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BlackAmericana Fest returns to New Orleans this fall with a two-day celebration of Black roots music, culture, and community. Taking place September 26–27, 2025 at The Broadside, this year’s festival features a dynamic lineup of nationally recognized artists and homegrown talent shaping the future of Americana, folk, and country.
The 2025 line up Includes: Dom Flemons, The Suffers, Sunny War, Leyla McCalla, Nikki Hill, DK Harrell, Dusky Waters, AJ Haynes, Kelly Love Jones, Teena May, Kenny Neal, Crys Matthews, The Wild Magnolias, Sunpie and the Louisiana Sunspots, and more to be announced. Tickets are on sale now at blackamericanafest2025.eventbrite.com - General Admission Weekend Pass: $30 (+fees) - VIP Weekend Pass: $95 (+fees) — includes curated tastings by our beverage sponsor, priority seating at the Roots of Rhythm panel series, and access to the VIP Lounge. - Tickets for children 11 and under are free with registration on Eventbrite. BlackAmericana Fest is an all ages event. BlackAmericana Fest 2025 will feature live music across three stages, including a dedicated indoor space at The Broad Theater, plus outdoor performances and activations throughout The Broadside venue. Crescent City Stage presents the New Orleans premiere of Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B, a fast-paced comedy by acclaimed playwright Kate Hamill. Opening August 28th, 2025 and running through September 14, performances will take place at the Marquette Theater on the
Loyola University campus. In a reimagining of the beloved Sherlock Holmes mythos, Hamill’s fresh adaptation gives the legendary detectives a feminist, contemporary spin. This time, Sherlock Holmes and Joan Watson are roommates navigating mystery, trauma, and digital overload in a post-pandemic world. With sharp humor, physical comedy, and a pulse on modern anxieties, Holmes and Watson are an Odd Couple for the age of Instagram and anxiety. Directed by CCS Artistic Director Elizabeth Newcomer, the production features Lorene Chesley as Sherlock Holmes, Brittany Chandler as Dr. Joan Watson, Sarah Colbert Cutrer as Irene Adler & others, and Jarrod Smith as Lestrade & others. All performances take place at the Marquette Theater at Loyola University (6365 St. Charles Ave), Thursday through Sunday. Special event nights—including talkbacks and themed post-show gatherings—can be found on the company’s website: www.crescentcitystage.com where tickets are now on sale. Locally beloved culinary institution Commander's Palace has some wine and cheese dinners on the horizon, each with interesting pairings. They're part of the Meg & Co Dinner Series, with executive chef Meg Bickford and friends.
On August 19, 2025, Chef Meg Bickford is joined by local legend, Dan Stein. The dinner will feature wine pairings from their Wine Guy, Dan Davis. A portion of proceeds from this dinner will go to Dan's charity of choice - Dryades YMCA Summer Camp. Tickets can only be purchased in groups of 2, 4, or 6. The party starts at 6:15pm. The same details apply for September 30th, when James Beard award winning chef and beloved pillar in the New Orleans community, Susan Spicer will be the guest. A portion of proceeds from this dinner will be donated to Susan's charity of choice - Unity of Greater New Orleans. Click here for more information and booking links.  Fantastic Four: First Steps
Review by Jeff DeRouen Again, I’m not really the guy to analyze comic book movies because (aside from some obvious cinematic masterpieces) I look at them as pretty much all the same, really: little fables with a bunch of action, awesome special effects, and perfect entertainment for a Saturday afternoon. While Superman certainly delivers a more compelling and sharper script, Fantastic Four is the one for the WHOLE family to enjoy. The acting is fine, the script is on the nose but gets the job done, and there are truly exceptional elements in the movie. The effects are the best we’ve seen in a Marvel flick in a good while (Galactus, the villain, is huge and so cool to look at on the big screen) and folks are positively raving about the incredible production design by Kasra Farahani. He makes retro look fresh, and the colors pop off the screen. It’s slick and fun, but I disagree with the folks who are likening it to The Jetsons – this looks to me like if Disney’s Tomorrowland (the park, not the movie) got it right. By the way, Disney’s Tomorrowland got nothing right: we all want to kill each other, and the billionaires are gonna make that easier by unleashing AI overlords; no happy robots and moon colonies here. Look, if comic book movies aren’t your thing, there’s plenty out there to choose from. Adults who are looking for more substance should go see Eddington or 28 Years Later. Folks who want something a little smarter than the regular Hollywood fare, and also big and loud, should see Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning or even F1, but The Fantastic Four: First Steps is unabashedly for all ages. What I mean is it adequately covers all the bases: it’s perfect for the family unit, the young middle schoolers going on their first date, and college kids on mushrooms. There’s something for everyone. So get up, comb your hair, grab the nice underwear, and get out to the picture show! Arnaud’s French 75 Bar is turning up the summer vibes with a chic seasonal transformation: French 75 à Saint-Tropez. In partnership with Moët & Chandon, this vibrant pop-up invites guests to escape to the Mediterranean coast without leaving the French Quarter. It’s a limited-time experience running July 28–September 7.
Menu highlights include: • Lobster Rolls • Tuna Tartare • Gougère au fromage • Soufflé Potatoes • Sorbet Pour Overs (available in cucumber lime, watermelon jalapeno, peach) For more information visit www.arnaudsrestaurant.com Due to popular demand, the Tennessee Williams Theatre Company's production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is extending its run through August 3rd.
From our critic Dorian Hatchett: "Big Daddy has two sons, the nihilist Brick, who he idealizes as his perfect heir, and Gooper (Andrew Neiman) who sought to impress his father by becoming him, and who has only earned his ire in return. Together with their machiavellian wives, Maggie the Cat and Mae (played by the always fantastic Monica R. Harris) tempers coalesce and secrets and lies are confronted head on in a single evening of explosive family drama." Read the full review here! Congregation Coffee Roasters’ second cafe location on the corner of Magazine Street and Jefferson Avenue (900 Jefferson Avenue) is now open. The café will serve its traditional coffee menu (roasted at its nearby roastery at 1746 Tchoupitoulas St.) featuring year-round staple blends, rotating seasonal single origin coffees and bagged coffees for home. In addition, guests can enjoy breakfast pastries and more from the Ralph Brennan Bakery along with Congregation Coffee merchandise. Summer hours of operation will be Thursday - Monday, 7am-3pm, with expanded hours to come in the fall.
Congregation’s retail coffee is available to purchase online at www.congregationcoffee.com with weekly, bi-weekly or monthly home delivery options. They also offer a gifted monthly coffee subscription (3, 6 or 12-month gifting options), sending the gift of coffee directly to your loved one’s doorstep. For more information on Congregation Coffee Roasters, wholesale partnership opportunities and more, visit www.congregationcoffee.com, call (504) 265-0194 or email [email protected]. BlackAmericana Fest returns to the Broadside: Friday, September 26 and Saturday, September 27th. You can be among the first to grab your passes - weekend passes are discounted right now during the limited pre-sale.
There are two ticket tiers:
Need support accessing tickets? They have set aside a limited number of free community tickets for those who need them. TICKETS: blackamericanafest2025.eventbrite.com  Review by Jeff DeRouen
The question of how to use Covid and the reality of those “lockdown” days in entertainment has plagued the industry and artists since our collective masks came off. How do you portray a miserable time in everyone’s life where each day brought a new catastrophe in the world, a fresh social media battle, and hours of Andrew Cuomo talking out loud to no one on CNN. How do you begin to explore what all of that was and what it means now? If you’re Ari Aster, one of our greatest living filmmakers, you make Eddington, the story of a tiny town during the Covid epidemic and use that town as an allegory to show us exactly how insane we all really were and, sadly, still are. Aster’s brilliant new movie is hilarious, shocking, and guaranteed to join the ranks of great American satires like Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove and Altman’s Nashville. Joaquin Phoenix embodies Joe Cross, the Sherrif, who runs for mayor against his arch enemy and incumbent, Ted Garcia, played pitch perfectly by Pedro Pascal. Sheriff Cross is anti-mask where Mayor Garcia and the majority of folks in Eddington (who are not afraid to shame the maskless in public) want the mandates enforced. Add Black Lives Matter protests and performative white people to the mix and you get a VERY funny movie that no one knows if they should laugh with (you absolutely should). The movie feels and is shot like a modern western with echoes of legendary director John Ford and action maestro John Woo. After films like Hereditary, Midsommar, and the criminally underseen and appreciated dark comedy masterpiece, Beau is Afraid, Aster has become a master storyteller and changes the stakes of the film constantly. He keeps us on our toes trying to figure out who’s good and who’s bad or who’s right and who’s wrong: the answer is no one and everyone. The heat under the narrative gets turned up slowly until all the worst parts of ourselves and the conspiracies we believe and promote play out for us in the delightful third act that can only be described as “full blown bat shit”. We always say, “Hollywood needs to make more original movies” and here is one to support. I absolutely adore Eddington, but I understand it may not be everyone’s bowl of chilli. You may not like it (and that’s ok!) or even understand it, but you will not deny that Eddington is wildly imaginative, unpredictable and, good or bad, will have folks talking – the way good art is supposed to. And I just want to end this review by mentioning the magnificent Deirdre O’Connel who plays Joe’s mother-in-law. She was recently seen on HBO in a sensational performance as the Penguin’s mother and she does stellar work here as Joe’s mother-in-law, a delusional (maybe?) conspiracy believer. Go see this movie. The theatre company has announced its 2025-2026 Season, with the titles all revolving around iconic texts.
“The NOLA Project’s 21st Season is a love letter to the power of storytelling,” said Artistic Director Tenaj Wallace. “Each play this season was carefully curated and invites us to wrestle with big ideas about who we are, what we inherit, and how we choose to rise. Whether it’s a darkly comic take on a literary legend, a barbecue-laced reimagining of Shakespeare, a timeless tale of a woman’s wrath and grief, or a searing exploration of injustice in our own backyard, I’m thrilled to lead The NOLA Project into this rich textual terrain and to keep creating theatre that’s as fearless and layered as this city.” Season 21 opens in the fall with FRANKENSTEIN, a world-premiere collaboration with Lafitte Greenway Partnership, directed by ensemble member Leslie Claverie, at the Station at Lafitte Greenway October 2-17. Next is FAT HAM, a co- production with Dillard University. In James Ijames’ delectably comic, Pulitzer Prize-winning reinvention of HAMLET, what starts as a boisterous barbecue quickly turns into a haunting examination of love, loss, pain and joy. FAT HAM – directed by Wallace – runs January 15-February 6, 2026, at Dillard’s Cook Theater. For the final mainstage production of the season, The NOLA Project takes another classic outdoors with MEDEA, a second collaboration with Lafitte Greenway Partnership. Audiences have been captivated by one woman’s quest for vengeance as far back as 431 BC. Directed by Claverie and Wallace, MEDEA plays at the Greenway May 15-30, 2026. See The NOLA Project website for more details |
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