Friday Nights at NOMA returns for an exciting lineup of programs in 2019: live music, movies, children’s activities, and more. Regular admission prices apply—NOMA members are FREE—but there is no extra charge for programs or films. All galleries, the Museum Shop, and Café NOMA remain open till 9 pm.

• 5 – 8 pm: Art on the Spot family activity table
• 5:30 – 8:30 pm: Music by Shawn Williams
• 7 pm: Arts and Letters Series: Edmund White in conversation with Thomas Beller

ABOUT SHAWN WILLIAMS

Shawn Williams is a pioneering voice in New Orleans’“alt-rocka countrybilly serial killer blues,” as she describes her unique sound. Her debut album Shadow (March 2017) is a skillfully-mastered collection of originals that moves seamlessly from old-school R&B-inflected rockers to softer, wistful numbers that evoke the broken-hearted melancholia of the desert. Idiosyncratic, catchy, and rich with local talent, the tracks showcase Williams’ impressive musicianship and unique capabilities as a songwriter. OffBeat Magazine says, “it’s an impressively mature debut album.”

ABOUT EDMUND WHITE AND THOMAS BELLER

NOMA’s Arts & Letters series welcomes authors, poets, journalists, playwrights, and literary scholars to the museum for public conversations that reflect on literature at the intersection of arts and culture. Edmund White, a pioneering figure in gay literature and memoir, will be interviewed by Thomas Beller, an acclaimed nonfiction writer and professor at Tulane University. Read an interview with Edmund White in NOMA Magazine.

Edmund White was born in 1940 and raised in Cincinnati and Chicago. As a novelist, biographer, and an essayist on literary and social topics, much of White’s writing focuses on the theme of same-sex love. His books include The Joy of Gay Sex (1977), co-written with Charles Silverstein; a trio of autobiographic novels: A Boy’s Own Story (1982), The Beautiful Room Is Empty (1988), and The Farewell Symphony (1997); and a biography of French novelist, playwright, and political activist Jean Genet. He is formerly a professor of creative writing at Princeton University. 

Thomas Beller is an author, editor, and professor of English at Tulane University. His books include Seduction Theory (1995), The Sleep-Over Artist (2000), How To Be a Man: Scenes from a Protracted Boyhood (2005), and J.D. Salinger: The Escape Artist (2014). He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and is a contributing editor to Travel+Leisure magazine.

Edmund White and Thomas Beller

This program is included with museum admission for Friday Nights at NOMA thanks to support from the Patrick F. Taylor Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival.