NEW ORLEANS MUSEUM OF ART HOSTS SCREENING OF CELEBRATED 2004 FILM SHALL WE DANCE? AND CONVERSATION WITH ACCLAIMED ACTOR LISA ANN WALTER

Next week’s program in NOMA’s Lapis Center for the Arts is part of the Producer’s Choice Film Series, an ongoing museum offering that matches contemporary classics with insightful conversations.
Producer Meryl Poster leads a post-film conversation with actor Lisa Ann Walter, who will be joining by Zoom. Walter is known for her roles in Abbott Elementary, The Parent Trap, and many other award-winning films and series.

 

WHAT
Experience films selected and presented by award-winning producer Meryl Poster, in conversation with special guests. Get behind-the-scenes insights and celebrate cinema as an essential art form. This upcoming program on Wednesday, September 23, will feature a screening of 2004’s Shall We Dance?, followed by a conversation between Poster and actor Lisa Ann Walter, joining the program via Zoom.

NOMA’s Producer’s Choice Film Series launched in 2025 and has offered the opportunity for attendees to hear directly from guests including Jude Law, Julie Taymor, Julian Schnabel, Ed Harris, Robert Nelson Jacobs, and Marc Klein.

WHEN
Wednesday, September 23, 6:30 pm
Doors open at 6 pm

WHERE
NOMA’s Lapis Center for the Arts
1 Collins C. Diboll Circle
New Orleans, LA 70124

WHO
Lisa Ann Walter’s career spans television, film and stage. She currently stars as Melissa Schemmenti in ABC’s Emmy-nominated, SAG Award Best Comedy Ensemble-winning Abbott Elementary. She is a successful stand up comedian, having spent the last 20 years touring the US to sold-out venues. This spring, her first ever stand-up special will premiere on Hulu. 

Walter’s film credits include the beloved The Parent Trap, Shall We Dance?, Bruce Almighty, and Steven Spielberg’s War of The Worlds. Walter also co-created, produced, and starred in Fox’s My Wildest Dreams, ABC’s Life’s Work, and NBC’s Dance Your Ass Off. Her memoir, The Best Thing About My Ass Is That It’s Behind Me (Harper Collins/Harper One) is a comedic look at a chronic self-loather and former “chubby” girl trying to make it in the glamorous world of size “0” Hollywood.

Walter is on the board of numerous organizations including The Entertainment Community Fund (for whom she won $1 million as Celebrity Jeopardy champion), the ERA Coalition as a long-dedicated Women’s Rights Activist, and the SAG/AFTRA National & Local Organization, where she was recently elected as the First Vice President of the Los Angeles Local. She is most proud of being a working mom of four with “one foot on the red carpet…the other at Costco.”

Meryl Poster is a multi-award-winning producer, media executive and industry leader with a distinguished career spanning film, television and digital media. She began as one of the first female trainees in the famed William Morris mailroom and went on to become a driving force in entertainment.

Today, she is the founder and president of Superb Entertainment, a production company developing a diverse slate of scripted and unscripted content across major networks and platforms. Upcoming projects include a film adaptation of The Mosquito Supper Club Cookbook; Las Hermanas, a modern retelling of Little Women for Sony Pictures; as well as a television series with Keshet based on the book Becoming Bulletproof. Read more at noma.org.

Tickets and Future Programs
Tickets are $10 for NOMA members; $15 general admission. Advance tickets available at noma.org.

An upcoming program on Wednesday, October 21, includes a screening of Finding Neverland followed by a conversation with producer Richard Gladstein.

MEDIA CONTACT

Charlie Tatum
Director of Marketing and Communications
New Orleans Museum of Art
ctatum@noma.org
504.658.4103

If you’re interested in covering this event, please email press@noma.org with your name, outlet, and any details about planned coverage.

About NOMA and the Besthoff Sculpture Garden
The New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) and its Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden are home to innovative exhibitions, installations, educational programs, and research. Exploring human creativity across time, cultures, and disciplines, the global scope of the museum’s initiatives open a vibrant dialogue with the history and culture of New Orleans. The museum stewards a collection of nearly 50,000 works, with exceptional holdings in African art, photography, decorative arts, and Japanese art, as well as strengths in American and French art, and an expanding collection highlighting contemporary artists. The museum’s exhibitions and dynamic learning and engagement offerings serve as a forum for visitors to engage with diverse perspectives, share cultural experiences, and foster a life of learning at all ages. Recent exhibitions include New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations, Sand, Ash, Heat: Glass at the New Orleans Museum of Art, Called to the Camera: Black American Studio Photographers, and The Orléans Collection (an exhibition of forty European masterpieces from the collection of the city’s namesake, Philippe II, Duc d’Orléans).

NOMA’s 12-acre Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden expands visitors’ experiences of the museum with one of the most notable sculpture gardens in the country. The Besthoff Sculpture Garden, free and open to the public seven days a week, has nearly 100 sculptures and outdoor works of art situated in a unique landscape featuring Spanish moss-laden live oaks and a sinuous lagoon surrounded by an expansive ecosystem of native plants. The works in the garden range from the 19th to the 21st centuries, with pieces by Auguste Rodin, Henry Moore, Louise Bourgeois, Ida Kohlmeyer, Claes Oldenburg, Sean Scully, Maya Lin, Do Ho Suh, Ugo Rondinone, Wangechi Mutu, Hank Willis Thomas, and many others. The Besthoff Sculpture Garden features contemporary design elements—including a sculpture pavilion, an amphitheater, and an architecturally significant canal link bridge connecting the garden’s original 2003 footprint with a 2019 expansion. Its water management practices support the health and resiliency of New Orleans City Park and the surrounding environment. Throughout the year, NOMA hosts outdoor programs in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden including festivals, performances, wellness classes, tours, and more.