How good is your ‘Stellaaaaa’? Do your best at the Tennessee Williams fest this weekend.
If you’ve ever fancied yourself a basic kind of man driven by simple (violent) desires, you might like to enter the 2023 Stella Shouting contest, which takes place this weekend, ahead of next week’s Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival.
It will entail, one assumes, a Bourbon Street packed with belligerant men in singlets and aging beauties who frustrate and tempt, as punters attempt to recreate the famous scene from A Streetcare Named Desire, in which Stanley, working-class husband and bad brother-in-law, cries out in remorse to his wife after punching her: Stellaaaaaaaaaaa. Catalyst and dreamer Blanche Du Bois looks on.
This year, the festival is partnering with the New Orleans Family Justice Center, a collective dedicated to ending domestic violence, and this year, as in all years, trams will not feature prominently.
The yelling will commence this Sunday, March 19! Torn shirts optional.