Coming Home to Leona: Small Craft Warnings at Lower Depths Theater

Ten years ago, I moved to New Orleans and stepped into the role of Leona in Tennessee Williams' Small Craft Warnings. She was the first character who truly felt like mine in this city. Fierce. Unapologetic. Overflowing with feeling. A woman who refuses to disappear.

This March, I came back to her.

From March 7 through March 29, 2026, I had the honor of reprising Leona at Lower Depths Theater in New Orleans. The same role. A completely different woman carrying it. A decade of life, loss, love, and craft has changed everything about how I understand her. Leona is not just loud. She is not just angry. She is a woman fighting to remain visible in a world that would rather she be quiet. And that fight? I know it now in a way I could not have known when I first took it on.

About the Production

Small Craft Warnings is one of Tennessee Williams' later works. Raw. Intimate. Deeply human. Set in a Southern California beach bar, it gathers a group of lost souls on an ordinary night that becomes anything but. Leona is the emotional center of the play: a beautician mourning her brother, sparring with her lover, and insisting, loudly and beautifully, on her own dignity.

This production at Lower Depths Theater was an extraordinary collaboration with a talented cast and creative team. The run was powerful, emotional, and deeply connected to everything I love about live performance. The communion between actor and audience. The electricity of a room breathing together.

A Full Circle Moment

There is something sacred about returning to a role after a decade. You bring everything you have lived through back into the room. Every heartbreak. Every triumph. Every quiet Tuesday that taught you something about resilience. It all lives in the work now. The woman who first played Leona was fire. The woman who plays her now is fire that knows where it has been and where it is going.

This production was a homecoming in every sense. To New Orleans. To the stage. To a character who helped me find my voice in this city. And closing night reminded me why I do this work. Not for applause. For truth.

Production Details

Small Craft Warnings by Tennessee Williams. Lower Depths Theater, New Orleans. March 7 through 29, 2026. Lakesha Glover as Leona. Production photography by Brittney Werner and James Kelly.

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