05/13/2023
Tell us about the play:
Did a New Orleans mobster engineer the assassination of a Kennedyesque president of the United States in the 1960s? Mark Leonard’s new play, The French Quarter Connection, asks this question and goes one step further, revealing how this president’s legendary brother, an Irish-Catholic senator from New York, tried to cut a deal years later with the Sicilian-born mobster so he could run for the presidency. The French Quarter Connection focuses not so much on a parallel to the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, but the personal and brutal conflict between a politician based on Robert F. Kennedy and a fictional mafia boss with a French Quarter address. This clash is set during the significant tensions of the time: Irish-American culture, which dominated American politics in the 1950s, versus the rising Italian-Americans on the East and Gulf Coasts; the new Agro-American immigrants versus the Anglo military-industrial complex; the “best and the brightest” of the Vietnam War against a powerful international crime organization. The play’s cast has Daniel Ladmirault, Cité des Arts Executive Director, as THE MOBSTER, Lafayette’s stage and screen sensation Michelle Colon as THE CUBAN SOLDIER, local favorite Trevor Chapman as THE SENATOR, and star of the West Hollywood production of Nikki and Bobby, and Paula Leffmann, as THE SENATOR’S WIFE.
The French Quarter Connection opens on Thursday, June 8, at the Cité des Arts, 109 Vine St., Lafayette, Louisiana, and runs through Sunday, June 18. Evening performances are at 7:30 p.m. on June 8, June 9, June 10, June 15, June 16 and June 17. The curtain rises on two “Conspiracy Sunday” matinees at 2 p.m. on June 11 and June 18. Immediately following each matinee, LSU professor Alecia P. Long will discuss her book “Cruising for Conspirators: How a New Orleans DA Prosecuted the Kennedy Assassination as a S*x Crime.” Long and the playwright will answer questions from the audience about JFK assassination conspiracy theories. Tickets are available at citedesarts.org or by calling Power Play productions at 985-469-1601.
