NEW ORLEANS — To commemorate the 50 years since the Upstairs Lounge fire, there are a series of events in New Orleans. Those have been sponsored by the LGBT+ Archives Project and The Historic New Orleans Collection.
The fire was one of the deadliest in the city's history and changed the arc of LGBTQ rights forever.
Saturday night:
Following the commemoration service at St. Mark's United Methodist Church on Saturday afternoon, there will be a film screening on Saturday at 7 p.m. of a documentary on the fire.
UPSTAIRS INFERNO, the 2015 documentary will screen at the Williams Research Center on 410 Chartres St. The film has a one-hour and 36-minute runtime.
Before the movie, there will be refreshments at 6:15 and opening remarks from the movie's director, Robert L. Camina.
There will be an audience Q and A afterward at 8:30 p.m.
Sunday:
The will be panel discussions about the Upstairs Lounge fire from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Sunday. They will take place at the New Orleans Marriot, in galleria six.
From 3 p.m. to 4:15 p.m., documentaries from ABC and Royd Anderson as well as a piece from the musical "The View UpStairs," will be screened at the hotel.
At 4:30 p.m., there will be a dramatic reading from the book, Tinderbox, by Brad Dalton with musical accompaniment.
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