Letters Read : The Hermann & Grima family letters

Letters Read: The Hermann & Grima family letters
6:30-8pm, Thursday, June 29th, 2017
Hermann-Grima House,  820 St. Louis Street
Tickets at the door are $10 (regular admission) / $7 Seniors / $5 Members (Including Antenna::Signals Subscribers!)

Letters Read is a series of live events produced in collaboration with stationer Nancy Sharon Collins in which performers interpret personal letters written by individuals vital to the history and culture of New Orleans.

Letters will be read by thespian and burlesque historian Ashton Akridge, Big Easy Award winner Richard Mayer, along with Aaron Richert, currently performing in Tulane’s Summer Lyric Theatre.

This event gives a special glimpse into the personal lives of a few, well-to-do, French Quarter residents from the antebellum era to battlefield accounts during the Civil War. Letters include: a love triangle resulting in a duel, antiquated healthcare techniques such as blood letting with leeches and home made small pox remedies—and—the occasional personal request (heavily paraphrased here) “dear brother…while you’re out and about during your Parisian stay, would you mind picking up for me a little opium?”

In addition to HGGHH staff, several institutions and individuals are instrumental in making this Letters Read segment possible: Jenny Dyer, Education Director, HGGHH, Nicole Horne, Tulane University doctoral candidate for translating, editing, and notating some of the letters, Tulane University Howard-Tilton Memorial Library and The Historic New Orleans Collection Williams Research Center (WRC) where some of the letters are housed. Thanks also to M. L. Eichhorn, Senior Reference Associate at WRC, and Dr. Adrienne McFaul helping formulate the evening’s introduction.

Photo: Pocket surgical instrument case, used by Dr. Victor Grima (1837-1877) Charrière, Paris, circa 1860-65. Courtesy of the Hermann-Grima + Gallier Historic Houses, Gift of Joseph Grima Bernard