7th Ward Tony

New Orleans playwright Fernando Rivera debuts his one-act play, 7th Ward Tony, based on a poem of the same name by Mona Lisa Saloy in her book Black Creole Chronicles.

The book is the focus of One Book One New Orleans' 2024 citywide reading and literacy outreach. This play is part of an onoing series of events celebrating Dr. Saloy's work.

Free and open to the public; donations gratefully accepted. Donations support One Book One New Orleans' year-round work.

The Andre Callioux Center for Performing Arts and Cultural Justice is accessible to community members who require mobility-related ADA accommodations. Parking near the venue is free, though somewhat limited. The nearest RTA stop is at N. Broad and Columbus.

MEET THE WRITERS

Fernando is a New Orleans native and graduate of UNO's Creative Writing Workshop. His CatholicHigh School comedy one-act Ants in Magnolias or Most Holy Trinity received a reading in fall of2022. His one-act 52 Schill or Butter & Chocolate received a reading with lmnl summer 2023 at theDomino on St. Claude, featuring Big Easy Award winning and nominated actors. The Words andMusic Festival hosted a lmnl-produced reading of Southern tragic-comic one-act, What Do YouMean, Abilene? at the André Cailloux Center for Performing Arts and Cultural Justice fall 2024. Heread and performed a ten-minute play, Good in the Neighborhood of Evil, at the Domino for lmnl’sWinterFest. His thesis, a full-length stage adaptation of Andrew Holleran's 1978 novel Dancer fromthe Dance, received a coffee shop workshop with the author during the 2024 Tennessee WilliamsLiterary Festival.

Mona Lisa Saloy, Ph.D. Louisiana Poet Laureate 2021-2023, is author, folklorist, Louisiana FolklifeCommissioner, educator, and scholar of Creole culture in articles, documentaries, and poemsabout Black New Orleans before and after Katrina; Conrad N. Hilton Endowed Professor of English,Dillard University. Books: Red Beans & Ricely Yours (has a banned poem“The N Word”),won theT.S. Eliot Prize and the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award. Second Line Home, on New OrleansBlack Creole culture. Recent pubs: The Chicago Quarterly Review, Vol 33;“Introduction”to BlackFire!!! This Time II; Southern Voices: fifty contemporary poets, (Tom Mack & Andrew Geyer eds.)Literary Press, Lamar University, Fall 2024. Black Creole Chronicles: Poems (UNO Press 2023),choice for ONE BOOK ONE NEW ORLEANS 2024, & Book of the Month, The Whitney PlantationMuseum. Mona Lisa Saloy writes for those who don’t or can’t tell Black Creole cultural stories.www.monalisasaloy.com Tweet to @redbeansista

FEATURED ACTORS

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