The Loyola University New Orleans Department of Theatre Arts & Dance presents the New Orleans premiere of the hit musical, Head Over Heels.

A jukebox musical adaptation of Sir Philip Sidney’s The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia, Head Over Heels incorporates the songs of the cultural phenomenon and revolutionary girl group The Go-Go’s into an empowering tribute to life’s fluid journey of love and self-discovery. By blending the aesthetics of Elizabethan England, 1980’s new wave, and contemporary queer culture, as well as disregarding restrictive, type-based characters and casting, this musical aims to celebrate the beauty in both the traditional and the unconventional in theatre and in life.

Head Over Heels will be directed by Hardy Weaver. Hardy spent over a decade performing on Broadway and across the country in national tours and regional theatre. Four years ago, he quit his job performing on Broadway and went to live in the Patagonian wilderness, learning how to be self-sufficient in nature. He then went to live and study in the foothills of the Himalayas, where he learned how to teach Vedic Meditation. He now resides in New Orleans and travels around the country, teaching folks how to be less stressed. Having joined the crew at Loyola, it's been his true pleasure merging his old passion of theatre with his new passion of self-care.

View the program here

The Loyola University New Orleans Department of Theatre Arts & Dance presents the New Orleans premiere of the hit musical, Head Over Heels.

A jukebox musical adaptation of Sir Philip Sidney’s The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia, Head Over Heels incorporates the songs of the cultural phenomenon and revolutionary girl group The Go-Go’s into an empowering tribute to life’s fluid journey of love and self-discovery. By blending the aesthetics of Elizabethan England, 1980’s new wave, and contemporary queer culture, as well as disregarding restrictive, type-based characters and casting, this musical aims to celebrate the beauty in both the traditional and the unconventional in theatre and in life.

Head Over Heels will be directed by Hardy Weaver. Hardy spent over a decade performing on Broadway and across the country in national tours and regional theatre. Four years ago, he quit his job performing on Broadway and went to live in the Patagonian wilderness, learning how to be self-sufficient in nature. He then went to live and study in the foothills of the Himalayas, where he learned how to teach Vedic Meditation. He now resides in New Orleans and travels around the country, teaching folks how to be less stressed. Having joined the crew at Loyola, it's been his true pleasure merging his old passion of theatre with his new passion of self-care.

View the program here

The Loyola University New Orleans Department of Theatre Arts and Dance presents an original play devised and created by students called Everyone and Everything. What started as a blank page has transformed into a new play incorporates the experiences, questions, and perspectives of 30 student-artists from Loyola. “We have been on a theatre hold the past few years because of the pandemic,” Assistant Director Aria Jackson shares. “It has felt so good to get up on our feet and make something together.” The show takes the audience on a journey through memories, dreams, and the struggles and joys of everyday life. Blending movement, music, and text, Everyone and Everything is exactly like it sounds; it’s a little bit of everyone and everything. The show is a unique, one-of-kind theatrical experience that’s not to be missed!

Everyone and Everything will be directed by Dr. Helen Jaksch. Helen is a dramaturg, director, and arts educator who recently received her DFA from the Yale School of Drama. She has worked on countless new plays, world premieres, and devised projects with artists as young as four and as old as eighty-four. Helen believes in the vision of young people and the importance of new plays that are both necessary, theatrical, and extraordinary.

Everyone and Everything will run in the Lower Depths Theater at Loyola University, 6363 St. Charles Avenue (Corner of Calhoun Street and St. Charles Avenue), on

April 21, 22, 23, 27, 28, 29, and 30 at 7:30pm.

Loyola Music follows all City of New Orleans COVID guidance regarding indoor music venues.

This spring Loyola Opera Theatre will present a double bill of contrasting tales - a drama of sorrow and redemption, and a comedy about family greed turned to advantage – with performances of “Suor Angelica/Gianni Schicchi." The hour-long operas are the final two of the three one-act works known collectively as Il Trittico, by Giacomo Puccini. Both will be performed in Italian with English-language supertitles on Friday, April 22, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 24, at 3 p.m. in the Louis J. Roussel Performance Hall, located in the Communications/Music Complex on Loyola’s main campus. Renowned mezzo-soprano Luretta Bybee from Loyola's voice faculty will sing the role of the Principessa, the unforgiving matriarch of Angelica's family, and recent alumnus Spencer Reichman will return in the title role of Gianni Schicchi. Carol Rausch is Music Director, and Sofia Riggio will conduct both works, which will be staged by Lara Lignitz and Irini Kyriakidou.

“Suor Angelica” is the second opera of the trio known as II Trittico, which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in 1918. The setting is an Italian convent where Sister Angelica, forced to become a nun by her wealthy family, learns that the son taken from her at birth has recently died. Despondent, Angelica decides that taking her own life is the only way to rejoin her child, but then realizes the error of her ways and pleads to God for forgiveness. 

The third and final opera in the series, “Gianni Schicchi,” chronicles the backstabbing and conniving nature of the Donati family of Florence, Italy, as they gather at the death bed of one of their own. They turn to an outsider to manipulate the will and their own inheritance, with hilarious and unexpected results! 

The Loyola University New Orleans Department of Theatre Arts and Dance presents an original play devised and created by students called Everyone and Everything. What started as a blank page has transformed into a new play incorporates the experiences, questions, and perspectives of 30 student-artists from Loyola. “We have been on a theatre hold the past few years because of the pandemic,” Assistant Director Aria Jackson shares. “It has felt so good to get up on our feet and make something together.” The show takes the audience on a journey through memories, dreams, and the struggles and joys of everyday life. Blending movement, music, and text, Everyone and Everything is exactly like it sounds; it’s a little bit of everyone and everything. The show is a unique, one-of-kind theatrical experience that’s not to be missed!

Everyone and Everything will be directed by Dr. Helen Jaksch. Helen is a dramaturg, director, and arts educator who recently received her DFA from the Yale School of Drama. She has worked on countless new plays, world premieres, and devised projects with artists as young as four and as old as eighty-four. Helen believes in the vision of young people and the importance of new plays that are both necessary, theatrical, and extraordinary.

Everyone and Everything will run in the Lower Depths Theater at Loyola University, 6363 St. Charles Avenue (Corner of Calhoun Street and St. Charles Avenue), on

April 21, 22, 23, 27, 28, 29, and 30 at 7:30pm.

Loyola Music follows all City of New Orleans COVID guidance regarding indoor music venues.

This spring Loyola Opera Theatre will present a double bill of contrasting tales - a drama of sorrow and redemption, and a comedy about family greed turned to advantage – with performances of “Suor Angelica/Gianni Schicchi." The hour-long operas are the final two of the three one-act works known collectively as Il Trittico, by Giacomo Puccini. Both will be performed in Italian with English-language supertitles on Friday, April 22, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 24, at 3 p.m. in the Louis J. Roussel Performance Hall, located in the Communications/Music Complex on Loyola’s main campus. Renowned mezzo-soprano Luretta Bybee from Loyola's voice faculty will sing the role of the Principessa, the unforgiving matriarch of Angelica's family, and recent alumnus Spencer Reichman will return in the title role of Gianni Schicchi. Carol Rausch is Music Director, and Sofia Riggio will conduct both works, which will be staged by Lara Lignitz and Irini Kyriakidou.

“Suor Angelica” is the second opera of the trio known as II Trittico, which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in 1918. The setting is an Italian convent where Sister Angelica, forced to become a nun by her wealthy family, learns that the son taken from her at birth has recently died. Despondent, Angelica decides that taking her own life is the only way to rejoin her child, but then realizes the error of her ways and pleads to God for forgiveness. 

The third and final opera in the series, “Gianni Schicchi,” chronicles the backstabbing and conniving nature of the Donati family of Florence, Italy, as they gather at the death bed of one of their own. They turn to an outsider to manipulate the will and their own inheritance, with hilarious and unexpected results!