From the 51st Annual Tulane Educational Conference - January 31, 2004
Voices of Experience: Early Television & Community Theatre in New Orleans
Stocker Fontelieu (Arts & Science'49), an icon in local theater as director, manager and actor for over five decades, shares his reminiscences of various enterprises, productions and personalities.
Linda Mintz (Newcomb'55) has been seen on many local stages over a varied career in theatre and musical productions. Her films include Sweet Charity with Melissa Gilbert and Cecily Tyson, Malpractice and Jake Lassiter: Justice on the Bayou. Her television career began as a seamless transition from her radio career with Let's Tell a Story when she was only nineteen. Along with pal Terry Flettrich, she defined the early years of local children's programming, enchanting generations as Romper Room's Miss Linda until she was forty. She reprised her child-friendly persona as recently as two months ago with a TV special, Miss Muffin's Thanksgiving. Her reminiscences include her later television work on the Passionate Poet and Dark Secrets.
Ed Nelson (Arts &Science '53/University College 2000) once sat between Walter Pigeon and Victor George on the Screen Actors' Guild board of directors. But in the beginning, he was the first floor director at WDSU when Mel Leavitt was doing news live, Flettrich was doing children's TV, and Tulane had a Peabody Award winning live program called Tulane Close Up, on which Ed also acted. He spent 6 years in local community theatre before heading to Hollywood, when Le Petit & Gallery were the only serious theatres in town. Nelson is a member of the Academy, currently judging tapes for the Awards. Starting off with monster pictures, then westerns for nine years and a soap for five, he has possibly done more television and films - over 1500 television shows and 60 movies - in 45 years in Hollywood, than any other New Orleans Tulanian. Plus he did live theatre during the summer breaks!
Bryan Batt (Arts &Science '85), whose family owned Pontchartrain Beach, offers a glimpse into his transition from local stages to Broadway, where he's been called 'wickedly versatile,' and 'playful' in eight Broadway and nine Off-Broadway shows. He's appeared in movies, including Paul Rudnick's Jeffrey, and Kiss Me Guido. He's worked with Glenn Close, Trevor Nunn, Betty Buckley, Patrick Stewart, Nathan Lane, Leslie Castay (Newcomb'85) among others and done dozens of local productions, including five at Le Petit and four for Tulane's Summer Lyric Theatre. He's done television stints on The Guiding Light, Law and Order, As the World Turns and The Cosby Show, and musical recording. Hazelnut, a Magazine Street interior design shop, is his newest enterprise. Read all about it on www.bryanbatt.com
Nell Nolan Young (Newcomb'66, Graduate'70,'72), seen on local stages recently in Monologues and Music...for the Money, Honey, a one-woman show she wrote and uses as a charity fundraiser; The Confederacy of Dunces; and in waltz & tango routines, reminisces.
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Tulane Ed. Conf. 2004: Celebrating 15Yrs of the NO Film Festby Tulane385 views
What a grand assemblage of New Orleans talents and dear old friends. I was blessed to be cast as Huckabee in the production of "The Fantasticks" Stocker Fontelieu mentions in this piece. He was wonderful, the soul of the production. There is a biography on Stocker Fontelieu that is an essential history of New Orleans theatre in the last half of the the 20th century.
vaticanlokey 2 years ago