Carl Walker, a veteran New Orleans theater director and educator skilled at directing musicals, comedy and drama, including the critically-acclaimed series of “Native Tongues” monologues, died Sunday. He was 61.
“Almost every theater person in New Orleans worked with him on one project or another, including me,” retired theater critic David Cuthbert said Sunday. “The first ‘Native Tongues,’ which ran for six months, was one of the best theater experiences I've had.”
Walker created and directed the “Native Tongues” series in the 1990s, which Cuthbert and Suzanne Stouse co-produced. It featured 11 New Orleans-themed monologues bringing to life typical Crescent City characters in works written by not just playwrights but also journalists and authors, including Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Robert Olen Butler, novelist Sheila Bosworth, prison journalist Wilbert Rideau and Cuthbert himself. The show’s initial run filled the now-defunct True Brew Theater, then moved to a larger space at Tulane University and ran for three more months and led to several revivals, including its fifth in 2011.
"It's something I've been knocking around for a while, going to people who don't write for the stage and asking them to write something," Walker said in a 1993 Times-Picayune story. "Many of the performers have commented that when they got their pieces and began working on them, they didn't think very much of them. They thought, well this is nice, but the more they worked with them, the more they revealed themselves. There's a greater complexity here than I think any of us anticipated, which is kind of nice."
Walker was also known for co-creating the 1987 musical revue “Where the Girls Were,” a musical tribute to musical girl groups of the 1960s, which starred Becky Allen and Wanda Rouzan. It was created to celebrate the Contemporary Arts Center's 10th anniversary and ran there and at other theaters for years afterwards, including a 2008 revival. Walker also created and directed another musical revue, “The Class of ’70 Something,” at the Contemporary Arts Center. For many years, Walker was the theater coordinator at the CAC as well and directed many productions there.
In addition to musicals and monologues, Walker, a native of Lafayette, also gained acclaim for directing original dramatic works, such as “The Last Madam: A Life in the New Orleans Underworld,” based on Christine Wiltz’ book about New Orleans madam Norma Wallace. Walker and Jim Fitzmorris adapted the book for the stage.
In 2007, Walker directed the Louisiana premiere of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play, “Doubt.” At the time, Cuthbert’s Times-Picayune review called it “superior in almost every respect to the Broadway staging.”
Walker directed numerous other productions at Southern Rep Theatre, Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre and Le Chat Noir. He also directed many productions as part of the annual Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival and Tulane’s New Orleans Shakespeare Festival. Many of his productions earned Gambit Big Easy Awards.
Walker also taught theater part-time at Tulane and sometimes acted in addition to directing, even earning a recurring role in the HBO series “Treme” as well as in movies.
Funeral arrangements are incomplete.
