Preservation Hall presents a stage production of Tom Sancton's Song For My Fathers - May 13-15, 21, 22 at Le Chat Noir

Preservation Hall presents
A Stage Production of Tom Sancton’s Book of New Orleans Memoirs
“Song For My Fathers”
featuring Tom Sancton & The Preservation Hall All-Stars
Directed by Ron Rona, Produced by Ben Jaffe
May 13-15, 21, 22 at Le Chat Noir

Click Here For Tickets

In continuing celebration of their Golden Anniverary, Preservation Hall will present five nights of the unique multimedia stage production based on Tom Sancton’s widely acclaimed book of memoirs Song For My Fathers: A New Orleans Story in Black and White at Le Chat Noir on May 13-15 and May 21 & 22. Directed by Ron Rona (The New Orleans Bingo! Show) and produced by Preservation Hall’s Creative Director Ben Jaffe, Song For My Fathers features live readings by Sancton, historic video and photography and live musical interludes featuring The Preservation Hall All-Star band. Song For My Fathers is an insider’s account of a special moment in New Orleans cultural history: the so-called revival of traditional jazz, the phoenix-like return from the ashes of the old players and their music, spearheaded by the founding of Preservation Hall in 1961. Published in 2006, the book was hailed as a “newly minted classic” by the Times-Picayune and was selected by Tulane for the university’s Fall Reading Project that same year.

Sancton grew up in New Orleans. After studies at Harvard and Oxford, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar, he began a 22-year career as a writer, editor, and foreign correspondent for Time Magazine, serving most recently as Paris Bureau Chief. In August 2007, feeling the tug of his roots, Sancton returned to live in New Orleans after a long residence in France in order to take up the Andrew W. Mellon professorship at Tulane, where he currently teaches creative writing.

Preservation Hall is the main venue of this coming-of-age memoir; Sancton’s relationship with the old jazz musicians, who called themselves “the mens,” is the central theme. Most of the original “mens” are long since departed, but the current Preservation Hall players are their successors in carrying forward the New Orleans jazz tradition. The performance at Le Chat Noir is not merely a literary reading, but a unique stage performance that shifts between words and music, past and present, memory and experience.

Watch the teaser video for the show: