Nothing heralds the start of the fall cultural season more than the slew of THEATRICAL PREMIERES on the boards this weekend at venues throughout the city. (For ticket and showtime information, see the theater listings in this issue.) Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carré (616 St. Peter St., 522-2081; www.lepetittheatre.com) opens its 88th season Thursday night with the Marx Brothers' twin-musicals bill A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine. Derek Franklin and Sonny Borey once again team up to direct the comical turns created by Groucho, Harpo and Chico. In act one, ushers take the audience to Grauman's Chinese Theater for a tribute to 1930s movie musicals. Act two is loosely based on Chekhov and features favorite Marx foil Margaret Dumont. The cast includes Susan Grozier, Matthew Mickal, Brian Rosenberg and Amy Alvarez. Southern Rep (Canal Place, 333 Canal St., third floor, 522-6545; www.southernrep.com) presents three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Edward Albee's fiery The Goat, Or Who Is Sylvia? Recognized four times as the best play of 2002 (Tony, New York Drama Critics Circle, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards), Albee's work follows the moral compass of an architect with a nasty secret. Ryan Rilette directs William Ragsdale, Maureen Silliman and others. (For more on William Ragsdale, see the A&E Feature in this issue.) EgoPo Productions ventures into the Jewel Gallery (2134 Magazine St., third floor, 866-234-0317; www.egopo.org) with the local premiere of Frank Wedekind's daring classic Spring Awakening (pictured). Written in 1891, the play explores the sexual awakening of a group of 14-year-olds, with themes of homosexuality, suicide, masturbation and teen pregnancy. Lane Savadove and Anne-Liese Judge Fox co-direct Jean Ann Douglass, Ian Hoch, Nick Lopez and others. Tickets are $12; reservations are strongly encouraged for limited seating. The Anthony Bean Community Theater (1333 S. Carrollton Ave., 865-7529) kicks off its season with two one-act plays written by Bean: Soulville and Saving Ourselves, featuring young actors from area schools. Gospel radio personality Lorette Petit stars as, of all things, a radio talk-show host in Soulville, while Saving Ourselves focuses on an underground group trying to save black men. In St. Bernard Parish, Shine Productions returns with the original work An Evening With Betsy: Voices From the Storm (Nunez Community College Auditorium, 3710 Paris Road, Chalmette, 277-SHOW; www.shinepresents.com). Director Barry Lemoine has collected new stories about the devastating 1965 hurricane. Mary Burns stars along with the "porch people" of her New Orleans neighborhood. -- Frank Etheridge

Jonathan Kozol 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 8 Loyola University, Roussel Hall Those who think New Orleans is unique in terms of the rich/poor and black/white disparities in public schools will want to be at Loyola University's Roussel Hall for this lecture by Kozol, the author of books including Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools and Death at an Early Age, which won a National Book Award. Kozol takes a witheringly honest look at the disparate opportunities offered to children on the basis of race -- decades after the civil rights movement supposedly did away with the "separate but unequal" doctrine. Coming 10 days before local school board elections, the event couldn't be better timed. The free lecture is being held in conjunction with a series of classes being offered to freshmen at Loyola, and is open to the public. For more information, see www.loyno.edu/newsandcalendars/release.php?id=688. -- Lili LeGardeur

The Glands, with Hotchkiss 10 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 9 Memaid Lounge, 1100 Constance St., 524-4747 In his real life, Glands frontman Ross Shapiro owns a record store in the indie rock hub of Athens, Ga. With his status as such a person from such a town, it's not inconceivable that he has probably listened to all existing albums. And after spinning any Glands record, that hypothesis sounds more plausible as the band seamlessly fuses rock, soul, rap and beyond, although it is evident that Shapiro and the rest gave those British Invasion LPs a few extra go-rounds. They play their Pavement-esque rock in earnest homage and with glorious non-irony, though said sincerity probably hurts the band's chances of attaining Mick Jagger status. Their record label reports that their first album, Double Thriller (Bar None), was mixed using the very same mixing console that Michael Jackson used to mix his Thriller. Call club for cover. -- Rob Bryant

David Byrne, plus Sam Phillips 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 10 House of Blues, 229 Decatur St., 529-BLUE Once again taking things from his past and incorporating it into his present, David Byrne shapes something thoroughly original in his latest release, the Nonesuch debut Grown Backwards. Having worked with Austin's Tosca Strings on the tour of his last work, the brilliant Look Into the Eyeball, Byrne brought the sextet into the studio for this work and promptly reversed ground. Instead of starting adding tunes onto a framework of richly textured grooves, Byrne started with the melody and went from there. The lack of groove foundation appears elsewhere, in everything from nods to two arias ('Un di Felice' from Verdi's La Traviata and 'Au Fond Du Temple Saint' from Bizet's The Pearl Fishers, with an assist from Rufus Wainwright) to a cover of Lambchop's 'The Man Who Loved Beer.' As is typical with the former Talking Heads frontman, it's much more cohesive than it sounds. Sam Phillips opens. (For more, see 'Opening Act' in this issue.) Tickets $35. -- David Lee Simmons

Alvin Youngblood Hart's Muscle Theory 10 p.m. Friday, Sept. 10 Maple Leaf Bar, 8316 Oak St., 866-9359 Officially, Alvin Youngblood Hart is a blues player. When his imposing figure sits down behind the mic, with his deep voice and alternately stinging guitar leads and broad chords, it's as if the entire history of the blues and its assorted sons, daughters, red-headed stepchildren, and crazy aunts stepped onstage. However, this is not blues as a museum piece. It is music that swells and breathes and lives in his performance. Hart knows his history, and it comes out in his playing. The blues is the base from which he conjures up all sorts of styles from rock 'n' roll to soul to country. For the occasion, Hart is playing electric guitar with his power trio, including Detroit heavy-rock bassist Gary Rasmussen (who's played with Sonic's Rendezvous Band, Iggy Pop and Patti Smith) and Ed Michaels from Commander Cody's band on drums. Cover $10. -- David Kunian

Rockie Charles and the Staxx of Love 5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 10 Storyville, 125 Bourbon St., 410-1000 Despite the fact that most of the world sees New Orleans through the lens of Bourbon Street, it's one of the least likely places to find the essence of New Orleans music. That changes when New Orleans native Rockie Charles and the Staxx of Love appear at Storyville. This one-time tugboat captain recorded several singles in the late 1960s while backing up Percy Sledge, Little Johnny Taylor and Otis Redding. One of those singles, 'The President of Soul,' provided Charles with his nickname. His last record, Born for You, came out in the mid '90s, and it showcased his silky, Al Green-like voice with a bit of grit coming from his guitar. Charles and the Staxx have been working on new material that follows in the Born for You vein with titles like 'You've Got to Feel the Need of Me.' Rockie Charles provides some needed soul on a relatively soulless street. No cover. -- Kunian

The Detonations and Friends 9 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 11 One Eyed Jacks, 615 Toulouse St., 569-8361 The Detonations' Static Vision (Alive) marries raw guitar sound to garage band songs, which in itself isn't that new since garage guitarists are almost synonymous with rawness. It's the band's textured, layered noisiness that makes them special. They're headlining this who's who of hard rock lineup, with wise guys Supagroup, Rock City Morgue, and Only In It For The Honey opening. Hard rock is not typically associated with social consciousness -- more often, it's the soundtrack for beer-drinking and trying to get laid, not for political meditations -- so it's a little surprising that Supagroup's Chris Lee has put together a show with a purpose; the night is part of a voter registration drive so the show is free for customers with voter registration cards or who register to vote. Admission $20 otherwise. -- Alex Rawls

An Evening With Siouxsie Sioux 9 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 12 House of Blues, 229 Decatur St., 529-BLUE If Robert Smith jumped back in for a cameo or Sid Vicious rose from the dead, you might have something with these ticket prices. Instead, we're left with a fortunate opportunity to revisit the quintessential bridge between those heady early days of punk and the fashion-friendly dancehall days of goth. Siouxsie was there at the beginning, pulling in Sid as the bassist before learning better, and went through a familiar metamorphosis that blessed and cursed many through the post-punk era. As shimmering (and superficial) as the Banshees were later considered, there are still such album gems as The Scream, A Kiss in the Dreamhouse and (to a lesser extent) Peepshow, dance classics like 'Kiss Them for Me' and 'Fear of the Unknown,' and two must-have greatest-hits compilations. Which goes to show that, at the end of the day, if you stick around along enough you can assemble an impressive body of work. Tickets $35. -- Simmons

Ministry with My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult 9 p.m. Monday, Sept. 13 House of Blues, 225 Decatur St., 529-BLUE Long-term fans of this enduring industrial monster have been pretty pleased with Ministry's most recent album, Houses of the Mole (Sanctuary), which signals a timely return to its famously biting antigovernment agenda. Like sonic brethren KMFDM, Ministry has often used the political dystopia pep rally as its live schtick to great acclaim. This time, the band's party line is specific and clear, sampling speeches by Al Gore, with all the song titles on the record starting with 'W.' For the apolitical, the blistering wall of sound, thrashing metal guitars and crazed samples will both satisfy the old guard and probably bring in a lot of the youngsters who dig that nu metal sound. And it's almost impossible to refute the band that turned a Flannery O'Connor quote into an industrial anthem with 1992's 'Jesus Built My Hotrod.' The sexy, damaged, post-apocalyptic space-lounge disco of MLWTTKK shares the bill. Tickets $25. -- Alison Fensterstock

Adornment: Embellishment & Encroachment Through Oct. 5 Loyola University, Collins C. Diboll Gallery, Monroe Library, 861-5456 It's been said that "clothes make the man," but what about women, children, or even animals? What are clothes really about? Adornment: Embellishment & Encroachment explores such questions in new works by Jacqueline Bishop, Les Christensen and Pam Longobardi, through such surreal juxtapositions as a dog dressed up in lace, a child's worn shoes lovingly painted with exquisite landscape scenes, and vastly oversized fake fingernails constructed into an imposing modern sculpture. What gives? According to an accompanying statement: "Displacements such as these, presented as art, have the power to reveal the discrepancies in many of the things we take for granted in our everyday lives. Subverting the divisions between the cute and the threatening, the clever and the deadly serious, the real and the surreal, these works address the beauties of adornment and the social circumstances behind it." -- D. Eric Bookhardt