World Famous Hamburger @Clover Grill, 900 Bourbon St.
Fatoush Mediterranean Grill,Coffee House & Juice Bar, 2372 St.Claude Ave., #130, 504.371.5074,FatoushRestaurantNOLA.COM, is trulya fresh new restaurant with a 23-yearhistory of serving New Orleans andguests from all over the world. Think ofFatoush as a combination coffee house,herbal teahouse, natural juice bar, andorganic restaurant offering a uniqueselection of the richest and healthiestfoods from around the world.Handcrafted dishes that contain onlythe finest natural ingredients and avariety of cuisines and innovative tasteoffer thrills that are appealing, exciting,and best of all, healthy. Open 7am-10pm daily serving breakfast, lunchand dinner.
Gene's Po-Boys, 1040 ElysianFields, 943.3861, is famous for its NewOrleans style sandwiches chockful ofingredients.
Horn’s, 1940 Dauphine St.,459.4676, is keeping with the traditionof a neighborhood restaurant with amixture of classic New Orleans dishesand comfort food to pass the timeaway in this 160 year old corner cot-tage with an awning to watch the dayand night parades of people passing bywith a cocktail or a delicious cup ofcoffee. Serving dinner Thurs.-Mon.,breakfast & lunch Thurs.-Tues., closedWed.
Lil Vic's Rosticceria, 719Toulouse, 304.1238, is a great stop inthe Quarter for homemade gelato, past-ries, espresso, Sicilian style smallplates, and pizza focaccia. It's the newlate night spot open til 2am Fridays andSaturdays. Open Sun. - Thurs. 7am-11pm, Fri. & Sat. 7am - 2am.
Mona Lisa Restaurant, 1212Royal St., 522.6746, features Italianspecialties including salads, pizzas,sandwiches and both lunch and dinnerentrees. Open Mon.-Thurs. 5-10pm,Fri.-Sun. 11am-10pm.
Orleans Grapevine Wine & BarBistro, 720 Orleans, 523.1930, is lo-cated in a beautiful renovated 1809building offering a pleasant atmosphere,Shrimp, Andouille & Stoneground
Grits @ The Country Club,634 Louisa St.
New Orleans Muffuletta @Restaurant/Deli of the Year
Quartermaster: The Nellie Deli,1100 Bourbon St.
Hot Appetizer Platter @ FatoushMediterranean Grill, Coffee House
& Juice Bar,2372 St. Claude Ave., #130
Special Combo Pizza (pepperoni,Italian sausage, ham, onions,mushrooms, green peppers &black olives with jalapenos &
anchovies optional) @ Mona LisaRestaurant, 1212 Royal St.
Soft Shell Crab BLT (flash friedcrab, BLT & Cajun mayo on
brioche bread served with redbeans & rice) @ Retrouvailles
Bisto, 700 Bourbon St.
Bayou Scampi (shrimp sauteed inwine, garlic & fresh tomatoes with
jazzmen rice) @ Chef Ron'sGumbo Stop, 2309 N. Causeway
Oysters Earl (fresh Gulf oystersbaked with aged asiago cheese &
applewood smoked bacon) @Orleans Grapevine Wine & Bar
Bistro, 720 Orleans
chop chop ...from 24
Arancini (fried rice balls coatedwith breadcrumbs& filled with
ragù-meat sauce, tomato sauce,mozzarella, and peas) @ Lil Vic's
Rosticceria, 719 Toulouse
extensive wine list with 200 selections,and delicious food including soups,salads, appetizers, entrees and housemade desserts that will delight anypalate. Open daily at 4pm serving din-ner Sun.-Thurs. 5-10:30pm, Fri.-Sat.5-11pm.
Quartermaster: The Nellie Deli,1100 Bourbon St., 529.1416,QuartermasterDeli.NET, voted Restau-rant/Deli of the Year, is open 24 hours7 days. Serving breakfast, lunch, din-ner and late night menu, the deli offersfree delivery.
Retrouvailles Bistro & BalconyDining, 700 Bourbon St., 523.1485, isa 2 story historic building on the cornerof Bourbon and St. Peter, offering thelargest balcony dining on Bourbon withall kinds of entrees from steaks, sea-food, pasta, duck and much more. Barhours Mon.-Sun. 11am-11pm, dinnerMon.-Sun. 5-11pm, lunch Fri.-Sun.11am-3pm.
The Ruby Slipper Cafe, 2001Burgundy, TheRubySlipperCafe.Net,525.9355, is a delightful eatery servingbreakfast, lunch and brunch. It has anunusual array of breakfast specialtiesincluding Eggs Blackstone, Croque Ma-dame, Bananas Foster Pain Perdu;signature sandwiches, and entree sal-ads. The restaurant is rated “Very Goodto Excellent” in the Zagat guide as wellas Favorite Place to Eat Breakfast orLunch in New Orleans Magazine Topsof the Town 2012 Awards. Open week-days 7am–2pm, Saturdays 8am–2pmand Sundays 8am–3pm, closedWednesday.
Miss B-Bob's Nov. 2The 2014 Miss B-Bob’s Pageant is
set for Sunday, November 2 in down-town Mobile. Miss Gay America 2006Nicole Du Bois is slated to emcee theaffair, and Miss B-Bob’s 2013 ObsinityIty from Nashville, TN, will be on handto do her final walk and give up thecrown. Obsinity Ity is noted for herfamous Reba impersonation!
Winner takes home a whopping$500, and another $100 on her 2015return. 1st Runner-up wins $150. Thereare 4 competitive categories includingPresentation, Evening Gown, Ques-tion & Answer, and Talent. Entry fee is$125. The Theme for Presentation isemulate your favorite celebrity!
Located at 213 Conti, the pageantbegins promptly at 10pm.
Oxblood at City Park’s Grow Dat Youth Farmthrough November 23
A light drizzle was coming down when I arrived in City Park for Oxblood. It evolvedinto heavier rain before abating and drove off two audience members. But ultimately thissmall nuisance merely added to the wondrous atmosphere of this new outdoor perfor-mance piece.
The innovative theater ensemble New Noise has taken up residency in a fallow fieldto tell the story of Rose (Bonnie Gabel) and Laurel (Kylie Arceneaux), estranged sistersreunited in rural Georgia after their centuries-old family home has burned to the ground.While Rose’s husband Jacob (Phil Cramer) loses himself working on the scarredfarmland, the two sisters grapple over its uncertain future.
It is a simple tale, one that you’ve probably heard before, of one sibling (Laurel) whohas stayed close to ancestral land while the other (Rose) went off to the big city, in thiscase Memphis. But New Noise’s marvelous melding of dance, theater, music andmovement gives it a new immediacy.
Working from Cramer and Bear Hebert’s script, Director Joanna Russo hasseamlessly blended together Composer Brendan Connelly’s evocative score, a mixtureof folk and bluegrass with tinges of both New Age and more traditional church music, andAngelle Hebert’s muscular choreography with its ballet, modern dance and MarthaGraham influences.
Against the open vista, which includes trees dripping with Spanish moss off in thedistance, A. Hebert wonderfully uses the large space, amply filling it with just three people.Hebert, whose work in Macbeth I admired earlier this year, utilizes abstract movementsto convey underlying, often subtle, emotions. At times, action occurs simultaneously closeto and far from the audience, the shift in focus giving Oxblood a cinematic sweep.
Cramer and B. Hebert employ Biblical quotations and themes which bestow atimelessness upon their story. If talk of the land especially resonates in the beautifulvastness of development-free City Park, the authors are nothing if not clear-eyed; “Smalltown life is not Romantic,” says Laurel.
Amidst mostly declarative lines (“Farming is a labor of the Lord.” “This is the placeyour body belongs.”), the phrase describing the family home before lighting struck it, “Ahouse decorated like a ballad,” was particularly poetic.
Connelly’s occasionally eerie and consistently phenomenal score is played and sungto haunting perfection by Renee Anderson, Daron Douglas, and Eli Timm who mostlystand, sheltered, off to the side but are an integral part of Oxblood.
Arceneaux, Cramer, and Gabel give fearless, committed performances that fullyconvey the complexity of their intertwined relationships. I did not envy them having to rollaround in the muddy field, but they seemed to hold nothing back.
Joan Long’s statuesque hulk of the burned family home, with its fireplace chimneylooming, forcefully conveys the monumentality of what was lost.
Despite a running time of only an hour, Oxblood might benefit from a little nip-and-tucking here and there; a ritualistic section involving all six performers did break up thenarrative flow. And observations about slavery and what the Europeans did to NativeAmericans, while completely valid, come off as somewhat preachy in a way the rest of thetext avoids.
Such quibbles aside, however, Oxblood is one of the most impressive works to becreated in New Orleans since another City Park resident five years ago, Loup Garou.
Ducks flew overhead in formation, as rain gave way to a Turneresque sky of grays,whites and blues, and a rainbow appeared above. Can any other theater here offer that?Rain or shine, you’d be wise to make the trip to City Park for Oxblood.
The Mysterious Wisterias (through Nov. 23) andAmerica’s Wartime Sweethearts: A Tribute to TheAndrews Sisters (through June 24) at the WWIIMuseum’s Stage Door Canteen
Two new productions recently opened at the WWII Museum’s Stage Door Canteeneach of which merit distinguished service medals. For sheer entertainment pleasure, it’sone-two punch that can hardly be beat.
The Mysterious Wisterias is a send-up of those classic mid-century mysterieswhere an assorted bunch of folks are trapped in an old mansion on a dark and stormy nightand then bodies start piling up and it looks like one of them may be a murderer. Yikes!
You may have been there, done that before (remember Murder by Death?) but RickyGraham & Sean Patterson, who wrote the script, bring a zingy freshness, along withgroaner jokes and terrible puns, that makes for a fun-filled 90 minutes. Add in over a dozenvintage tunes snazzily done and only a grinch could resist Wisterias’ charms.
Patterson directs with flare, never letting the momentum flag and insuring that all themembers of this krazy krewe have a chance to shine, and shine they all do.
Tracey E. Collins, playing a matron with a taste for younger men, gets some of thebest lines and bats them all out of the ballpark. Her version of Cole Porter’s Find Me aPrimitive Man is a sheer delight.
As a society reporter with grander ambitions, Trina Beck proves once again she’s an
A++ triple threat singer/dancer/actress.Matthew Mickal happily fulfills the de-mands of a vaudeville yukyuk comic andprovides even more ridiculous amuse-ment doing a Carmen Miranda numbercomplete with fruit headdress.
I tend to think of Brittney M. Jamesas a dramatic actress from her Ambie-winning turn in Little Bit and had forgot-ten how fine a singer she is until shelaunched into Sing You Sinners. I won’tforget that again. James also brought alight comic touch to the mansion’s care-taker.
Unlike his klutzy Andrews Brotherin a previous Canteen show, RichardArnold’s tuxedoed Italian gigolo with a
secret or two is all suave allure, whether singing, dancing or just standing around lookinghandsome.
With her fantastic voice that’s clear as crystal, Hannah Rachal, a face new to me, wasthe consummate incarnation of a ditzy blonde Broadway hopeful. I look forward to seeingmore of her around town.
That Musical Director Tom Hook tickled the ivories with his usual masterly touch cameas no surprise, but in Wisterias he demonstrated he could act too. Okay, he may not bethe next Olivier, but he certainly held his own among these pros.
And then there’s Graham whose bewigged first entrance in a rose-colored and -appliqued dress (one of the many delights of Kathleen Van Horn’s costumes) shows thatdrag—and not just silly drag—has a place at the WWII Museum. I don’t want to give awaytoo much more, but Graham’s performance in toto is one of the best star turns this townhas seen in a while.
Heidi Malnar’s pert choreography gets laughs and seems just right for the period.As with most such dinner theater shows, The Mysterious Wisterias doesn’t traffic
in deep thoughts or precise logic but its silly fun is a welcome antidote to all the recentbad headlines (Ebola, ISIS, etc.). Much the same, I suppose, as those escapist musicalsand comedies were during World War II.
A trio featured in many of those light-hearted films are spotlighted in America’sWartime Sweethearts: A Tribute to The Andrews Sisters, a sprightly hour-longintroduction to a group that virtually defined the decade.
Following other such revues that paid tribute to Frank Sinatra and Louis Prima, theCanteen’s Director of Entertainment Victoria Reed has discovered just the right ratio ofwords to music for these entertainments.
With over 30 numbers, the balance rightly tilts towards the music but along the waywe learn that oldest sister Laverne was the only one who could read music; the triorecorded over 600 tunes, sold over 90 million records and was the best selling group duringWWII; and that they were inspired by the Boswell Sisters of New Orleans.
After covering songs like Alexander’s Ragtime Band, they scored their first hit withBei Mir Bist Du Schön, the most popular song of 1938. From then on, they performed withsome of the top bands in the land; joined Glenn Miller on his radio show; entertained troopsall over the country; and appeared in countless movies.
Reed’s supple direction unobtrusively keeps Sweethearts moving along fluidly whileoccasionally getting audience members involved, including yours truly, for a little lightdancing with the featured performers, the Canteen’s in-house trio, the Victory Belles.Reed’s inclusion of clips from some of the Sisters’ films is a nice touch though some ofthem seemed slightly out of focus.
Malnar’s choreography here is simple but period-appropriate and inventively en-hances the vocals.
With their creamy voices and terrific harmonies, the Belles (Shelbie Mac, CristinaPerez, Mandi Ridgdell) gorgeously recreate the sound of that era without slavishlyimitating the Andrews Sisters. The threeof them lovingly capture the stylisticdifferences of the Sisters, effortlesslyshifting from a polka medley to a Latinone.
Canteen veterans Perez andRidgdell take Maxine’s high andLaverne’s low parts, respectively, leav-ing Patty’s leads to newcomer Mac,who’s an absolutely adorable blonde.Vocally, they’re all perfect; some mis-steps in the dancing I’m sure will becorrected once they get a few moreperformances under their belts.
From Rum and Coca Cola to Don’tSit Under the Apple Tree and BoogieWoogie Bugle Boy, four generationsafter these songs sat at the top of the hitparade, they still hold up as archetypalpop tunes. The Andrews Sisters mayhave been “America’s Wartime Sweet-hearts,” but if there’s any justice, the
Hannah Rachal, Matthew Mickal,Brittney M. James, Ricky Graham,Tom Hook and Trina Beck in The
Mysterious Wisterias
Cristina Perez, Shelbie Mac & MandiRidgdell in America's WartimeSweethearts A Tribute to The
Andrews Sisterscatchy songs they made famous will liveon forever.
In addition to the outstanding enter-tainment, pre-show dining options are avail-
able at the Canteen. The wait staff is friendlyand scrupulously professional and the food
