Tennessee Williams News

Houston's Theatre Community offers something for everyone-ranging from the very modern and experimental to the classics. Next week, on September 26, 2012 Classical Theatre Company will be opening MISS JULIE at their new home, Studio 101 in the Spring Street Studios. Director of MISS JULIE, Julia Traber and I recently chatted about the show, Studio 101, August Strindberg's legacy, and the impact of arts on politics.

Tony Award-winner Scarlett Johansson returns to Broadway to star as Maggie, with Ciaran Hinds as Big Daddy, Benjamin Walker as Brick and Tony and Emmy Award-winner Debra Monk as Big Mama in Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize-winning classic CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF. Directed by Tony and Emmy Award-winner Rob Ashford, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF will begin preview performances Tuesday, December 18 at the Richard Rodgers Theatre (226 West 46th Street). Opening night is Thursday, January 17.

The Meeting* hosted by Justin Sayre - the acclaimed gay comedy/variety show - will open its fourth season tonight, September 20, 2012 at The Duplex in New York's West Village. Each edition of The Meeting* honors a different gay icon; the September show will pay tribute to Disco chart-topper Sylvester with special guests Bridget Everett, Ben Rimalower and Xavier. Musical Director is Brandon James Gwinn.

During the last decade there has been a dramatic reassessment of Williams by scholars, critics and artists with new attitudes toward art, women, and sexual identity. In celebration of his centennial last year, groundbreaking productions of Williams' plays around the world, including the later work, accelerated the momentum of a new appreciation of this great playwright. Since its inception in 2006, the Tennessee Williams Theater Festival has been in the forefront of this movement to reassess Williams' stature. The Festival has presented nine world premieres of plays by Tennessee Williams. Now in its seventh year, the Festival is expanding its efforts to enrich the experience of Williams' work onstage through two initiatives: the TW Institute and Williams 101.

Mitch Douglas, Tennessee Williams' last literary agent at ICM, will join the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival in an informal conversation with Festival Curator David Kaplan over Coffee during the four-day festival taking place tonight, September 20-23, 2012.

Mary-Arrchie launches right into its 27th season with Sam Shepard's surreal Geography of a Horse Dreamer this month, followed by a Mary-Arrchie re-imagining of The Glass Menagerie in November. Then we kick off 2013 with Austin Pendleton's riveting Uncle Bob in February 2013 and finish up with a relentless experimental staging of The Brig by Kenneth H. Brown in April and the Silver Anniversary of Abbie Hoffman Died for Our Sins Theatre Festival in August 2013.

Goodman Theatre adds five performances of Sweet Bird of Youth by Tennessee Williams, extending through October 28 with its current company intact. Chicago native director David Cromer's production stars Academy Award nominee Diane Lane as Alexandra del Lago, an aging Hollywood screen siren on a journey with an unlikely soul mate, and Broadway's Finn Wittrock as Chance Wayne, an ineffectual drifter whose youth and promise have begun to fade.

Join us for the New-York Historical Society's inaugural Bernard and Irene Schwartz Classic Film Series, World War II and Its Legacy in Film, featuring opening remarks by notable directors, writers, actors, and historians. Produced in conjunction with New-York Historical's exhibition WWII & NYC, this selection of classic films will show a broad scope of life during and after the war and reflect many of the exhibition's themes, including life on the home front, the dispatch of troops and the struggle to readapt to postwar life.

The REP, Point Park University's professional theatre company, presents a chilling rendition of Rope by Patrick Hamilton at the Pittsburgh Playhouse Sept. 28 - Oct. 14; guest artist Elmore James directs.

TheatreWorks, the nationally acclaimed theatre of Silicon Valley, presents the regional premiere of 33 VARIATIONS, a play by Moises Kaufman (The Laramie Project) with live music. Spanning two centuries, this Tony- nominated drama follows a brilliant musicologist as she races against time to solve one of Beethoven's greatest mysteries. 33 VARIATIONS will be helmed by Founding Artistic Director Robert Kelley and plays October 3 - 28, 2012 (press opening October 6) at TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts. Get a first look at the cast in the photos below!

Tonight, Monday 9/17 is the final performance for the Revolve Productions presentation of "PIECES" by Chris Phillips winner of an "EXCELLENCE IN PLAYWRITING" Award, for the 16th New York International Fringe Festival. The acclaimed play was named an early selection for this FringeNYC Encore Series. It was one of the four shows that were selected for the early announcement during the Festival, by a group of seven theatre producers led by Darren Lee Cole. The Encore performances are at the historic SoHo Playhouse at 15 Vandam Street (bet 6th Ave & Varick), NYC. Brian Zimmer directs the thought provoking drama.

The second full season for Tampa Repertory Theatre kicks off with the regional premiere of the two-character romantic comedy Phoenix, by Scott Organ. The play opens Thursday, October 11, at 7:30 PM in the Studio Theatre at Hillsborough Community College, Ybor City, and runs through Sunday, October 28.

The Long Beach Playhouse presents Tennessee Williams' classic story of a generational and unbridgeable cultural chasm between a dysfunctional mother and her children who want only to be part of the world beyond their mother's understanding. BroadwayWorld has a first look at THE GLASS MENAGERIE below.

Sterling's Upstairs at The Federal welcomes television and Los Angeles Ovation Award nominated theatre composer and performer Brett Ryback in the premiere of The Kid with The Keys tonight, September 16, 2012.

Hartford Stage presents 'A Grand Night for Singing,' an evening of cabaret and a fundraising event to benefit Hartford Stage on Thursday, September 27. The performance will be at 7:30 p.m., and a reception follows at 8:45 p.m.

The Long Beach Playhouse presents Tennessee Williams' classic story of a generational and unbridgeable cultural chasm between a dysfunctional mother and her children who want only to be part of the world beyond their mother's understanding.