New Orleans Shakespeare Festival at Tulane

Jazz Funeral to Greet First Folio

Tulane University in New Orleans will welcome the Folger Library's traveling exhibit of William Shakespeare's First Folio May 9 in a manner unique to that Louisiana city: with a Jazz Funeral for Shakespeare.

A copy of the First Folio from the Folger Library's collection is visiting every state in the United States this year as part of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. It will reside in the Newcomb Art Museum on Tulane's uptown campus from May 9–31.

As part of the exhibit's grand opening celebration, the Liberty Brass Band conducted by Michael White will do a traditional Jazz Funeral parade, and alumni, faculty, students, staff, parents, and the general public are invited to provide the second line. Tulane University is also sending the Wendell Brunious Band to England to provide a Jazz Funeral element in Stratford-upon-Avon's formal procession celebrating Shakespeare on April 23.

Visitors to the First Folio exhibition in New Orleans will also have the opportunity to trace across the Tulane campus an "archival circuit" of rare materials connected with the history of book publication in Shakespeare's age in the Howard-Tilton Library Special Collections Department; Shakespeare and race, at the Amistad Research Center; and Shakespeare and gender, at the Newcomb Archives and Vorhoff Library Special Collections Library.

Other events surrounding the exhibit and anniversary observance include the following:

• April 28, the 27th annual Josephine Gessner Ferguson lecture will feature James Shapiro, internationally renowned Shakespeare biographer and scholar, who will speak on “Shakespeare in America” in the Freeman Auditorium, Woldenberg Art Center, 6 p.m.
• May 3–June 4, “Merry as the Day Is Long: Shakespeare's Hand in New Orleans" exhibition in the Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street, Tuesday–Saturday, 9:30–4:30 p.m. Admission to the exhibition is free.
• May 15, a high school teacher workshop on the site of the First Folio exhibition by Scott Oldenburg, Tulane associate professor of English, Newcomb Art, 1–3 p.m. To apply, contact the Tulane English Department at english@tulane.edu.
• May 16, “Sonnets in the Gallery,” a reading of Shakespeare's love poetry on the site of the First Folio exhibition hosted by Peter Cooley, Tulane professor of English and Poet Laureate of the State of Louisiana), 1–3 p.m. Open to the public.
• May 18, public lecture, “All the World's a Stage: Shakespeare on the Stages and Streets of New Orleans" by Oliver Hennessey, professor, English Department, Xavier University, at 6 p.m., WRC, 410 Chartres Street. Admission to the exhibition and the lecture is free.
• May 20–22, "Shakespeare and the Alchemy of Gender," a one-person show by Lisa Wolpe, Shakespearean actor and interpreter, in the Lupin Theatre, Tulane Campus, as part of the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival at Tulane, at 7:30 pm. For ticket information, click here.
• May 28, Family Workshop, a workshop for families at the New Orleans Public Library (branch location TBA) by Adam McKeown, Tulane associate professor of English, 1–3 p.m., open to the public.

February 22, 2016

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