring incredible energy and joy.” That joy is not accidental, though. Like everything else about this team, it is envisioned, then exercised, then earned. Behind the smiles and brilliant body moves is a structure rarely glimpsed by the crowds cheering for them. At 6

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

am, the practice facility is wide awake with activity. Hale can always hear the girls coming down the hall—yapping, as they might say. Stretching and lifting is first, followed by a technical dance practice. Then a break for classes. Then, if it's nationals season, choreography, sometimes late into the night. Evenings can be free time, unless choreography demands extra hours. In November and December, football and men’s and women’s basketball all overlap, so “locked in” is both a mentality and a literal description of their schedules. Home games in Death Valley are a marathon. “That’s a whole day,” said Alessandra Brown, a senior and team captain for the Tiger Girls. “You wake up so early and you don’t get done until 10 or 11 pm.” But Brown adds something to complicate this picture of exhaustion: connection. “We try to leave our evenings free,” she said. “Because if we’re together, we want to be together.” That tension between extreme effort and belonging is where the Tiger Girls’ devotion begins to make sense. “It’s truly the people that make this place,” the Arizona native said of her teammates, many of them new to Louisiana, just like her. “We’re so close, like a sisterhood. Even on days off, we choose to hang out with each other. We just love each other that much. And it really translates on the floor.” As an equally demanding and

inspiring presence, Hale does not separate the physical from the philosophical. They are, in her view, the same discipline; just a different muscle group. “People kind of thought we were crazy at first—‘What do you mean you have to keep practicing?’” Hale recalls. “But if you do dance, you’re pretty much a year-round athlete. Not every sport can say that.” The constant dedication to their craft is the flexible backbone of Hale’s program. The team members return home for several weeks every summer, but stay connected through an app and perform strategic practice regimens and workouts while away. Conditioning, choreography, appearances, leadership training, academics, travel, recovery. The rhythm never completely stops; it only changes tempo throughout the year. “I really like the discipline part of dance training when it comes to sacrificing,” Hale said. “It sounds silly, but it’s one of my favorite parts about coaching.” This dedication evolves into an incredible amount of development. Freshmen blink and suddenly they are seniors, closer to stepping into the adult world, but now armed with years of experience bonding as a team, challenging themselves, and inspiring Tiger fans young and old. “It’s not just about being an amazing dancer,” Hale said. “It’s about who they are as people, and leaving the program better humans.”

Tiger Girls Head Coach Kandace Hale (above, in white hoodie) is currently the longest-serving head coach on the LSU campus. Twenty-five dancers deep, this year's squad is Coach Hale's largest roster yet.

This philosophy is carried by veteran members as they step up to manage team logistics, plan social media content and appearances, and mentor the eighteenyear-olds entering the program. And still, Hale does not soften her expectations. “The stuff you guys see, sometimes it is crazy how we got there,” Hale said. “Somebody will try something late in the day, and we’ll say, ‘Yeah, let’s do that instead’...We like to get things right.” There are no open auditions to make the Tiger Girls team. Hale directly recruits the best athletes in the country she can find—just like LSU Football Head Coach, Lane Kiffin. This is one sign of the program’s progress. The other is Londyn Daniel, the team’s first official paid assistant coach, a position Hale had to fight for, and an opportunity that changed Daniel’s life. A former Tiger Girl herself, Daniel now shapes and inspires the standards she once had to commit so much effort toward. “I didn’t realize it at the time,” Daniel said, “but everything we did together was building something bigger than just dance.” Thinking about Hale’s program, themes like growth, recognition, and support come to mind for Daniel. But what she remembers most about being a Tiger Girl is the sheer emotion of the experience. “Performing in front of that crowd is overwhelming in the best way,” Daniel said. “You feel the energy coming from every direction, and you realize you are part of something bigger than yourself.” This realization also helps tie the team together. Twenty-five dancers deep, this year’s squad is Hale’s largest roster. She’s effusive about the group’s potential, both for this upcoming season, and later in the next seasons of life, too. “It’s about character building,” said junior dancer Sisi Armstrong. “Coach uses that in so many ways. She cares about who we are, not just as dancers, but as humans.” While the life of a Tiger Girl extends beyond movement into communication, accountability, and even identity, when asked what the physical toll is like, Armstrong doesn’t hesitate. What hurts the most could be everything all at once. In 2022 and 2024, the Tiger Girls won a national title in Division 1A Hip Hop at the UDA/UCA College National Competition, and has multiple Top 3 finishes in Jazz, too. In 2025, they finished in second place in jazz and hip hop (pictured).

// S E P 2 6

Home football games at LSU's Tiger Stadium are a marathon for The Tiger Girls dance team.

“It really depends on the day,” the Texas native said. “For me, it’s always my legs. You just want to reboot them so you’re ready for the next day. But the trainers and coaches take great care of us.” These athletes are in a rhythm. And like a lot of her teammates, Armstrong has been in it since she was three years old. So has Brown, her captain. Their dance timelines reach back far beyond LSU, but they all talk about the future. “I’m excited for my senior year, and I want to make this last one the best one yet,” Brown said, her voice full of competitiveness, but clarity and appreciation, too. “I’m someone who loves a schedule. A purpose. A goal. Working toward something, and doing that with your best friends makes it even better.” Armstrong echoes Brown’s anticipation for bonding as “TG Unit.” “We are so proud of consistently putting out authentic routines and putting on a show. That will always be the most important thing to us.” On a Saturday night in Tiger Stadium, none of this grit is visible in the dazzling display of a Tiger Girls routine. But it is what gets each one of the dancers to that brilliant moment in the spotlight. And it’s what will carry them all through whatever the future holds—long after the last game is over. A dance performance is a few minutes of entertainment for the crowd, but it’s a lifetime path for these athletes. Audiences never see the early morning lifts, the corrections, the frustrations, or the choreography sessions that stretch bodies and brains to their limits. The creative processes behind the social media posts, and the public outreaches to schools, charities, and local businesses—even the pre-dawn prayer huddles—are all like secrets from those who’ve never witnessed them. There are classes scheduled around practice, and part-time jobs jammed into every free hour not spent studying or training. And at the quiet end of a long day, far from the bright lights and thousands of roaring fans, there’s every sore muscle that was worked so hard it stings because it is growing. “It’s really, really challenging,” Armstrong said. “But it’s what we love.” 1 Follow the Tiger Girls on Instagram @lsutigergirls, and visit lsusports.net/spiritsquads/tigergirls for more information on the team’s performances and appearances. The LSU Tiger Girls perform at most of the university's major athletic events, including at football games, basketball games, baseball games, and gymnastics meets—making the team one of the university's only true year-round sports in and of itself.

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

// S E P 2 6

Photos from Blue Theatre Company's rehearsals of Campari Soda, which ran at the New Marigny Theatre in April 2026. The show, and the company itself, are emblematic of a wave of introspective, experimental independent theatre endeavors emerging in New Orleans.

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE

Up Close and Personal

NEW ORLEANS THEATRE ARTISTS ARE EMBRACING EMOTIONAL HONESTY, FLAWED HUMANITY, AND INTIMATE STORYTELLING TO CREATE WORK AUDIENCES DON’T JUST WATCH—THEY FEEL Story and photos by Brett Barnes

he modern world offers an endless supply of stories polished for streaming, shortened for scrolling, and designed for consumption via the confines of a screen. Yet there persists a form of theatre that asks its audience to sit still, lean forward, and encounter others, with none of the protection of distance. This newer wave of work does not rely on spectacle or the certainty of a story already settled. It embraces people who are still becoming, still making mistakes, and still negotiating the space between who they are, and who they once hoped to be. Across New Orleans, playwrights, performers, and independent theatre companies are developing productions that feel imme-

diate, emotionally exposed, and closely connected to the lives that audiences are living now.

Dirty, Southern Gothic

This past April, black chairs sat empty before the stage at New Marigny Theatre, waiting for an audience that, in only a few days, would be drawn into the disorder taking shape in the room. Two French windows stood upstage, framed by flats. A bar anchored downstage left, while fluorescent lighting illuminated a piano on the opposite side, giving the space the feeling of an after-hours conversation that has continued beyond the point of comfort. Nothing about the set felt sterile or safely removed. The atmosphere was

Knock Knock Children’s Museum’s

A GROWN-UP GALA PRESENTED BY

Pennington Family Foundation & Pennington Foundation

Thursday, October 8th

PURCHASE TICKETS & LEARN MORE

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

tense, conversational, unmistakably Southern Gothic. What would happen here would unfold through exposure and the possibility that something private might suddenly explode into view. Overlapping conversations mixed with nervous laughter and the soft turning of script pages between scenes. Actors carried marked-up copies that had already begun to bend and soften in their hands, pausing to reconsider a line, a movement, or the emotional logic of a moment. One performer lost a word, laughed, and immediately returned to the scene. No one seemed rattled. The interruption only reinforced the sense that everyone was still building this production together. Two actors moved through an opening exchange as the room gradually quieted around them. Their conversation sharpened. A countdown began somewhere offstage, signaling the arrival of a new year and the sense that something irreversible was approaching. A half-finished drink was sweating near the edge of the rehearsal space while someone searched hurriedly through a script for the next line. Blue Theatre Company's production of New Orleans playwright Alex Anthony Vazquez's original play, Campari Soda, would go on to run from April 18–30. But on this evening it was already beginning to take shape, before the first audience member had even entered the room. Set in New Orleans during the early 1970s, Campari Soda moves through betrayal, longing, lust, shame, and shifting struggles for power. Its characters circle one another inside an increasingly confined world, each carrying some private need and threatening, intentionally or otherwise, to expose what the others would prefer to keep hidden. Vazquez describes the work created by Blue Theatre Company as “not safe,” dealing as it does with raw themes, ambiguous characters, and confronting taboos. “Bold but not preachy,” he said. “I’ll give you the situation and you take away from it what you will.” His reason for writing Campari Soda was equally direct: “To tell a story that people aren’t tackling,” he said. “People need to feel something.” “Dirty, Southern Gothic” is how Vazquez described the emotional world of the production, a fitting phrase for a play in which glamour and desperation, affection and cruelty often occupy the same room. The show does not soften its characters into easily understood examples of good or bad behavior. Their actions are selfish, impulsive, and deep-

ly flawed, but never entirely removed from the possibility of recognition. Kyler Porche, who portrayed James— the son of the play's patriarch, August—considers that humanity to be essential to the role. Porche described his character as an outsider, immature and resistant to accountability, though not incapable of remorse or transformation. “Just because someone fails, makes mistakes, gives into something they shouldn’t, they aren’t bad,” he said. “They are human. Just because something happens once doesn’t mean someone can’t make amends.” Kaytlin Borgen played Robin, the mysterious and emotionally layered stepmother caught between the life she inhabits and the one she believes she was meant to have. Glamorous, inquisitive, and hardened by the world around her, Robin exists in a state of constant negotiation between desire and restraint—between what she wants and what she is willing to admit wanting. “Longing for something more,” Borgen said. “What could have been. Nostalgia. Wanting a bit of extravagance.” The intimacy of the New Marigny Theatre's performance space made that longing difficult to disguise. “It’s like being naked,” she said. “Your emotions are laid bare.” A raised eyebrow, a pause held a moment too long, or the slight tightening of a mouth can communicate as much as a shouted line. The characters of Campari Soda cannot hide behind theatrical gesture. Their mistakes, appetites, jealousies, and moments of tenderness remain visible enough for an audience to recognize, even when that recognition is less than flattering.

Still Becoming

Productions like Blue Theatre Company's Campari Soda belong to the output of a broader network of smaller theatre companies, independent artists, and developmental organizations in New Orleans that are prioritizing emotional immediacy over commercial security. Sharing this philosophy is Blue Roses Project, which supports emerging queer playwrights through workshops, readings, and sustained artistic development. Co-artistic directors James Will McBride and Gideon Glick founded the organization in 2023 and began official playwright workshops in 2025. “Well, we weren’t anything until a few months ago,” McBride said with a laugh. The founders describe Blue Roses Project as “an artist retreat for queer playwrights at the beginning of their careers.” Their work rests on the under-

// S E P 2 6

standing that a developing play does not need to arrive polished in order to contain something worth pursuing. The twenty-nine-hour reading sits at the center of that process. This Actors’ Equity workshop structure allows writers to hear their work aloud, collaborate with performers, reconsider entire scenes, and radically reshape a play within a concentrated period. The purpose is not to prove that a script already works, but to discover what else it might become. That process recently unfolded through a workshopping of Red Tide by Dom Martello, a supernatural queer romantic comedy set against the impending chaos of a Gulf Coast hurricane. One character, Guin, refuses to evacuate the possibly haunted home of her deceased brother as a storm moves toward Tampa Bay. Another, Parker, is emotionally stranded after a devastating breakup and chooses isolation over safety nearby. Rising floodwaters and a house intent on revealing what has been buried inside it eventually force the two neighbors to confront grief, loneliness, desire, and the emotional wreckage both have spent years attempting to outrun. The work is funny, strange, politically aware, and emotionally exposed, containing the kind of complicated threads that reveal their full purpose only through experimentation. “When we spoke with them, they were just so eager to interrogate the play and rip it all apart,” Glick said of the creators of Red Tide. “They’d completely rewritten it by the end of the twenty-nine-hour reading. And that was thrilling.” Transformation is not an unfortunate consequence of the Blue Roses

process. It is the reason the process exists. “We’re not necessarily looking for the most polished draft or playwright,” McBride explained. “We want something that’s sort of nebulous and that there’s a lot of incredible ingredients and a lot of room to grow. Real life isn’t perfect. Real life is gritty. It is unpolished.” The organization’s commitment to unfinished work arrived at a moment when the infrastructure supporting new plays has become increasingly fragile. “Funding for new play development across the country, even before COVID, but especially since COVID, has been dramatically cut,” McBride explained. Larger institutions have become more cautious, leaving grassroots organizations like Blue Roses Project to occupy the spaces left behind. Their work gives emerging playwrights something increasingly rare: the time and permission to arrive without all of the answers. Blue Roses Project also intentionally centers queer storytelling in the South, a decision its founders considered especially important amid growing political hostility toward LGBTQ+ communities and the national rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. “It was something very attractive to us…the idea of telling American queer stories in the South and incubating them in the South,” Glick said. New Orleans has long allowed performance to move freely between theatre, music, ritual, nightlife, ceremony, and everyday life. Theatricality is not reserved for the stage here. It walks down the street, gathers in courtyards, joins a parade, enters a barroom, and continues long after the formal perfor-

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

mance has ended. That natural overlap between life and theatre offers fertile ground for artists interested in stories that resist easy answers. Blue Roses Project and Blue Theatre Company approach their work differently, but both are creating a space for theatre that feels alive enough to change, personal enough to unsettle, and current enough to matter.

A Theatre of the Now

Reactions are difficult to conceal inside New Marigny Theatre. During live performances of Campari Soda, viewers laughed sharply at moments that felt almost too personal, then subsided into uneasy silence seconds later. Heavier scenes left the room still enough to hear bodies shifting in seats, and glasses being placed quietly upon tabletops. In this way, the emotional life of the play steps out from the stage. Audience members sit only feet away from characters making poor decisions, revealing private desires, and attempting to understand consequences they cannot undo. Silence stretches visibly between performers, and the tension ripples outward through the people seated in front of them. That immediacy is only part of what makes this newer wave of theatre feel particularly relevant. New works like Campari Soda and developing works like Red Tide reflect a larger movement away from characters polished into heroes, villains, or easily understood archetypes. Their people remain selfish, vulnerable, impulsive, ashamed, funny, frightened, and often contradictory. They resemble the people audiences know and, perhaps more uncomfortably, the people audiences recognize

within themselves. Contemporary life is filled with performances of another kind. Personal identities are carefully arranged online, emotions are edited into digestible fragments, and vulnerability itself can be shaped for public consumption. These plays resist that kind of polish. They allow people to behave badly without becoming entirely bad, to want conflicting things, and to continue searching for connection while repeatedly getting in their own way. Audiences appear increasingly hungry for that recognition. They do not necessarily want to leave themselves behind for two hours. Many want to see the emotional realities of the present reflected back at them: loneliness despite constant communication, desire complicated by fear, identity shaped by expectation, and the persistent difficulty of being fully known by another person. The work emerging from Blue Theatre Company and Blue Roses Project responds to that desire without offering easy reassurance. These productions trust that identification does not always come through likability, and that a deeply flawed character can still make someone in the audience feel less alone. A play does not have to provide a solution to create connection. Sometimes the connection comes from watching someone struggle with the same question. New Orleans provides an especially fitting home for this kind of theatre, not simply because the city values performance, but because life here rarely divides itself cleanly between the public and private. Celebration carries grief. Humor interrupts hardship. Extrav-

agance exists alongside deterioration, and strangers frequently become participants in one another’s experiences. The city understands that intimacy can develop quickly and that contradiction does not make an emotion less sincere. The new plays emerging here carry that understanding onto the stage. Their stories feel immediate because they are less concerned with presenting life as it should be and more interested in examining life as it currently feels. They speak to audiences living through uncertainty, isolation, political hostility,

shifting identities, and a growing desire for something more honest. The lights eventually rise, but the performance does not end cleanly with them. Conversations continue as the audiences move toward the doors. Some viewers laugh while recounting scenes that came unexpectedly close to their own lives. Others leave more quietly, still considering something they saw in a character they had not expected to understand. That recognition may be what audiences are searching for now: not escape, exactly, but evidence

that the messier parts of being human are shared. Theatre cannot resolve those contradictions, but when the distance between a story and its audience becomes small enough, it can remind people that they are not experiencing them alone. 1

Blue Theatre Company Instagram: @bluetheatrecompany Blue Roses Project Instagram: @bluerosesnola bluerosesproject.com

Downtown Zachary Fall Events Wild West Stick Horse Rodeo Saturday, October 3 10:30am-1pm Ages 3-7

Saturday, October 3 9am-1pm

City of Zachary Fall Fest Friday, October 2 5:30-8:30pm

Zachary Farmers Market Frontier Day

Virginia Street Pumpkin Patch at the Barn

Friday, October 2 • 5-8 pm Saturday, October 3 9 am-5 pm Sunday, October 4 • 12-5 pm // S E P 2 6

SEPTEMBER 2026

Cuisine

4 8 M O R E T H A N A C O F F E E S H O P / / 5 3 S O U P ÇO N

BEAUTIFUL CHAOTIC MESS

•

CUP A JOE

Luma and Sôlt

LIGHTING UP HAMMOND’S COFFEEHOUSE CULTURE, ONE CUP AND ONE CONVERSATION AT A TIME Story by Holly Duchmann

Left to right: Catherine and Devin Masters, and Shelby and Logan Torrance—owners of Hammond coffee shop Luma and its sister grocery concept, Sôlt Provisions. Pictured here promoting Luma's "Camp Luma" summer programming and specialty menu items. Photos by and courtesy of Catherine and Devin Masters, themastersinlove.com.

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

y midmorning, Luma Coffee hums. Sunlight spills through the shop’s east-facing windows, warming the floors of downtown Hammond’s former Central Rexall Drugs building as the scent of freshly roasted coffee suffuses the air. Inside, conversations rise and fall in waves—students, regulars, and first-timers all folding into the same easy rhythm. The cadence carries through the menu, where Luma has made a name for itself with in-house roasted blends, a curated toast lineup, and handcrafted drinks developed by its baristas and rotated seasonally. The team leans playful with its creations—sometimes incorporating unexpected elements. Fall menus, for instance, have featured house-made syrups like caramelized banana and miso brown sugar. Past favorites include the Mardi Gras Matcha, now an annual Carnival offering sweetened with vanilla and topped with ube cold foam and bee pollen. Beyond the menu, Luma has become something of a social hub, with community regulars and Southeastern Louisiana University students routinely gathering in the space, which still bears the Central Rexall Drugs name—a nod to the 130-year-old pharmacy that once occupied the building and shuttered in late 2016. Owners Devin and Catherine Masters and Logan and Shelby Torrance met in college through campus ministry at Southeastern and remained close after graduating in the mid-2010s. A college road trip through Nashville proved pivotal for the young men. Before that, their experience in coffee shops was mostly quick-service-style. Nashville introduced them to a different model: a space built for people to stay, not just grab a drink and leave. Later, Devin returned with his wife, Catherine, during their honeymoon. Soon, after the Masters returned to Hammond, the two couples began shaping the idea for their own shop together. “The central idea is twofold,” explained Logan of the name, “Luma.” “[First,] it’s a space in the community that brings light—a safe and gentle place. The other side was to have a light on at night—we have late hours for a coffee shop.” With four years of barista experience courtesy of a stint with Starbucks, Logan knew he wanted to brew his own coffee with the help of his longtime friend and newfound business partner, Devin. Tiptoeing into the world of specialty coffees, Devin wanted to explore the possibilities presented by roasting coffee for himself. The friends’ first roaster was a stovetop popcorn popper, no larger than a laptop, and still inconspicuously displayed on one of the cafe’s shelves today. The popcorn popper could only roast roughly two hundred grams of coffee beans at a time, and it took multiple roast batches to fill each bag. Early orders came through Instagram, and the team served coffee from a mobile cart at local pop-ups at the Hammond Art Center, local churches, and the campus ministry while learning the craft in real time. About a year and a half in, they connected with Scotty Meades, a local accredited trainer for the Specialty Coffee Association. As a result of that mentorship, the Masters and Torrances pursued formal training in roasting and barista work while continuing to dream about someday opening a permanent space in Hammond. Eventually they set their sights on opening in the former Central Rexall Drugs space, where a longtime pharmacy operated at the corner of East

Luma and its sister concept, the specialty grocery store Sôlt Provisions, have not only introduced into downtown Hammond delicious, handcrafted coffees, gelatos, and grocery items— but generous and invigorating community spaces.

Thomas and South Cypress streets until closing in 2016. An antiques shop initially moved into the space after the pharmacy closed, but a local realtor reached out to the aspiring coffee shop owners at the end of 2019. In 2020, during the pandemic, early financing attempts fell through before they finally secured a loan from Gulf Coast Bank. With four founders came four visions for the space, so they brought in an interior designer to unify the concept. Much

of the decor was sourced from local thrift and estate sales, while renovations were tackled after hours, as the founders balanced full-time jobs and young families. Finally, after about four years of dreaming, the Masters and Torrances officially opened Luma Coffee on August 17, 2021. The first months were, as Logan described, “a beautiful chaotic mess.” “I thank God for the team we have, because they had grace for us as new busi-

ness owners,” he said. “We were learning things in real time about leading people, as well as the financial side of things.” The community response, he said, was immediate, and over the years, business has grown steadily enough that Logan was able to step away from his other job at a local church last year to focus on Luma full-time. More recently, the team has invested in a new coffee roaster, tripling production capacity as they look to expand wholesale

operations to supply coffee to other businesses, churches, and hospitals. Acting as Luma’s head roaster, Devin now roasts five days a week in a space tucked behind the shop’s sister concept, Sôlt Provisions, which opened two doors down in 2024 as a local general and specialty grocery store. The couples learned the space was going to be available two summers ago, and began brainstorming concepts they believed would complement downtown Hammond well.

// S E P 2 6

The general store offers local goods, fresh dairy and meats, and items designed to make everyday moments at the home feel special. The top seller is a shop-made gelato, with rotating flavors like rosemary fig. Together, the two businesses serve as a go-to stop for artisan delicacies and specialities not available at other

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

local businesses as well as spaces intentionally built to foster meaningful connections among neighbors and visitors alike. Meanwhile, Luma’s own menu continues to evolve. The original toast offerings have expanded to include wraps, sandwiches, and salads, and the team recently introduced a Sundown menu—an evening lineup of mocktails with functional add-ins like L-theanine, cordyceps, and lion’s mane, alongside small bites. Looking to the future, Logan is working with cafe

manager Kailey Hymel to refine operations and document processes as the business continues to grow. Paying off their initial loan is a near-term goal, after which they may begin exploring expansion—all with their Hammond home remaining their primary focus. “Hammond was such a perfect ecosystem for our brand—a mix of generations of customers.” Logan said. “I would love to recreate that in Baton Rouge, or another city with a college.” 1 Luma Coffee Roastery & Social Club 125 East Thomas, Hammond, LA lumacoffeeroasters.com Sôlt Provisions 111 North Cypress, Hammond, LA Instagram @soltprovisions

// S E P 2 6

Scan here to sign up!

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

E-Newsletter at countryroadsmag.com and click Subscribe!

L AT E S T I N TA S T E

Soupçon A DASH OF DINING NEWS

By CR Editorial Staff

Emeril’s Chophouse Coming to L’Auberge Casino and Hotel

Baton Rouge is soon to get a new riverside dining destination with an instantly recognizable namesake. A new concept by superstar Louisiana chef Emeril Lagasse, Emeril's Chophouse is on track to open in late September with a menu of fine-dining classics served with Southern hospitality, and the sophisticated Louisianan inflections that have kept Lagasse a culinary household name for decades. With sunset vistas courtesy of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Mississippi River, Emeril’s Chophouse claims ambitions to redefine riparian dining in the capital city. Standout dishes include Emeril’s famous BBQ shrimp with a savory, buttery rosemary biscuit and the Gulf Tuna Oscar served with grilled asparagus, sweet, buttery blue crab and bearnaise sauce. Don’t be shy about adding extras to your dish–the menu offers a wide scope of choices for toppings and garnishes, including melted blue cheese, petite butter roasted lobster tail and a moreish, comforting bordelaise sauce. lbatonrouge.com/dining/emerils-chop-house

Butter Biscuits Fit for a King

This fall, celebrated Natchez chef Regina Charboneau’s newest venture sees her slipping back into a very old space—one that has served as an inn, a watering hole, a mail station, a restaurant, and a private home during its 230-year history. Now, King’s Tavern (aka Natchez’s oldest building) is embarking on a new chapter as Charboneau's new cooking school. Originally constructed in 1789, the time blackened timbers and rough brick walls of King’s Tavern have been witness to their fair share of myths and legends—culinary and otherwise. “On the third floor, we'll have a little museum of the history of the building and all the ghost stories,” Charboneau said. Next door to the tavern stands Charboneau Distillery. Founded by Charboneau’s husband, Doug, and the couple’s son, Jean-Luc to produce rum, the distillery has recently expanded its offerings to include gin and vodka. A tasting room is forthcoming. Charboneau’s cooking classes place equal emphasis on teaching culinary technique, and having a good time. Offerings will include a Saturday brunch class, a session on properly executing a traditional French menu, a Southern Italian cuisine class, and even ramen-making lessons. On Tuesdays and Thursdays Charboneau will host Regina’s Table, a limited-capacity restaurant seating offering a prix fixe menu at a set price of $45 per person. (On Thursdays, smoked prime rib prepared by Charboneau’s brother will cost a little more: $65 per person.) “I wanted to replicate the feel of dinner parties at my house,” Charboneau says. “Whatever I do on Tuesdays is not going to be anything you would find at a local restaurant. It’ll be something you would find if you were a guest in my home—whatever I feel like cooking, and lots of it.” reginaskitchen.com

Single-Origin Beans Roasted In-House

Since 1989, Highland Coffees has been a fixture in the historic North Gates neighborhood of LSU. But what even the most loyal patron might miss is that owner Clarke Cadzow sells an extraordinarily wide selection of single-origin coffees, too. Those sacks of green coffee beans aren’t decoration: among the aromatic coffee varieties on offer are Sumatran Mandheling, Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, Guatemalan Huehuetenango, and Kenyan Peaberry. Highland Coffees ships across the country daily. “We bring in the finest coffees from the three main regions of the world for specialty coffee, which are East Africa, Central and South America, and Indonesia,” Cadzow explained. Green coffee beans arrive at the Port of San Francisco and are shipped to Baton Rouge. Here, the green beans are roasted in-house in a variety of medium and dark roasts. For optimum freshness, roasted beans are packaged in eight-ounce bags and labeled with the roast date. “Every bean we’ve ever sold or turned into a cup of coffee, we’ve roasted,” Cadzow says. He notes that in addition to searching out the best-tasting green coffees, he sources beans from operations in which coffee farmers are fairly treated, and land is cherished. Highland Coffees also offers flavored whole-bean coffee, a hard-to-find specialty item. To prepare it, Mexican Altura coffee beans are lightly coated in flavoring blends such as Caramel Royale or Cinnamon Swirl, then bagged for use in drip coffee, French press or pour-over preparations. Want to buy beans for your morning brew, but aren’t sure which setting they should be ground at? Whether you use a Keurig, auto-drip or French press, just tell the baristas behind the counter how you make your coffee and they’ll ensure that the beans you’ve purchased are ground to the right setting. highlandcoffees.com

// S E P 2 6

SEPTEMBER 2026

Gardening

54 NOTES FROM A WILD SEED COLLECTOR

HARVEST SEASON

•

O U R S U S TA I N A B L E G A R D E N

An Insider's Guide to Native Seed Harvesting GATHERING AUTUMN’S BOUNTY, BY THE LIGHT OF SEPTEMBER’S HARVEST MOON Story and photos by Jess Cole strapped around my waist, paper lunch bags tucked inside, ready to receive whatever new seeds we happen across. Between September and the new year, I collect perennial flower seeds from gardens I have created, and from the natural spaces I am tied to. In recent years, I’ve developed something of an obsession with native tree seed, since encouraging new tree cover has become a matter of utmost importance to me. Currently I’m anticipating the bonanza of beech nuts that is currently maturing on a pair of trees—the only two fruiting out of around forty beeches that surround the cottage I live in. Beech trees are hard to find in local nurseries for various reasons, the most significant being that they don’t fruit very often. They can take up to sixty years to initially produce seed, and even then will only fruit every five to eight years. So, I was excited to discover one of my beech trees laden with beech nuts recently, and over the (harvest) moon, yesterday, when I found a second tree in full fruit. It has been a hard treasure trove to wait for; we visit them every day to see how the harvest is coming along. Below are guidelines to assist you on your own seed collecting endeavors:

First, We Wait

Beech Nuts.

hlook forward to the month of September all year long. Lots of people I love—including my son— were born this month; feasts and merriment habound. Just when the Louisiana summer has almost made me forget what fresh air feels like, an occasional fall breeze springs up to surprise and delight. A profusion of new blooms begins to display, including my two fall favorites, Ironweed (Vernonia gigantea) and Swamp Sunflower (Helianthus angustifolius). More than anything though, as September’s Harvest Moon implies, ‘tis the season for my fall seed collecting to begin. 54

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

Collecting seed is among the most beloved tasks in my gardening practice, and the ladder sorting of seed my greatest meditation. Even more rewarding: seed sorting has become a family pastime. Whatever the season, my three-year-old and I find seeds to bring home. There have been many days lately when he arrives at his Montessori school with a small bundle of acorns or bald cypress seed in his tiny front shirt pocket to gift his comrades, collected from the yards between our parked truck and the playground gate. Every walk or boat ride we take, in woods or city, I set out with a giant fanny pack

You want to wait as long as possible to collect your seed. The longer seeds are left to mature on the mother plant before dropping, the more likely they are to be viable. This can be a delicate dance. Oftentimes you would prefer the perennial you’re waiting for not to reseed your garden (particularly when working with aggressive, fast-spreading annuals or perennials). Nor do you want the seed to fall, limiting your chance at collection. One way we “plant people” maximize seed collection is by tying a paper or burlap sack around the seed head, so when the seed falls, it is easily retrieved. In the case of my beech trees—like other tree species that wildlife depend on as a food source, seed collection is basically a waiting game—a dance between waiting for the seed to mature, and harvesting judiciously before wildlife graze it over entirely. I watch the beech masts everyday, anticipating the moment when it feels right to take some for tree planting, and for beech nut toasting—a lovely fall delicacy with a flavor similar to that of the (related) chestnut. Another simple-but-effective method for harvesting tree fruit is by placing a tarp beneath the tree on windy fall days, to gather what drops naturally.

Stay Local

It’s a good rule of thumb, and particularly when working with native plants, to gather seed from as close as possi-

ble to where you plan to plant it. The closer you resow to the seeds’ place of origin, the better the resulting plants’ adaptability is likely to be. Beech nuts taken from northern St. Tammany Parish, where I reside these days, will likely perform better if replanted in the same area, than beech nuts taken from a tree in Virginia or even north Louisiana, since beech trees in St. Tammany parish are already adapted to the sandy, acidic soils and coastal weather patterns hereabouts.

September Plant Spotlight

Hibiscus moscheutos, Swamp Mallow There are so many native hibiscus to love, this being one of our top summer and fall showstoppers. This hibiscus variety can grow up to eight feet tall, and boasts a robust perennial shrub form. She looks a lot like the ever popular tropical hibiscus, yet is cold hardy and will return each year, in addition to easily colonizing via seed. Naturally, flower colors vary greatly, even within a single colony. Humans have capitalized on this and cultivated interesting nativars of this plant in an array of hues. Swamp Mallow is naturally found on wet roadsides and salt marshes, making the plant a reliable candidate for your rain garden. I love summer country rides through my surrounding parishes, for the tremendous roadside hibiscus displays that flourish there.

Take a Little, Not a Lot

When harvesting seed from natural spaces, make sure you know the rules. Seed collecting may be restricted or prohibited in certain areas, especially protected parks, tracts administered by the federal Bureau of Land Management, and so on (unless you have a special conservation allowance). Also important: it is every collector’s responsibility to ensure that the plant is healthy, and abundant enough within its habitat to spare a small share. With native plants, it is imperative that enough seed be left to support rejuvenation and wildlife benefit. If you’re in doubt, don’t harvest, and speak to someone with knowledge of the plant’s conservation status within the space. Many say that the harvester should never take more than five to ten percent of the seed at hand. I think that is too generous, and believe that in most cases, less than five percent should be harvested. With your supply secured, ideally you’ll be able to start your own seed bank, achieving germination in your own backyard or greenhouse, and not needing to harvest from the wild again. Remember that seed’s highest and best use is in preserving and renewing our natural spaces, not beautifying our home gardens. Take when Mother Nature has over produced, or to facilitate conservation. Never har-

Swamp Mallow.

vest seed from an isolated colony; it’s imperative to ensure that a plant is thriving beyond that singular space.

Storing Your Seed

Proper seed storage is crucial. Paper, mesh, or burlap help ensure breathability, which is key. You do not want your seed to retain moisture. I harvest in small, brown, paper lunch bags, then store them in a cool, dark place in my home. When I’m sure all moisture has left the seed heads, I strip the seeds and transfer them to glass jars, then into the seed fridge. Once seeds are mature and

have dried in a cool, dark space, the fridge makes a good storage solution until you’re ready to sow. Many native plants, mimicking the natural world, prefer a certain length of cold time to achieve maximum germination rates. When sowing seed in a greenhouse rather than into the earth, a fridge provides the solution. If sowing directly into the ground, put the seed out in fall, before Christmas, to make good use of the cold and rain that winter brings. 1 Read more entries of Jess Cole's column, “Our Sustainable Garden,” at countryroadsmag.com.

// S E P 2 6

Culture

SEPTEMBER 2026

PERFORMING LEGACIES

5 6 T H E M A G I C M A D E A T T H E H O U S E O N S O N I A T S T R E E T // 5 8 I N S I D E A ( P R O B A B LY ) F I R S T P E R F O R M A N C E O F A L O S T T E N N E S S E E W I L L I A M S R A D I O P L A Y // 6 0

T H E I N S P I R I N G S T O R Y O F A M I S S I S S I P P I D I V A //

62 AN ORAL HISTORY OF COFFEE MILK IN CAJUN COUNTRY

•

Bob Dylan performing with Joan Baez and Santana in Hamburg, May 1984. Photo by Heinrich Klaffs. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

L E G E N D S AT W O R K

Dylan Down South

IN 1989, BOB DYLAN SPENT SEVERAL MONTHS RECORDING ‘OH MERCY,’ IN A HOUSE ON NEW ORLEANS’S SONIATSTREET STREET ORLEANS’ SONIAT Story by Ingrid Marie Jensen

“T

here are a lot of places I like, but I like New Orleans better,” Bob Dylan admitted in his 2004 memoir, Chronicles: Volume One. He's sung about the city (“Bob Dylan’s New Orleans Rag”), performed there countless times, and even depicted it in his paintings (an exhibition of his work ran at the New Orleans Museum of Art in 2016). It is a lesser-known fact that Dylan briefly called the Crescent City home. In the late 1980s, Dylan met up with the famed Canadian producer Daniel Lanois at the Marie Antoinette Hotel in the French Quarter (now the Hotel Le Marais) to talk about working together in the future. The conversation went well, and in the early spring of 1989, Dylan moved down to New Orleans for a few months to record with Lanois. These sessions resulted in Dylan’s 1989 album Oh Mercy, which was written and recorded in a rambling old Victorian mansion on Soniat Street near Audubon Park. Even the most cynical, hard-nosed 56

music journalists often consider Oh Mercy to be Dylan’s finest release of the decade. After a string of comparatively lackluster albums, it heralded a definite comeback, garnering a laudatory review from Rolling Stone, and reaching number thirty on the Billboard Charts in the United States. (It was largely as a result of her admiration of the producer’s work with Dylan on Oh Mercy that Emmylou Harris would later team up with Daniel Lanois to record her 1995 masterpiece, Wrecking Ball.) Oh Mercy was recorded at night. Lanois installed a makeshift studio in the house on Soniat, specially fitting recording equipment for Dylan’s use. The kitchen radio was kept permanently tuned to WWOZ, which Dylan liked to listen to alone in the middle of the night on the occasions when not working on the record. The DJ that he liked best was Belle “Brown Sugar,” Moore, an iconic fixture at the station. Dylan praised the soothing qualities of her melodious, languorous voice and reveled in her impeccable rotation of early rock and roll hits and blues classics such as Wynonie

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

Harris and Little Walter. He noted in his memoir that the radio stations in New Orleans reminded him of those he’d tuned into as a kid back in Minnesota. The personnel list on Oh Mercy is rich with Louisiana talent. The album features contributions from Dumpstaphunk founding member Tony Hall, Rockin’ Dopsie, Daryl Johnson and Cyril Neville, among others. A handful of songs on the album occasionally pop back up in Dylan’s tour setlists today. During a recent show in Baton Rouge, Dylan performed one of the album’s standout tracks, “The Man in the Long Black Coat,” a song that drips with dark, Southern Gothic mystique. (Mark Lanegan famously covered the track for Todd Haynes’s experimental Dylan biopic, I’m Not There.) Even if you didn’t know, you could almost sense that Oh Mercy was recorded after hours, under the cover of night. You can feel the incandescence of a Southern twilight, crickets and cicadas chorusing from the shadowy lacework of the live oaks, darkness hovering, just beginning to close in. Much of the album resonates

with that same sense of underlying, haunted melancholy. When he wasn’t recording in the makeshift kitchen studio, Dylan explored the city extensively, from wandering around Magazine Street to eating turtle soup at Antoine’s. Sometimes he rode his motorcycle down Freret Street, or over to Jackson Square. He admired the extreme contrasts in architecture and style along the oak-lined streets, heavy with humidity and draped with veils of Spanish moss. He described the city’s “structures of wild grace,” and the visual feast that the profusion of lush, sub-tropical flowers provided. “There’s a thousand different angles at any moment,” he wrote in Chronicles. “The city is one very long poem.” Recording wrapped in late spring. Dylan left the oakshaded Victorian house near Audubon Park and moved back home. Oh Mercy was released in September of the same year, to tremendous critical acclaim. The album was instantly recognized as one of the most masterful creations of Dylan’s career. 1

// S E P 2 6

“The

by Te

Stran

nness

ee Wi

gers”

lliam Dr. Isra s el Mar t i nez..... Jonath .......... an Tru .... as “ nnell .. Mr. Br . . . .......... ighton” Matthe . ...as “M w Kudi rs. Brig sh....... hton” .......... .. as “A Produc nne” ed, dir ected, whacke a nd with d on th wooden e table spoons by Chr is Turn er-Nea l With th e gener ous sup Countr port of y Road s Maga zine “I had been tr ying to – Phoeb sleep.” e II, sm all tuxe relucta do cat a nt thea nd tre crit ic

TA B L E R E A D S

Strangers at My Table

FORTIFIED BY GOOD BOOTS AND BETTER WINE, A LOST TENNESSEE WILLIAMS PLAY COMES TO LIFE AT LAST

here’s a non-zero chance that my friends and I held the first performance of a Tennessee Williams play. Records are incomplete, and so while The Strangers was probably broadcast twice on the radio, once in Iowa and once in 58

Story by Chris Turner-Neal • Artwork by Kourtney Zimmerman New Orleans, it’s not technically proven. Our read at a Buenos Aires kitchen table on a Friday afternoon, with an audience consisting of one disinterested tuxedo cat named Phoebe II, is the first definitively documented performance of Williams’s foray into the once-popular genre of

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

radio suspense plays. Williams completed his bachelor’s degree in 1938 at the University of Iowa— hard as it is to imagine our magnoliasand-madness regional troubadour there among the flat vowels and endless corn. Part of his coursework involved writing

radio scripts, a reasonable assignment for those days when TV was in its infancy, and mass media meant the wireless. Since Williams, a slightly older student, already had some playwriting experience, he was able to have some of his short scripts produced by the university radio station,

a batch of tales contemporary with and probably including The Strangers. On his return to New Orleans, he sent the script of his “radio spook play” to local stations, one of which may have produced it. Thereafter, the script ultimately went with the bulk of Williams’ early-career papers to the titanic Harry Ransom Center archive/library/museum juggernaut at the University of Texas, where it lay in genteel obscurity until unearthed and published in early 2026 by The Strand Magazine, a print-only magazine publishing a mixture of contemporary and unpublished or uncollected work by well-known writers of previous generations, saving their more obscure projects from oblivion and satisfying the most rabid Agatha Christie completionists. From there, the good people of Country Roads’ editorial department scanned the eight-page script and the helpful introductory essay by scholar and literary journalist John Bak, and set me up for my production of The Strangers. I inveigled some of my most theatrical friends to help, casting a therapist, an attorney, and a nonprofit administrator with an acting background as the three characters, and assigning myself the role of announcer and sound effects technician. I assembled my good boots (for ominous footsteps), a wooden spoon (for hitting on the table to represent banging shutters), two fancy pocket squares (for when the script calls for the ominous swishing of silks), my computer

(to provide recordings of wind, rain, ticking clocks, and eerie transitional music), and two bottles of moderately priced Malbec (to pay the actors). Thus equipped, I headed to my friend Jon’s apartment one Friday afternoon, ready to make theatre history. The trick to managing actors is compromise. Sure, we can open the wine before we start, but then let’s start now. Sure, you can do a funny voice if you can maintain it through the whole production. While only one and a half of the people present had any significant acting training, we all had good attitudes and a willingness to earn the second bottle of Malbec. The story opens with three people sitting through a stormy night in an isolated New England house, intermittently lit by a rotating lighthouse beam: Mr. Brighton, an occult enthusiast, played straight by my friend Israel Mrs. Brighton, his irritable wife, played as a purse-lipped Maggie Smith pastiche by my friend Jon Anne, Mrs. Brighton’s spinster companion, played as a giddy ingénue by Matt, a fiftyyear-old man with a full beard Mr. Brighton notes that the house has long been occupied by entities called “the Strangers,” ghostlike figures only he can see, and whom he keeps in line

with scolding and something called “ectoplasmic solution.” (Anne asks if this ghost-be-gone goo can be reinforced with citronella to keep away mosquitoes as well, in one of a handful of genuine laugh lines.) On stormy nights, the Strangers get restive, and Mr. Brighton must shoo them away. Naturally, one appears before him on the landing and scares him to death, a sound effect I produced by throwing my own body to the ground. The next act opens a year later, with Anne and Mrs. Brighton having returned to the house despite neither of them liking it much. Another rising storm reminds them of the previous year’s fatal night and puts them on edge, even as Mrs. Brighton refers to herself and Anne as "nervous old women.” When the timorous Anne girds her courage and goes upstairs to secure a flapping shutter, Mrs. Brighton, now alone in the parlor, sees one of the Strangers illuminated by the revolving light and follows her husband’s example by falling over dead. Anne is left to bring down the curtain, howling “the Strangers, they’ve killed her!” The Strangers is no lost classic. It’s formulaic, both as a ghost story and as a radio play; it would have to be the very first script someone ever experienced in order for it to generate much surprise. Bak, perhaps generously, notes that it contains early examples of the themes of isolation and mental instability that would become prominent in Williams’s

mature work, but those are also par for the course in a ghost story: sunny, wellpeopled places are only scary to introverts, and sane people lack entertainment value. But if The Strangers is not Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, that doesn’t mean it lacks value. It’s fun if a ghost story is original, but what’s even more important is the conspiracy we enter into with the writer and our fellow listeners: we have chosen to pretend the worlds are not so separate, and that events we cannot explain do in fact occur. We have chosen to be creeped out. In reading The Strangers, it was easy to imagine students on that long-ago Iowa campus huddling around the radio set, shushing each other, pretending to be scared or pretending not to be scared; it was even easier to imagine student actors giving it their all, dropping into old-person rasps and delivering the lines with a ham’s conviction. The Strangers does its part, providing performers and audiences with a tale of the uncanny: we can participate, if we wish, and it’s worth the quarter-hour of time. And if you’re fond of Tennessee Williams, it’s nice to see him having fun. Part of Williams’s mystique is that he so seldom seemed happy, but here we can imagine him young, excited, playful, cranking out a little “spook radio play” for fun and course credit, and then listening to his words come over the radio, waiting to hear the gasps and screams from listeners in the other room. 1

// S E P 2 6

D I VA S

A Voice Across Time

FROM LAUREL, MISSISSIPPI, TO THE OPERA HOUSES OF THE WORLD, LEONTYNE PRICE OVERCAME JIM CROW-ERA SEGREGATION TO BECOME ONE OF THE METROPOLITAN OPERA’S BIGGEST STARS Story by Chris Turner-Neal

Left: Portrait of Leontyne Price by Carl Van Vechten, 1951. Library of Congress. Right: 1948 photograph of Leontyne Price (seated bottom left) rehearsing at State College of Education and Industrial Arts. From The Afro-American. (Public Domain)

uring her long and storied career as a singer of opera and popular music, Marian Anderson performed before European royalty and packed houses around the world, but there was one audience she especially strove to reach: other Black Americans. It was during a 1936 performance in Jackson, Mississippi, which Anderson gave despite the insult of a segregated audience, that she inspired someone who would expand on her legacy, bringing even more Black excellence to opera. In that audience was a little girl on her way to becoming the diva, Leontyne Price. Born and raised in Laurel, Mississippi, Price was a talented pianist and singer as a child, a skill inherited from her mother, a singer in the church choir, and her father, who played the tuba. In college, Price studied with the goal of becoming a music teacher, but people in her life told her to aim higher—to at least think about a performance career. She got into Julliard, and from there it was to the stars. Paul Robeson 60

heard her as a student and contributed to her scholarship fund, and in her last year of music school, she landed her first major operatic role. By 1955, she had been chosen to sing the title role in a nationally televised production of Puccini’s Tosca with the NBC Opera Theater. Tosca is a difficult and impressive role, in part because the character is herself an acclaimed opera singer: it’s a soprano playing a soprano, diva as diva. Price’s performance as Tosca launched her career, though the triumph was marred by the refusal of some TV affiliates to air a production with a Black star. As all Black performers must, Price had to navigate questions of race, complicated by the nature of opera. With staples of the art form taking place in Japan (Madame Butterfly), China (Turandot), Egypt (Aida), and generally anywhere composers thought of setting an exciting story with “exotic” trappings, cross-racial casting is a frequent reality, if not always a comfortable one. Roles that require or suggest a Black singer exist: Bess of Porgy and Bess is Black, and Dido of Dido and Aene-

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

as and the titular character Aida are both African. Price, whose career spanned integration in the United States, received plaudits for her portrayals of Bess and Aida, also performing as Cleopatra, a role written especially for her, in Samuel Barber’s admittedly unloved Antony and Cleopatra. (On the cover of the album of Aida, she sports a chic and unapologetic Afro.) Still, she insisted on debuting at the Metropolitan Opera in a non-“Black” role, the doomed Aragonese noblewoman Leonora in Il Trovatore, and she refused roles she thought “unsuitable” for a Black performer, such as Desdemona in Otello, whose fate turns on her interracial marriage to a Black man. (Price also declined an offer to sing the sexually berserk title role in Richard Strauss’s Salome—a well-placed “no” being, of course, the mark of a true star.) Price also both hired and dated other Black people in the opera world, working with Black managers throughout her career and marrying William Warfield, a bass-baritone who sang Porgy to her Bess. Life imperfectly imitated art:

Price and Warfield divorced amicably, with none of the drama that befell them in their onstage pairing. Through it all, Price rose to become one of the Met’s—and the opera world’s—biggest draws and most consistent stars: she was bold enough to do it, she had star quality, and she was very, very good. It's hard to describe a voice, of course. Different people describe Price’s instrument as dark, light, lustrous, big, delicate, with “regal ferocity,” and as “truly, truly, truly great singing”—this last compliment from fellow Black soprano Jessye Norman. All agree that Price was special: she had the famous, elusive “it,” and anyone who heard her knew it. She had staying power, too: Price performed publicly until the late ‘90s and gave interviews into her ninetieth year (and is alive at ninety-nine years old at this writing.) Price became such an icon, especially but by no means exclusively to other aspiring Black opera singers, that she inspired the following generation’s best-known Black diva. Jessye Norman told an NPR interviewer that, when she was in middle school,

Leontyne Price by Carl Van Vechten, 1953. Library of Congress.

her brother played her a recording of Price singing, which decades later she described as being “like a silver cloud.” Norman would grow to become an artist of Price’s caliber: elegant, versatile, and highly in demand. Price repaid her idol, too: in 1982, three years before retiring from full opera performances but not from recitals, she dedicated a Washington, DC performance to her onetime inspiration, Marian Anderson. In a New York Times interview that same year, Price mused about singing the role of the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, a role of an aging beauty that requires maturity of voice and, particularly, interpretation. With its meditation on aging and the passage of time, the role can easily be a swan song. Despite her well-regarded performance in another Strauss tragicomedy, Ariadne auf Naxos, she never picked up the Marschallin: a loss to opera fans, but an understandable refusal to fade away, from a woman who fought to shine. 1

// S E P 2 6

linguists, and folklorists passionate about Louisiana culture. I call them “The Roux Crew.” And while one of those experts, Shane K. Bernard, historian and author of one of my favorite books The Cajuns: Americanization of a People, didn't necessarily have answers, he had something even better: an extraordinarily engaged social media following. He posted my coffee milk questions to his Facebook and Instagram, and his friend Wade Falcon, a Cajun music historian and writer, shared the post in the Facebook group “Cajun French Virtual Table Française” and pointed me to a Reddit thread. What came back was more than what any scholarly journal could bring. It brought something older and more valuable: a community’s true, unadulterated memories. Hundreds of people responded. What follows are their oral histories.

Artowrk courtesy of Megan Broussard Maughaun, designed by Blake Lagneaux.

The First Sip

IN SEARCH OF THE LOST TONGUE

Raised on Coffee Milk

CROWD-SOURCING THE FOLK HISTORY OF ACADIANA’S SWEET, SOMEWHAT SCANDALOUS CHILDHOOD INDULGENCE Story by Megan Broussard Maughan

was standing in a supermarket in Newport, Rhode Island when I saw something in the refrigerator I’ve only ever seen in a Louisiana kitchen: coffee milk. I’d lived in New York City for at least eight years at this point. Sure, I could order a café au lait, or café con leche as it’s often referred to, at any coffee shop from here to Jersey and Pennsylvania, but I’d never seen the term “coffee milk” used outside of Cajun/ 62

Creole Country, let alone being packaged and sold in New England. And, as regular readers of this column will know by now, I’m a curious little creature determined to find definitive answers (as best I can) about our culture’s eccentricities. So I was like a catahoula with a bone, off to decipher our coffee milk connection to The Ocean State. There was just one small problem. I couldn't find an official history of coffee milk, anywhere. It wasn’t writ-

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

ten about in any book I could get my hands on. There didn’t seem to be a food historian who’d chosen Cajun/ Creole coffee milk as their grad school thesis. Nada (or, in French, rien). Coffee milk, it seemed, had somehow fallen through the cracks of Louisiana culinary history, perhaps too ordinary to document, too ubiquitous to examine. So, I tapped into the network of eccentric Louisaiana experts I’ve collected over the years—a group of historians,

The most striking thing about these testimonies is how many people cannot recall their first taste of coffee milk. “I don't remember not having it," wrote Janet Schexnayder of Iberia Parish. Most of the commenters recalled regularly sipping it before they could speak. Multiple respondents said they’d been given it in baby bottles, or have vague memories of dipping a demitasse spoon in coffee and sugar as an early introduction. The average age of these first memories was around three to five years old, but the deeper truth is that coffee milk wasn't so much introduced as it was always simply present. Before Mass, after Mass, at veillées when company came over. And for many, it still is. Charles VanWright shares it with his kids on Saturday mornings. Sarah Boudreaux's father-in-law teaches the grandchildren French while they drink theirs at five in the afternoon. Kristi Morton Miles still has her cowboy boot mug from childhood.

The Recipe

What is classified as “coffee milk” in Louisiana is pretty consistent across parishes: strong coffee, usually Community Coffee Dark Roast or Seaport or a chicory blend, diluted heavily with warm or hot milk and sweetened with cane sugar. Some families used evaporated PET milk, especially in the country where fresh milk was historically harder to keep. Others used condensed milk or whole milk straight from the family cow. Tommy Guidry describes his family's café brûlée with caramelized sugar burned in a black pot, and strong coffee added until the foam settled, then milk poured in. And then of course there was the

dunking—buttered toast or biscuits crumbled into the cup and eaten with a spoon. Sometimes it was French bread toasted in the oven. As kids got older, the ratio of coffee to milk would shift. "As I got older, the amount of milk reduced little by little, and soon I was having a full brew," wrote Victoria Anne Richard. Such a progression appears in story after story: the baby bottle, the sippy cup, the Tupperware tumbler, the demitasse, the full cup, and finally, in adulthood, just coffee.

The ‘Why’

This is where things got fascinating for me. Because, the thing is, when you’re a kid and you’re given something often enough, you never think to ask why. I, myself, am only asking now, and the people who served the coffee milk to us never explained. It was simply what you did. But when pressed to theorize on the reasoning behind serving a sugary, caffeinated mug of joe to young children, here were the folk conclusions: Inclusion—the adults were having coffee and children wanted to be like adults, so adults created a version of the beverage children could partake in. Danielle Blanchard Stafford from Mamou remembers thinking she was a "big girl" since she was drinking coffee, and another commenter Robyn Marie Underwood said she drank it because she wanted to be like her grandmother. Sydney-Angelle Dupléchin Boudreaux, from Evangeline Parish, captures the motive precisely: "Just milk wouldn't have let me partake in the coffee tradition. But black coffee would have been too strong." It was also practical. Coffee was already made. The sugar was local, and as Max Gagnard noted, whole coffee beans and chicory bags were cheap, and the

milk was usually free from the family cow. The other part was for the ‘energy’ of the caffeine boost with the sugar to work in the fields,” said Ruby Lange Buchanan. “Always lots of sugar in the coffee milk; we were in the cotton or pepper rows by 6 am with our burlap sacks tied at our waist—not so fun this was, but lots of energy to do it with.” There also seemed to be a belief that coffee milk could calm nerves. Several people report being told coffee milk was actually calming. Winnie McAdams says her husband's family believed it settled children before school. One Reddit commenter said they had it prescribed for childhood hyperactivity, and as John G. Fourcade jokes: "probably why we never needed ADHD medication!"

The Name Shift

The name, “coffee milk,” itself is also a crucial part of its history. Older respondents, and those from families where Cajun French was still spoken at home, called it café au lait. The shift to "coffee milk" in English tracks closely with the suppression of French in Louisiana schools—the generation that was punished for speaking French at school is largely the same that switched to the English name at home. As one commenter notes: "Got quite a few comments from older folks saying they called it café au lait before all the school drama introduced English as the main language for the kids."

The Road to Rhode Island

None of this explained coffee milk’s connection to Rhode Island, though. I called David Lanning, founder of Dave’s Coffee Syrup, one of the most popular coffee milk brands in The Ocean State. It turns out the Rhode Island version is a little differ-

ent from ours, built around a sweetened concentrate stirred into cold milk, rather than brewed coffee diluted with warm milk. But the origin story is similar. Rhode Island’s coffee milk is traced to Italian and Portuguese immigrant communities in the 1920s and 1930s, and Lanning’s theory about why it took hold there is the same I’d been thinking myself about Louisiana. These were all Western European families—French, Italian, Portuguese—who would give their children watered-down versions of their “adult drink” so that they could feel included, and they brought that tradition to the U.S. after they immigrated or were deported. What cemented it in Rhode Island specifically, Lanning believes, was Prohibition. Without alcohol, people leaned harder into other pleasures. Coffee drinks surged in popularity across the United States, and some of those early versions likely carried an extra kick. But why didn’t the Rhode Island coffee milk tradition extend to places like New York or New Jersey, where the Italian immigration population is just as large? Maybe it was the concentration. Rhode Island is a small, insular state where a community tradition can more easily become a regional identity than in a sprawling area like New York state or New Jersey. And if that's the case, it may very well be the thread that connects a place like Providence to Acadiana—two tight-knit communities holding onto what the wider world let go. 1

Read more entries of Megan Broussard Maughan's column, “In Search of the Lost Tongue,” at countryroadsmag.com.

Just one text... can stop the loop of endless thoughts connects you so you’re not alone gives you confidential, anonymous, and free support

If you or someone you loved was sexually harmed

This project was supported by Subgrant No. 2023-WF-06-8975 awarded by the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement (LCLE) for the Sexual Assault Services Formula Grant Program. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the LCLE or the U.S. Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women.

// S E P 2 6

Escapes

SEPTEMBER 2026

WITHIN

THE

WA L L S O F

STORIED

T H E AT R E

OLD PLACES, NEW STORIES

•

C U R TA I N C A L L

Hollywood, History, and Theatre in Bay St. Louis IN HANCOCK COUNTY, A BELOVED HOME FOR COMMUNITY THEATRE HAS ENDURED FOR MORE THAN EIGHTY YEARS

The historic Scafide building in Bay St. Louis has been home to the Bay St. Louis Little Theatre since 2010. Before that, it housed a general store and a bottling company, before being abandoned for forty years. After Hurricane Katrina, in need of a new playhouse, the Bay St. Louis Little Theatre decided to save the condemned building and make it home. Images courtesy of Cheryl Grace.

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

Story by Kara Martinez Bachman

eautiful things happen on Blaize Avenue. An old building there, in the heart of downtown Bay St. Louis, is often packed with people of a shared belief system. These folks, they believe in the power of the arts—and more specifically, in the power of a well-told story. They believe in the importance of supporting both creativity and personal connection in their coastal Mississippi community. From its old wooden floors to its gable dormers, the property housing the nonprofit Bay St. Louis Little Theatre comes alive when actors take to the stage before an always-packed house. In an age when our landscapes are increasingly dominated by big box retailers and duplicate tract houses, places that breathe the spirit of the past can connect us to a world that feels as though it is disappearing. That world— where foundational arts flourish and people come together to connect over shared passions—thrives in the Depot District of the Bay. The theatre, which has existed in some form for an astonishing eighty years, took up residence in its current home in 2010. The two-and-a-half story building was erected between 1916 and 1918. The cinder-block style bricks used in the construction are believed by some to have been hand-shaped by the original owner of the home, Andrea Scafide, who was a wholesale dealer of building materials, groceries, and general merchandise. The unique bricks, which are described in documents held by the Hancock County Historical Society as “rusticated concrete block,” are also found in the wall that surrounds the St. Stanislaus Catholic Boys School football field, a half mile down the road. The first

floor of this Queen Anne-influenced structure was used as Scafide’s general store. “When you see a show here, you are seated in a ‘ma and pa’ grocery store. Mr. Scafide put it together, brick by brick,” said Cheryl Grace, president of the theatre’s board of directors. After the Scafides’ tenure in the building, it served briefly as home to a bottling operation by Bay Ice, Light and Bottling Works— which processed seltzers, ginger ale, and an amaretto-flavored soft drink called Dr. Nut. For decades after the bottling facility closed, the building was abandoned and fell into neglect. It was vacant for forty years. In 2005, damage caused by the winds and tidal rush of Hurricane Katrina— which decimated much of Bay St. Louis—seemed to be the final nail in the coffin. That is, until the Bay St. Louis Little Theatre, which had just lost its longtime playhouse to the storm—decided to use the necessity of finding a new home as a reason for saving at least one old structure in The Bay. At that point, the Blaize Avenue beauty had been condemned. The deed was signed within days of the building being bulldozed (the dozer was, in fact, already onsite). A grant from the Mississippi Arts Commission, combined with private donations and memberships, helped restore the building to its former glory and solidify a new home for theatre in Hancock County. “Having the building owned and occupied by a nonprofit organization such as the Little Theatre makes it a relevant property in our community,” said Chris Roth, president of the Historical Society. For its historical significance, in 2011, the Mississippi Department of Ar-

Upcoming Productions at Bay St. Louis Little Theatre “The Carol Burnett Show” Dec. 5, 6 and 7 “The Lion in Winter” Jan. 23, 24, 25, 30, 31, and Feb. 1 “Always a Bridesmaid” Mar. 20, 21, 22, 27, 28 and 29 “Stella” Yelling Contest March 21 “Judgment at Nuremberg" June 11, 12, 13, 18, 19, 20 Before it was home to the Bay St. Louis Little Theatre, the Scafide Building made an appearance in the 1966 film This House is Condemned as the Starr Boarding House.

chives and History designated the building a Mississippi Landmark. When Grace speaks of the building’s history, she becomes palpably excited. Before each stage performance, the board presents a pre-show presentation about the history of the space. When, at one point, they briefly dispensed with the tradition, patrons complained and demanded its return. No matter how many times they’d heard it before, they wanted to hear it again. There is always a drive to connect with bygone days, especially for longtime locals who remember when The Bay was a sleepy little town popular with wealthy New Orleanians as a vacation retreat. Those were days when the silty, brackish waves lapped directly against stepped concrete seawalls instead of rolling up to the white sand beaches you’ll find there today. Some of the most fascinating stories associated with the Scafide Building are of the Hollywood variety. At the height of its abandonment, in the 1960s, film location scouts became so enamored by the building’s exterior that they selected it to represent the Starr Boarding House in the 1966 film featuring Robert Redford and Natalie Wood, This Property

is Condemned. The screenplay was by Francis Ford Coppola, but it was based on a one-act play by the same name, written by Tennessee Williams. While most of the filming took place in front of the building’s exterior, Grace said there was one scene shot inside. “It’s the one where Robert Redford is standing at his boarding house window, looking down at Natalie Wood on a swing,” she said. On the day of the Bay St. Louis Little Theatre’s opening in the Scafide Building in October 2010, the occasion’s guests of honor were the Oscar-nominated Mary Badham—best known as the actress who portrayed Scout Finch in the classic film version of To Kill a Mockingbird—and Jon Provost, best known for portraying the beloved character Timmy in the Lassie television series of the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s. The two former child stars, who portrayed Willie Starr and Tom, respectively, in This Property is Condemned, sat onstage and graciously recounted memories of filming the opening scenes just across the street from where they sat that day, alongside the CSX railroad tracks of Bay St. Louis. They waxed nostalgic about

Productions at the Bay St. Louis Little Theatre are often the talk of the town and awarded full houses.

// S E P 2 6

Places to Stay in the Bay If you’ve come to town to see a show, don’t hop back into the car (or onto the train) to head home too soon. Bay St. Louis is positively bristling with charming, independent B&Bs and boutique hotels. Here are three, all situated within reasonable walking distance of the theatre. Carroll House Cottages Bed and Breakfast, 304 Carroll Avenue About a seventeen-minute amble from the theatre, Carroll House B&B occupies a meticulously restored home in the heart of Old Town Bay St. Louis that dates from the 1890s. Pet-friendly rooms and separate cottages are available. Cottages begin at $400 with a two night minimum. carrollhousebnb.com. The Pearl Hotel, 104 North Beach Blvd A sleek and well-appointed boutique hotel situated right on the waterfront, eighteen minutes’ walk from the theatre. Be sure to check out the Pearl’s in-house restaurant, the Thorny Oyster, brainchild of acclaimed restaurateurs Jeff and Amy Hansell. Rooms $130–$250/night. pearlbsl.com. Bay Town Inn, 208 North Beach Blvd A twenty-minute walk from the theatre, the Bay Town Inn offers easy access to the beach and the bay. Marked by its airy, elegant design, the inn also boasts a saltwater pool situated in the middle of a verdant courtyard. $210–$350/night. baytowninn.com.

the time spent filming on those tracks, in the stifling heat of Mississippi. According to Grace—who in addition to her work on the board, is an actor and director—the past fifteen years since re-opening in the Scafide have been incredible ones. In a time when many arts nonprofits struggle to stay

afloat, the Bay St. Louis Little Theatre continues to thrive. “We get great support from the community,” she said. When a show is opening, she said, there’s no way you won’t hear about it if you live downtown. “You’ll hear the buzz on the show being talked about in our little local restaurants,” she said. Cast members enjoy

3 6T H AN N UAL WOR L D C HAM PI ONSHI P

EVE N T L I N E U P DOWNTOWN NEW IBERIA

OCTOBER 10–11, 2026 CAJUN CREOLE SATURDAY - OCT. 10th

GUMBO SUNDAY OCT. 11th

Cajun Creole Fest and Meanest Beans Cookoff ....... 11:00 am – 3:00 pm

Gumbo Cookoff ....... Serving Starts at 11:00 am

Children’s Activities ............................. ALL DAY

Over 75 Different Gumbos

5K Rouxdolph Run ............................... 8:00 am

SUNDAY LIVE MUSIC

Youth Gumbo ........ Serving Starts at 12:00 pm

Geno Delafose and French Rocking Boogie ...... 10:00 am – 12:30 pm

SATURDAY LIVE MUSIC

Chubby Carrier and The Bayou Swamp Band ... 10:00 am – 12:30 pm The Bad Boys .........................1:00 pm – 4:00 pm Cajun Company ...........................4:30 pm – 7:00 pm

80’s Experience ........................ 1:00 pm – 3:30 pm

FREE ENTRY

Food, soft drinks & beer will be sold. No ice chests or pets, please.

Hosted by:

More information can be found at iberiachamber.org/gumbocookoff 66

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

statuses as local celebrities over the course of their show’s run, often getting noticed on the streets or in the local grocery. “It’s an uplifting connection,” Grace summarized, describing the value of what she has spent so many years working to build. In addition to being a kind of community anchor, the theatre provides opportunity for creativity to thrive in Bay St. Louis. “It allows opportunities for people who have never thought about acting to experience it,” she said, adding that in this past fall’s production of To Kill a Mockingbird, the cast of twenty-two included twelve who were first-time community theatre participants. “The age range goes from ten to ninety-one,” she said, explaining that the oldest cast and crew will often be seen sitting right alongside the youngest, interacting, learning, establishing connections. “Being a team member with eight decades between your ages…for everybody to feel that, it’s just…incredible.” In addition to offering opportunities for aspiring actors, set designers, and directors—the theatre’s one-act play competition encourages local playwrights to share their work with their community. Funded by a Mississippi Arts Grant, the event is a remarkable opportunity, she said, to see emerging writers, who are seated in the front row, watch their stories come to life onstage.

“It is so overwhelming to watch the playwrights,” Grace said. “It is amazing because it’s our own Mississippi writers.” It all goes back to the theatre’s legacy, she said, pointing out that This Property is Condemned started out as a one-act play, too. Today, if you pass by the Bay St. Louis Little Theatre and look up, you’ll observe what Grace affectionately calls “The Robert Redford Room.” There, perched in the window, is a life-sized cutout of Redford, standing where the actor stood decades ago, but now looking out at a Bay St. Louis that has evolved and grown. What was once dilapidated and condemned following the wrath of Katrina now thrives as never before. In the two decades of recovery and growth since that storm inundated Hancock County, Bay St. Louis has transformed to become a rising destination on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. People come here to experience the charm and slower pace of coastal life. As a symbol of that resilience and community spirit, that old Blaize Avenue building near the railroad tracks is a force to be reckoned with. 1

Bay St. Louis Little Theatre 398 Blaize Avenue, Bay St. Louis, MS (228)467-9024 bsllt.org

// S E P 2 6

Akers, LA Middendorf’s Avery Island, LA Tabasco Brand

DIRECTORY OF MERCHANTS 53 45

Baton Rouge, LA AllWood Furniture 20 Baton Rouge Ballet Theatre 22 Baton Rouge Clinic 25 Blue Cross / Blue Shield 14 BREADA 69 BREC 59 East Baton Rouge Parish Library 72 Elizabethan Gallery 11 Girl Scouts 61 Hilltop Arboretum 55 Knock Knock Children’s Museum 44 57 LASM Louisiana Center for the Book 37 Louisiana Foundation Against 63 Sexual Assault Louisiana Public Broadcasting 66 LSU Foundation - Burden Museum and Gardens 51 LSU Online and Continuing 50 Education (OLLI) LSU Rural Life Museum 6 LSU Theatre 65 Manship Theatre 10 WRKF 89.3 FM Public Radio 8 Breaux Bridge, LA St. Martin Parish Tourism Commission

Dauphin Island, AL Dauphin Island Chamber of Commerce Franklinton, LA Washington Parish Tourism Commission

Natchez Pilgrimage Tours Wyatt Waters Gallery Y’all Means All

Natchitoches, LA Natchitoches Area Convention & Visitors Bureau

Greenwood, MS Greenwood Main Street

Hammond, LA Tangipahoa Parish CVB

Jackson, MS Mississippi Book Festival National Folk Festival

27 7

Lafayette, LA AllWood Furniture Festivals Acadien et Creoles J & J Exterminating

20 2 30

Madisonville, LA Maritime Museum Louisiana / Wooden Boat Festival

Mansura, LA Avoyelles Commission of Tourism

Morgan City, LA Cajun Coast CVB

Natchez, MS Natchez Balloon Festival

New Iberia, LA Iberia Chamber of Commerce Iberia Parish Convention and Visitors Bureau New Orleans, LA Historic New Orleans Collection Longue Vue House & Gardens New Orleans Ballet Association New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane New Roads, LA Arts council of Pointe Coupee B.E. Boutique City of New Roads Fontaine Lumber Parish Home and Farm Pointe Coupee Parish Tourist Commission The Pointe Mercantile & More Zachary Lumber and Hardware Opelousas, LA St. Landry Parish Tourist Commission

29 9 28

Plaquemine, LA Iberville Parish Library 23 Iberville Parish Tourism Department 16

Port Allen, LA West Baton Rouge CVB West Baton Rouge Museum

Raceland, LA LA Cajun Bayou

26 11 34, 35

Ridgeland, MS Explore Ridgeland

18 15 38

Scott, LA Bob’s Tree Preservation

Shreveport, LA Visit Shreveport-Bossier

Sorrento, LA Ascension Parish Tourism Commission

19 12 33 33 32 33 33 42 33 33

50, 53

St. Francisville, LA 3 Bank of St. Francisville Poppin’ Up Plants 65 Southern Garden Symposium 68 St. Francisville Food & Wine Festival 67 61 Town of St. Francisville Zachary, LA City of Zachary Zachary Lumber and Hardware

47 33

LOCAL EVENT TICKETING powered by Country Roads Magazine St. Francisville Food & Wine Festival

Hosting an Event? Sell more tickets with the only locally based ticket platform.

Get started at hello@bontempstix.com 68

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

// S E P 2 6

Sponsored by Tangipahoa Parish Tourism P E R S P E C T I V E S : A R T O F O U R S TAT E

Mississippi Calls Me PAINTER WILLIAM DUNLAP CAN’T ESCAPE HIS SOUTHERN ROOTS—AND DOESN’T WANT TO Story by Jacqueline DeRobertis-Braun

hile attending college, artist William Dunlap spent one blistering summer working on a road crew, building a section of interstate between Jackson and Canton, Mississippi. Early each morning, Dunlap would arrive at the worksite, chug water, swap stories with the other men, and begin a long day of manual labor. Apparently it was the perfect creative incubator for a young artist’s developing mind. “It was hot, unforgiving work, but I was in the landscape,” he said. “It was just pristine.” Dunlap would soon embark on a fiveplus-decade career as a prolific landscape artist. Throughout his tenure as a mixed-media painter, printmaker, sculptor and photographer, he has exhibited internationally, with works featured in public and private collections, among them the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art. Although he classifies himself as a practitioner of “hypothetical realism” (“These places and things I paint aren’t real, but they could be,” he said in a recent interview, speaking from one of his studios, in Coral Gables, Florida), it is the majesty of America’s natural vistas that provide the flashes of inspiration vital to his creations. “The works are allegorical, whether I want them to be or not,” he observed. “I like to use the word, ‘allegory,’ to suggest that they might be there . . . I’m making paintings that speak to something other than just the picture of the landscape itself.” Growing up in Mississippi and spending time in Texas and the Carolinas, the

eighty-two-year-old Dunlap has long close enough for their ambivalence and been influenced by the sublime beauty contradictions to touch, but not negate of Southern landscapes. When he drives the other. Spend a moment or two with through his old stomping ground, he of- a Dunlap painting, with the rich colors ten dwells on the lives of his grandfathers, and quiet imagery, and you might arrive both farmers and the last of their kind in at the conclusion that the landscape dehis family lines—bearing witness to the picted must be from another time, even land they worked. another century; it is a world that feels “It’s the same landscape,” he said. “I’m just out of reach, but distantly familiar. just doing something different with it.” By composing in the vein of could be, one In a sense, Dunlap continues to repro- gets the feeling Dunlap has tapped other duce that same Deep South landscape, realities, other dimensions, and captured returning to and reviving the lush recol- their impressions on a canvas. What are lections of his youth. He recalls an early his paintings but possibilities, frozen in criticism of his work—that he seems to time? create the same painting over and over “I’m not interested in making photoagain. But that’s the point. “I’m going to graphic realist paintings,” Dunlap said. keep doing it until I get it right,” he said. “I’m interested in paintings that tell a sto“I make these paintings because I want ry. A lot of times, the viewer can look at to see them. If I sell one, that’s a good the painting and get something out of it thing.” I never intended, and I like that. I like to This part of the world haunts his imag- set up the dominos so they fall for everyinings. “The hill country of North Mis- body in a different way.” sissippi is subtly beautiful. It’s not the mountains, there are no great bodies of Surrounded by Storytellers water. But the light’s extraordinary,” he His preoccupation with stories rivals even said. “I’m drawn to the place. That sense that of his obsession with landscapes— of place is so prevalent in the writing of an infatuation he insists he comes by William Faulkner…and people like honestly. Dunlap grew up surrounded by that—it’s true in the art, too.” He de- storytellers (“Language is the birthright scribed a piece he was painting, of moun- of we Southerners,” he argues.) and traces tains in North Carolina—mountains some of his fondest memories back to tallthat somehow still “got a little bit of Mis- tales nights spent with his grandfather. “Whatever sense of oral history I sissippi in it—the fog is definitely Mississippi fog. It’s not North Carolina fog,” he have came from those evenings,” he said. “They’d build a fire, listen to the said. “I mix these things u” This sense of reimagined and rearticu- dogs’ chase. They could tell whether the lated place, the blending of regional ele- hounds had struck a gray or a red fox, and ments, the possibility of some unspoiled who was out front. It was just remarkrural existence, evoke both the Amer- able to be around these guys—it was like ican pastoral and the American Goth- magic, and they had great stories to tell. ic—two sensibilities held in one hand, All this is mixed up in my art practice.” williamdunlacom.

S E P 2 6 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

Dunlap’s interests in oral tradition, in paintings that speak to their viewer, in artists that hunt for the right vista to tell a tale, have yielded an unexpected passion for creative writing. To be fair, he feels the impulse is his inheritance, having observed, during his adolescence, Eudora Welty “wrest[ling] her garbage cans down to the curb.” Such casual proximity to literary greatness could not help but light a fire in him—though he wouldn’t feel it for decades. In 2016, he published his debut story collection, Short Mean Fiction: Words and Pictures (Nautilus Press), and continues to write voraciously—always fiction. (“I really feel that fiction tells a greater truth, if you know what I mean.”) For what it’s worth, he believes this new passion for the written word has stimulated a creative muscle, sharpening Dunlap’s instincts as a visual artist. “I think I’m making some of the best paintings of my life right now, and I’m eighty-two years old. The writing has opened up the painting in a lot of ways,” he said. “The paintings tend to make themselves these days.” Today, Dunlap finds more solace than ever in his Mississippi upbringing. While he has traveled extensively, and now resides in the tropical climes of south Florida, he refuses to shed the Southern identifier that reverberates through his creative endeavors—even through the timbre of his voice. In fact, Dunlap is feeling more Southern “all the damn time.” “Mississippi calls me… you can go away, but you can never get away,” he said. “I never stopped being from the American South. I never stopped being interested in it.” 1

// S E P 2 6