Letters Read is the ongoing series of events in which local performers interpret historically interesting letters and written documents by culturally vital individuals from various times and Louisiana communities. Now in it’s ninth consecutive season.
Produced by stationer, Nancy Sharon Collins, in conjunction with fiscal partner Antenna, each reading brings general audiences into intimate moments usually experienced while reading a personal letter from one whom one knows.
Since May 2017, this series has partnered with cultural institutions and commercial establishments providing primary source content and programming to general audiences. Examples are Goat in the Road Productions, Newcomb Institute, Neal Auction Company, Pitot House, Alliance Française de La Nouvelle-Orléans, Acting Up (in Acadiana), Alexandria Museum of Art, Louisiana State Museum, Amistad Research Center, Loyola University New Orleans Special Collections & Archives, Louisiana Division/City Archives & Special Collections, Hermann-Grima+Gallier Historic Houses, The National World War II Museum, The Historic New Orleans Center Williams Research Center, Vorhoff Library Special Collections, and Bastion|Community of Resilience, Frenchman Art & Books, The Orange Couch, and The Faerie Playhouse.
Letters Read provides unique glimpses into thoughts meant only for two people, the author, and the recipient. Letters we read from a close friend or relative can be as mundane as who brings Thanksgiving turkey and as complex as explanations of hardship. Personal letters can also explode with emotion, and express tenderness and love. Three times annually the readings are from institutional archives, special collections, and personal and business records.
Once a year this project provides an opportunity to include contemporary material. All events, those based on history and those with content that is new, strive to use intimate, written, human interactions as models for how we get along today.
To further explain the power we perceive in reading letters, offered here is a quote from Donald Windham. Williams and Windham were long-time friends and collaborators. In this passage, Windham describes reading one of Tennessee’s letters addressed to him.
‘They are as intimate as his presence was and often more informative. To read them is to know why I liked him. Alone with his typewriter, he talked to me almost as to an ideal listener, as though he knew that my faith in him was total. If he sometimes, uses his phrase, “striking poses on paper”, they are poses for himself not for someone else.’
For the full list of previous events, go here.