LETTERS READ

From 1981 to 1998, K. (Kenneth) Brad Ott wrote, edited, and published the grassroots Dialogue Newsjournal reporting community activism and activities in New Orleans. This third mini podcast in the four-part LETTERS READ series is produced in support of LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana and New Orleans AIDS MemoryProject. Antenna is LETTERS READ fiscal sponsor. This podcast is about activism. Independent publishing in the later part of the 20th Century. At a time when mainstream media would not, The Dialogue Newsjournal published progressive ideas in New Orleans questioning social issues such as: immigration and poverty, police corruption, racism, reproductive rights, gay bashing and AIDS paranoia, that strange new disease plaguing the male gay population, intravenous drug users, sex workers, and marginal members of society country-wide. Until 1982, there wasn’t even a name for the disease later known as HIV|AIDS. Letters Read is an ongoing series in which local performers interpret letters and written documents about culturally vital individuals from various times and Louisiana communities—focusing on New Orleans. Now in its eighth consecutive season. Performances are free and open to the general public.

In conjunction with LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana, Letters Read brings you this first of four, mini podcasts on the early days of HIV|AIDS. This segment is based on original source material from the 1990s ACT UP organization, here. These ACT UP New Orleans records, from the second, local itiration, were collected, and stored, by Mark Gonzalez. A loyal and very active member. I thank him for allowing me access to these files and for answering my many many questions about the organization and the arc of the group’s history. Photo: Early New York City ACT UP demonstration. A nod to the failed relationship between New Orleans ACT UP and the Big City folk.

Listen to this clip from an interview with Jarret Lofstead whose role it was to wade through, and strategically process, thousands, and thousands, of pages of court documents building the Letters Read narrative for the Jospehine Louise Newcomb readings. Lofstead is a writer/researcher and producer at The Bend Media + Productions. Whose recent release is the documentary film, George Dureau: New Orleans Artist. Lofstead spends a fair amount of his career dealing with topics in the humanities. Including social justice and jurisprudince. Two prominent Letters Read themes. Lofstead was instrumental in bringing information and perspective to the full program, Letters of Josephine Louise Newcomb performed live April 13, 2024, and available here.

This production was created from material collected during the creation of Drugs, Sex, Rock & Roll: A Year of Magic and Wonder. Which coincided with the project’s director/writer’s move back from New York to New Orleans. Quoting from the script, Collins’s observation was that moving home was “kind of like sleeping with an old lover.” Meanwhile, significant municipal water issues collided in both cities and, in the Middle East. Audio production is by Steve Chyzyk, ⁠⁠Sonic Canvas Studio⁠⁠. Want to support this compelling series, we'd love you to. Go to ⁠⁠https://lettersread.net/donate/⁠⁠. IMAGE: Henniker, Frederick. Notes, During a Visit to Egypt, Nubia, the Oasis, Mount Sinai, and Jerusalem. London: John Murray, 1823. Shown above is an aquatint fold-out view of Jerusalem “whose precision could let a traveler use it for wayfinding.” —https://www.drawingpalestine.com/jerusalem.htm

Continuing our New York/New Orleans journey, we bring you the only project Robert Moses ever did in the Crescent City. Locally referred to as the ⁠Riverfront Expressway⁠. Robert Moses, the greatest builder New York has ever known, is so often credited with it. Even though it never happened. As frequently, he is also incorrectly blamed for the Claiborne Expressway. That, horrendously, did. This podcast is part of the ongoing script development for a fully realized live performance later this year about Moses, his engagement in this project, and the historic outcomes. The reading is based on primary source research in The Robert Moses Collection at the New York Public Library and Moses’ 1946 Arterial Plan for New Orleans commissioned by the state of Louisiana. Additional information comes from newspaper articles, past and current, hearsay, Facebook, Robert Caro’s The Power Broker, Richard Baumbach and William Borah’s The Second Battle of New Orleans, and Hilary Ballon’s Robert Moses and the Modern City. For information on the current fight to remove the Claiborne Overpass and links to other resources used for this production, go to lettersread.net/resources.

Premiering 6:00 pm EDT New Years’ Eve 2022, LEMONS TO LEMONADE. And available here thereafter. Finishing up the Lady Louisiana Artist series for 2022 is a true lemons to lemonade story. Magen Raine Gladden. Commercial artist. She was born into a hippy dirt road collective along River Road in South Louisiana with a lifetime of health challenges. Now a leader through the lens of workplace equity and inclusivity rights. This podcast goes live on December 31st. Shadow Angelina Starkey reads as Gladden. Shadow is a Cajun poet and photographer whose family has called New Orleans home since 1727. Geoff Munsterman—poet, editor, & book artist from Plaquemines Parish now living in New Orleans’ Holy Cross neighborhood—narrates. Find out more about six full programming seasons at LETTERS READ. Want to support this compelling series, we'd love you to. Go to https://lettersread.net/donate/.

Co-hosted by Neal Auction Company. Angela Gregory was born to the New Orleans intellectual white elite in 1903. A time when proper ladies accompanied their mother to country club tea. With her parent’s blessing, Angela took a different path. At an early age, she knew that she wanted to be an artist. Not just an artist, a sculptress in stone, to be precise! Her earliest influence was her mother, Selina Brès Gregory. A Newcomb College alum and recognized Newcomb Pottery artist. Angela was precocious. When 14, she learned clay modeling and relief casting from Ellsworth Woodward at Newcomb. She also took classes from Albert Rieker at the Arts and Crafts Club in New Orleans and spent a summer working in the New York studio of Charles Keck. She graduated from Newcomb in 1925. With her parent’s patronage, she moved to Paris to study art. It is to be remembered that in 1925 it would be rare if not impossible for a lady to travel abroad alone without a husband, brother, or other trusted chaperone such as a matron auntie. Life as in independent individual was squarely the privilege of men. For the determined Angela, this was no barrier. In Paris, she became the only American ever to study in Antoine Bourdelle’s stone sculpture studio. Angela Gregory credited her unusual success as a an early lady artist to Bourdelle’s tutelage and belief in her as an artist. In the middle of the twentieth century when women had just been granted the vote, Angela Gregory became the “doyenne of Louisiana sculpture”. Producing major public and private art commissions significant today. This podcast quotes from Gregory and Nancy Penrose's biography of Angela Gregory, from which the image can be found, A Dream and a Chisel. Angela Gregory’s artwork, and that of many of her influences such as Selina Brès Gregory, William and Ellsworth Woodward, Newcomb pottery, are prized valuable pieces of art today. Her independent drive also influenced artists living today such as lady Louisiana artist, Jacqueline Bishop. Many Louisiana artists in this podcast are supported by Neal.

Wrapping-up the previous programming season, Doing Business in New Orleans, we present the story of Clay Shaw. On March 1, 1967, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison arrested him on conspiracy charges. Shaw was a beloved, successful, local businessman, and closeted queer man. On January 29, 1969, Garrison tried Shaw in Orleans Parish Criminal Court on three conspiracy charges. A little over a month later the jury took less than one hour to acquit Shaw. After, “…jurors expressed their bewilderment as to motive. Respectable socialite Clay Shaw, it strained credulity as to why he would become involved in the murder of the President. Jim Garrison believed that Shaw was acting as Oswald’s shepherd in New Orleans, under instructions from CIA. But he couldn’t prove it, certainly not beyond a reasonable doubt.” —Joan Mellen. Many theories swirl around these, now infamous, Big Easy characters. Both Shaw and Garrison. This reading strives to represent the man who was Clay Shaw and, to a lesser extend, who was Garrison. Robert Valley reads as the voice of Shaw, David Zalkind is Jim Garrison. Audio production is by Steve Chyzyk, Sonic Canvas Studio. PHOTO: 1956. Clay Shaw dressed for Mardi Gras. From an original 35mm slide in a boxed tray labelled, “Carnival, 2/14/56. Sally Del Sue Ray.” Property and copyright of Letters Read.