November 5-15 to Classic 107.3 & TWSTL.org

En Avant!

featuring:

The Glass Menagerie

by Tennessee Williams

Williams’ greatest, most famous, and most personal play. The narrator recalls late in life how his youthful devotion to his sister Rose (Laura in the play) conflicted with his creative passions as he was about to escape from St. Louis for good. Directed by Brian Hohlfeld.
Running time: approx. 60 minutes for each act in addition to a short intermission

You Lied to Me About Centralia

by John Guare

This play picks up the story of Jim, the Gentleman Caller, immediately after he leaves the Wingfield home to meet Betty, his fiancée. It further illuminates the themes of The Glass Menagerie, leaving us to ponder how a step or two in another direction might have changed everyone’s lives. Directed by Rayme Cornell.
Running time: approx. 30 minutes

Glass

by Michael Aman

This new play takes us forward in time to when The Glass Menagerie is about to open in Chicago, on the way to Broadway. In this multi-layered one-act play, the budding playwright meets the lead actress before she goes on. Williams, having spurned his mother, wants to be famous. She, broken by addiction, is about to portray his own mother’s character and wants to be famous again. Can this premiere possibly succeed? Directed by Gary Wayne Barker.
Running time: approx. 90 minutes

Tennessee Williams
The Man in the Overstuffed Chair

Cornelius Coffin Williams (C.C. as his cronies called him) famously referred to his son as “Miss Nancy.” Theirs was an uneasy relationship at best and yet in The Glass Menagerie, Williams idealized the absent father as “the man who fell in love with long distance.” And late in his life Williams said his father’s story. This newest piece created by Jeremy Lawrence in the playwright’s words captures a son’s struggle to love the unloveable man who was his father. Presented by special arrangement with The University of the South (Sewanee, Tennessee).
Running time: approx. 55 minutes

Tennessee Williams
Something Wild

Broadway legend Ken Page will serve as the Host of the Festival in addition to opening it with this reading that depicts the playwright’s early years in St. Louis. Presented by special arrangement with The University of the South (Sewanee, Tennessee).
Running time: approx. 20 minutes

Tennessee Williams
Tom and Rose

“My sister was a much more vital person than Laura. Terribly vital,” Tennessee once wrote.  In this new one-man piece by Jeremy Lawrence based on Williams’ works and words, Rose emerges not as the victim but as the life force who was at the very center of so much of Tennessee’s work as Tennessee follows his thoughts into the various incarnations of the great love of his life whose candle would never blow out. Presented by special arrangement with The University of the South (Sewanee, Tennessee).
Running time: approx. 50 minutes

Scholar Panel Conversations

Moderated by Tom Mitchell, TWStL Scholar-in-Residence

"Conversations: Adaptations and Tennessee Williams Today”
Thomas Keith & Annette Saddik

“Conversations: The Original Production of The Glass Menagerie”
Robert Bray & Eric Colleary

“Conversations: The Glass Menagerie and Tennessee Williams’s St. Louis”
Eric Colleary & Henry I. Schvey

While presented FREE, a donation would be greatly appreciated to help us replace our lost in-person ticket sales for this season. 

Tennessee Williams - Biography

Tennessee Williams was born in 1911 in Columbus, Mississippi, where his grandfather was  the Episcopal clergyman. When his father, a travelling salesman, moved with his family to St  Louis some years later, both he and his sister found it impossible to settle down to city life.  He entered college during the Depression and left after a couple of years to take a clerical  job in a shoe company. He stayed there for two years, spending the evenings writing. He  entered the University of Iowa in 1938 and completed his course, at the same time holding a  large number of part-time jobs of great diversity. He received a Rockefeller fellowship in  1940 for his play BATTLE OF ANGELS, and he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948 for A STREETCAR  NAMED DESIRE and in 1955 for CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF. Other plays include SUMMER AND  SMOKE, THE ROSE TATTOO, CAMINO REAL, BABY DOLL, THE GLASS MENAGERIE, ORPHEUS  DESCENDING, SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, SWEET BIRD OF  YOUTH, and THE TWO-CHARACTER PLAY. Tennessee Williams died in 1983. 

University of the South 

The University of the South, a national ranked liberal arts college and Episcopal seminary, is  the beneficiary of the Tennessee Williams’ estate, including the copyrights to all his works.  This gift was made as a memorial to Williams’ grandfather, the Reverend Walter E. Dakin,  who studied at the University’s seminary in 1895.  

The Walter E. Dakin Memorial Fund is used to support the Sewanee Writers’ Conference,  the Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference, and the School of Letters. The Fund also supports  scholarships for students who wish to pursue creative writing and fellowships which are  granted annually to budding playwrights or authors. Those fellows include Ann Patchett, Claire Messud, Tony Early, and Mark Richard. The Tennessee Williams Center houses the  University’s theater department, and a portion of the Fund supports the department and its  theatrical productions.  

Visit www.sewanee.edu for more information.

© University of the South 2020. These audio Recordings were made by special arrangement with Casarotto Ramsay & Associates and the University of the South. All rights in the Works and the Recordings are strictly reserved and no use whatsoever shall be made of the Works or the Recordings without the rights holders express prior permission. This performance is authorised for non-commercial use only. Neither the Works nor the Recordings may be copied, distributed, broadcast or otherwise exploited in whole or in part in any media now known or hereafter developed. To do so shall constitute contravention of copyright law.

The Glass Menagerie is performed by special arrangement with Concord Publishing, Inc. You Lied to Me About Centralia is performed by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service. Glass is performed by special arrangement with Barbara Houghton Agency.