THE SONS OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, tells the story of the gay men of New Orleans who created a vast and fantastic culture of wildly popular 'drag balls' starting in the late 1950s. These men worked with the traditions of Mardi Gras to bring gay culture into public settings in the early 1960s. By 1969, there were four gay Mardi Gras clubs legally chartered by the state of Louisiana, throwing yearly extravaganzas at civic venues around the city. 'Society matrons begged for ball tickets from their hairdressers'. They succeeded in bringing down the 'Jim Crow' type laws that targeted gay people during this period, staging a flamboyant, costumed revolution without politics and won freedoms during a time, as now, when laws and people fought against them.
The Sons of Tennessee Williams
The Sons of Tennessee Williams charts the evolution of the gay Mardi Gras krewe scene over the decades, illuminating the ways in which its emergence was a seminal factor in the cause of gay liberation in the South.
