The 1951 film of Tennessee Williams’s New Orleans-set A Streetcar Named Desire won multiple Academy Awards and is considered a landmark of American cinema. To prepare for the August 24, 2020, #NolaMovieNight group re-watch of the film, First Draft returned to local dialect coach and acting teacher Francine Segal for insight into the film’s accents (always of interest to New Orleanians) and acting styles.
When she died in June 2019 at age 96, Leah Chase was celebrated as a New Orleans legend, icon, and inspiration. During research for 2009’s animated The Princess and Frog, directors Ron Clements and John Musker called on Chase’s life story and culinary renown—a journey from French Quarter waitress to James Beard Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award recipient—as inspiration for the character of Tiana, Disney’s first African American princess.
Casino Royale became Stormy’s Casino Royale in 1948, named for (but not owned by) its star act, Stacy “Stormy” Lawrence. The club became known for featuring some of the most outlandish acts on Bourbon Street.
Curator/Historian Eric Seiferth takes us through the music scene on Bourbon Street in the 1950s.
The city's second-oldest neighborhood is full of history. All it takes is a walk along the levee to see it. Join THNOC Head of Photography Keely Merrit as she gives us a tour of her neighborhood.
This 18th-century tool is an ancestor of the waffle iron, but it tells a much wider story—of religion, foodways, and female enterprise.
Our staff members are often the ones studying major historic events, but sometimes we live through them. This is the story of our Associate Editor Nick Weldon who came down with COVID-19 at the height of the global pandemic.
As New Orleans reels under the global outbreak of the new coronavirus, lessons from a 100-year-old pandemic have come back with a new urgency.
Mardi Gras as we know it began in New Orleans in the second half of the 19th century, and the mythology that krewes chose for their parade themes reflects larger stylistic and sociopolitical currents of the time.
In 1997, a THNOC employee found a bullet in a courtyard that was fired into the air on New Year's Eve. The discovery came during a particularly fraught time in the history of New Year's celebrations in New Orleans.
