Table reservations suggested - call (504) 581-5812 (phone hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 2pm to 6pm and Sundays, 2pm-4pm.)
Park next door up to one hour before showtime. Pay inside!
Bar Noir also opens one hour before showtime. Be sure to check out our new drink menu, including a full page of festive drinks!
Theater doors open 30 minutes before showtime.
Dress code is casual dressy, however it may vary from show to show, ask when you make your reservations.

Ricky Graham's 2010 Renew Revue

It’s an original cabaret show starring Ricky Graham and
friends… Yvette Hargis, Amanda Zirkenbach and Matthew Mickal with musical director, Jefferson Turner.
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Join us for this very funny “Renew Redux” as we look (with music and song) at New Orleans’ continuing Renewal. “Nagin’s legacy is just low handing fruit!” This company of actors laughs through it all and you’re in on the joke.
“I’ve never laughed so hard!” – Bob Carr (of Bob & Jan)
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Monday, SEPTEMBER 27th at 8pm…A Few tickets still available
Watch for added shows…
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Tickets: $32 (include a $5 drink credit)
Reservations: Call 504-581-5812
(Box office phone hours are 2-6pm Tues-Sat; 2-4pm Sundays.)
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Parking is available on the street or in one of the commercial lots. The lots are NEVER FREE and a Le Chat Noir $2 parking pass or a receipt from the lot’s machine must be displayed on the dash of your car or you will be booted....Le Chat Noir’s $2 parking pass is available at the Will Call desk, one hour prior to showtime, day of show, for Central Parking, next door. (Expires at end of Le Chat Noir business day.)

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THE 2010 RENEW REVUE’S REVEW!!
The Cast of Ricky Graham's
Ricky Graham is at his comic best with fresh new revue…
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March 04, 2010, 11:10AM
For many years, Ricky Graham has been one of the premier comic observers of life, culcha’ and politics in New Orleans. Through his characterizations, the director, actor and playwright has held up a wryly honest but loving mirror to capture what makes us who we are.
In many ways, his comedy has been an act of preservation, as well, holding on to those uniquely New Orleans characteristics that are endangered by increasing homogenization. Graham’s talent is so precise that some peg him as only a “local” actor and writer. This is a vast understatement of his comic genius. With his newest show, “Ricky Graham’s The Renew Revue, “ now playing at Le Chat Nor, Graham goes beyond a traditional series of sketches of “yat” comedy (a genre he virtually created and perfected) to offer instead bitingly insightful and up-to-the-minute commentary on the new New Orleans.
Uproariously funny, charmingly acted, and written with razor-like wit, this is one of Graham’s finest pieces of theater to date.
Written by Graham and Sean Patterson, with additional material by Mandy Zirkenbach and former Times-Picayune theater critic David Cuthbert, it is tempting to simply quote one comic line after another, thus allowing the writer to bask in the reflected glow of the cleverness of it all. To give the jokes away, however, would kill their unexpected punch.
There’s a change in the air in our city — in everything from the lingering glow of the Saints’ victory to the optimistic anticipation of a new city administration. In that change, Graham has found inspiration for new songs, new laughs and new characterizations. Though called the “Renew Revue, “ very little in this show is recycled from previous routines.
The local political scene certainly provides the greatest material for any comic. No one escapes Graham’s eye here — look for priceless bits on city council members Jackie Clarkson, Arnie Fielkow and Stacy Head; a pitifully funny and toupee-less Aaron Broussard; and a finale that expresses all our hopes to Mitch Landrieu (with a caveat that he’ll be skewered too, if he screws up).
Graham is joined by a team of gifted clowns, mimics, singers and actors in Yvette Hargis, Matthew Mickal and Mandy Zirkenbach.
Among the many highlights of the show is the always delightful Zirkenbach dancing and singing up a storm with a comic rendition of “It’s Raining” that Irma Thomas herself would be proud of. Hargis’ sultry, sexy skewering of recovery czar Ed Blakely is a bull’s eye. And Mickal playfully tackles the so-called “juvenile lead” at several points, donning appropriate wigs and personas to appear as Chalmette “Trashanova” Sidney Torres, and a lovable Drew Brees.
What particularly sets “The Renew Revue” apart from earlier shows is the growing depth of the material. Graham has taken ideas and run farther with them, developing not just bits or skits, but concise, one-act pieces. Telling the Cinderella story of this Saints season incorporates the memorable elements of local sports coverage with pure Disney magic. And the look at what Broadway South could mean for the city has a structure and lyric that would do Cole Porter proud.
Musical director/pianist Jefferson Turner and drummer Brian Albus provide pleasing musical accompaniment, getting in on the act themselves. Turner and Dane Evans are credited with the original music.
Cecile Casey Covert’s costumes and Amanda Hebert’s wigs provide the over-the-top finishing touches.
In recent years, Graham has regularly toured, directing and performing at venues across the country achieving greater success and recognition. He has returned, not going too far from the home he loves. And local theater-goers are the richer for it.
Theodore P. Mahne – contributing writer to The Times-Picayune.

More Show Info

Show Bios

Ricky Graham Ricky Graham stars at Le Chat Noir has most recently appeared in Little Me and Chicago at Tulane Summer Lyric Theatre. Other shows there include The Pirates Of Penzance, Candide and The Mikado. At Le Petit Theatre he has appeared in The Mystery Of Irma Vep and Shut Up, Sweet Charlotte! with Varla Jean Merman.
With Fred Palmisano he co-created the musicals Tunes, Peter, Darling! and Nighttime Naughties ( Beverly Dinner Theatre and True Brew Theatre ).
He has written and directed ...and The Ball And All; Our Class Reunion…and All; Out Da Box! ( North Star Theatre ); and When Ya Smilin’ ( True Brew, North Star and Le Petit Theatre ).
With David Cuthbert and Harry Mayronne he wrote and directed the musicals Daryl’s Perils and At The Club Toot Sweet ( Southern Rep Theatre and Le Petit Theatre ). With Harry, The Black And White Blues ( Le Chat Noir and the Laurie Beechman Theatre, New York ); and Hollywood Heaven ( Le Chat Noir ) with Harry, Bob Bruce and Roy Haylock.
Ricky also has written, directed and performed in Crescent City for WWNO Public Radio, I’m Still Here, Me!, Getting A Kick Out Of Cole!, Naughty Bits, I Know What It Means, Scrooge In Rouge and I’m STLL Still Here, Me at Le Chat Noir.

Yvette Hargis Yvette Hargis Christmas “The things Yvette comes up with actually make me blush,” Graham says. “I first saw her when my friend Roy Smith took me to Larry Warner’s production of Noel Coward’s Present Laughter at the old Bayou Dinner Theatre and I thought she was just terrific, mainly because she could do a perfect British accent and was so lovely and funny in the show. We hit it right off.”
In 1992, Graham directed Hargis in Jane Wagner’s The Search for Intelligent Signs of Life in the Universe, Lily Tomlin’s one-woman Broadway show. It was a breakthrough role — or roles — for Hargis. She began tackling more dramatic roles when the late director Keith Briggs cast her in The Heiress at Le Petit Theatre, Lost in Yonkers at both Rivertown Repertory Theater and Le Petit and Proof at Rivertown.
“Working with Keith was wonderful,” Hargis said. “He was generous and accomplished; he built all his own sets, which were incredible.”
Hargis strenuously resists being pigeonholed. One of her favorite roles was as Sylvia, the dog, in A.R. Gurney’s comedy. She also created the role of Lena Catalanatto, the tough, chain-smoking gossip of Graham’s ...and the Ball and All, the longest-running comedy in New Orleans theater history.
“Yvette is the complete actress,” Graham says. “She can do anything.”
“Ricky wrote Lena for me and the role of Frances Trepagnier for Becky Allen,” Hargis said. “My role is based on an actual local woman who’s still around.”
“Ball” will also be around again, no doubt, and so Hargis and Graham continue their hobby of collecting “Things that people say that are so New Orleans…,” but Hargis is hot to do some Edward Albee.
“I’d love to play the wife in The Goat, she said, “or Martha to Ricky’s George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. We’ve talked about that for years, we do the lines to each other in the dressing room. I’ll walk in some nights, yelling, ‘I don’t bray!’”
Hargis is a paralegal…who tried to resist the lure of theater. “But it wasn’t possible,” she said. “I love it too much. It’s like you’re in the military and everybody else is a civilian.
“Theater people are crazy people, but we understand each other. We can say the most awful things to one another, put each other down, because we can laugh at ourselves. Life should be like that — easy and fun — but it rarely is.
“The stage is where drama should be confined. I love going to the theater for laughter and tears.
“Real life is just for eating.”

Amanda Zirkenbach Amanda Zirkenbach at Le Chat Noir A veteran of musical theater, Mandy has worked as a performer in theaters from Philadelphia to Florida. Award winning roles include Gino in Le Petit’s production of A Day in Hollywood, A Night in the Ukraine; for which she received the Big Easy Entertainment, Storer Boone and Marquis Awards for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical. Dixie Lee in At the Club Toot Sweet on Bourbon Street, for which she received an Ambie Award and Peggy Sawyer in 42nd Street which won her the Storer Boone Award for Best Actress in a Musical and first Big Easy Award nomination. Other memorable credits include Guys and Dolls (Ms. Adelaide), The Shadowbox (Agnes) and Daryl’s Perils Demon Dominatrix of the Moon Meets the Amazon Queen of the Lost Lagoon (Straya/Tonsilayo). Mandy studied dance under Karen Hebert and was Director of the Tap Department for Kaleidoscope and Ballet Pensacola prior to moving home in 2003. Watch for Mandy in another run of Ricky Graham favorite And the Ball and All, right here at Le Chat Noir in 2009.

Matthew Mickal Matthew Mickal at Le Chat Noir A Brother Martin High School, LSU alum, Mickal is the perfect mild-mannered baritone with a fierce sense of humor and an eye for the bright lights. His feature credits include, in 2006 & 2007, The Rocky Horror Show ( Rivertown Rep. ), Tunes ( Le Petit ), 42nd Street ( Mount Carmel Academy ), The Full Monty ( Le Petit ), and June With Judy-2006 Edition ( Actor’s Theatre Of New Orleans ). In 2008 Mickal continued honing his skills in Joey & Mary’s Irish Italian Wedding ( Teatro Wego ). His performances in , As You Like It and The Taming Of The Shrew ( Shakespeare Festival At Tulane ) turned the critics heads and his role as John Hinckley in Assassins ( Le Petit ) is sure to garner nominations galore.
Mickal’s stage awards and nominations include a Big Easy for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical for A Day In Hollywood / A Night In The Ukraine, a Storer Boone for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical for A Day In Hollywood / A Night In The Ukraine, and for a Storer Boone award for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical for -The Full Monty._
Read more about Matthew Mickal.