Sometimes you just need Culture, with a capital C — theater, music, architecture, the works. For those of us on the Eastern Shore, the fix is a short drive west. New Orleans has answered that craving for generations, and one January weekend — two Broadway shows, one unexpected parade and about 10,000 steps later — reminded me all over again why.
Broadway in New Orleans
The engine of any good New Orleans culture trip is Broadway in New Orleans, the touring series that brings New York productions through the historic Saenger Theatre on Canal Street. In a single January, I was lucky enough to catch two touring shows: “Hell’s Kitchen,” the musical built on Alicia Keys’ songbook and her coming-of-age story in Manhattan, and “Hadestown,” Anaïs Mitchell’s Tony-winning reimagining of the Orpheus myth set in a Depression-flavored underworld.
My sidekick and fellow theater lover, my daughter Julia, and I drove over on a Saturday with matinee tickets for “Hadestown” in hand. We arrived early enough to park at the hotel, walk to lunch, and let the city set the tempo before curtain.
Lunch, then an Irish coffee
Without reservations, we asked the bellman at our hotel for a recommendation on the route to the theater. Around the corner sat a neighborhood spot called Gallier’s, where we had a plate of crab cake eggs Benedict and a seafood pasta, served fast enough to leave us a bonus hour before the show. We spent it, as everyone should, at The Roosevelt — my favorite hotel in the city — with an Irish Coffee in the famous Sazerac Bar, all dark wood and murals and a century of New Orleans history in a glass.
By the time we took our seats — eighth row, a gift of good planning — we were, literally and figuratively, jazzed up. And “Hadestown” delivered. The music, the choreography, the set design, the performances: everything about the show is superior, and walking out of the Saenger into the evening light, we felt genuinely privileged to have been in the room.
Dinner at Luke
Culture, once started, is an appetite. We had dinner reservations at Luke, the Creole-inflected bistro on St. Charles Avenue chosen mostly because it was close to the hotel — walking in New Orleans at night, in high heels, has its limits. Baked oysters, trout meunière and a lamb ragout closed the loop on a day that had already delivered a lunch, a show and a historic bar.
The parade we didn’t plan
And then we threw caution to the wind. Julia, who tracks these things, knew there was a Mardi Gras parade in the French Quarter that night — something I, a Mobile parade veteran, had never actually experienced from the New Orleans side. With some trepidation, I asked the hostess whether we would be safe walking 20 minutes to catch it. She said we would be fine if we stayed on the main thoroughfare. Off we went, boots made for walking and all.
We staked out a spot by Café du Monde on Decatur Street, and after ten minutes of people-watching, the boom boom arrived. The Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus is one of New Orleans’ most beloved walking parades — a science-fiction-themed krewe that welcomes fantasy and horror fandoms of every stripe. The costumes, the homemade floats, the throws, the bands: everything was creative, imaginative, and wonderfully different from Mardi Gras as Mobile practices it. As an unexpected adventure, it was the icing on the cake of my culture buffet — and a genuine headline of its own: Mobile’s parade traditions have a cousin in New Orleans that runs on science fiction, DIY engineering and pure joy.
The morning-after math
Back at the hotel, tired but invigorated, we checked our fitness apps: more than 10,000 steps, in high heels, in a single day. Worth every blister.
How to do it yourself
The template is repeatable, and worth copying. Take an early Saturday drive from Fairhope or Mobile — it is under three hours to downtown New Orleans — and book your theater tickets before anything else, because the touring shows at the Saenger sell out their weekends. Pick a hotel in or near the French Quarter or the Central Business District so the whole weekend runs on foot. Ask a local — a bellman, a hostess — where to eat, and you will end up at neighborhood spots like Gallier’s instead of the obvious tourist tables. Build in one unhurried stop at a landmark bar; the Sazerac Bar at The Roosevelt is the classic, and the Irish Coffee is the correct order. And leave a blank slot in the evening for whatever the city decides to hand you — a parade, a street band, a second line. That unscripted hour is usually the one you remember.
Why the short trip matters
Fairhope is a wonderful place to live, and the Eastern Shore has grown its own cultural scene by leaps and bounds. But the nearest full-dose infusion of Broadway theater, century-old hotel glamour and midnight parades is 200 miles away, and it is cheap to reach: no flights, no parking garages, no airport logistics. A 24-hour trip — leave Saturday morning, see a show, eat well, walk until your feet give out, drive home Sunday — delivers a month’s worth of cultural nourishment.
Making memories and having new experiences is what life is all about, and this 24-hour trip was everything and more. The craving for Culture, capital C, has been satisfied — for now. The spring touring schedule is already out, and the drive is easy.
Two shows worth the drive
It is worth pausing on the two productions, because touring schedules are how the Gulf Coast sees Broadway. “Hadestown,” which opened on Broadway in 2019 and swept that season’s Tony Awards — eight of them, including Best Musical — retells the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice as a New Orleans-tinged folk opera, complete with a brass-heavy band, a narrator in Hermes and a trip to an underground factory town where workers build a wall against the weather and the world. It is the rare touring show that feels even better in a 1927 movie palace like the Saenger, whose atmosphere does half the production’s work before the first note.
“Hell’s Kitchen,” which arrived on Broadway in 2024 with Alicia Keys’ catalog woven through a semi-autobiographical story of a teenage girl finding her voice in the Manhattan neighborhood of the title, is a different flavor — a big-hearted mother-daughter musical with a live band onstage and a finale that sends the house out singing. That both shows toured through New Orleans within weeks of each other is exactly why the Broadway in New Orleans season rewards paying attention: the same productions that rule New York roll through the Saenger a few months later, at a fraction of the cost of a Broadway trip.