Tennessee Williams News

Charity Hope Valentine, with a shoulder bag and a heart tattooed on her left arm, works as a dancer-for-hire in a Times Square Dance Hall but longs for love.

The Robert Chesley/Jane Chambers Playwrights Project presents a reading of The Parade or Approaching the End of a Summer by Tennessee Williams, directed by Mark Finley and featuring Paul Caiola, Emily Hartford, Irene Longshore and Jeremy Lawrence. The reading is set for 7:30pm tonight, August 25, 2012.

TACT/The Actors Company Theatre (Scott Alan Evans, Cynthia Harris and Jenn Thompson, Co-Artistic Directors), the critically-acclaimed and Drama Desk nominated Off-Broadway company "dedicated to presenting neglected or rarely produced plays of literary merit," announces the cast and creative team for Lovers by Brian Friel, the first production of the company's 20th Anniversary Season. Directed by TACT Company Member Drew Barr, performances begin at Theatre Row's Beckett Theatre (410 West 42nd Street - between 9th & 10th Avenues) on Tuesday, September 18th, 2012. Opening night is Thursday, September 27th at 7:30pm. Performances will continue through Saturday, October 20th.

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams directed by Josh Altman is extending for two weeks through September 16, running Thu, Fri, Sat at 7:30pm and Sun at 3pm.

Friends and admirers from film, television and theatre presented selections of Vidal's famous works, as well as share personal remembrances and stories. Patricipants included: Susan Sarandon, John Larroquette, James Earl Jones, Alan Cumming, Christine Ebersole, and many more. BroadwayWorld was there for the celebration and we bring you full photo coverage of the star-studded arrivals below.

Friends and admirers from film, television and theatre presented selections of Vidal's famous works, as well as share personal remembrances and stories. Patricipants included: Susan Sarandon, John Larroquette, James Earl Jones, Alan Cumming, Christine Ebersole, and mnay more. BroadwayWorld brings you exclusive highlights below!

Theatre East presents "Normalcy" by Bennett Windheim, Off Broadway at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, 416 West 42nd Street, NYC. Benard Cummings directs the new play. Previews begin for the limited engagement on August 31 and the opening is Wednesday, September 5, 2012 at 7:00 pm. For this opening of its 2012-13 season, there will be a series of talk-backs throughout the run, with the author, the producers and director, as well as experts in the respective field of this emotionally charged play.

According to the New York Times, Doubleday will soon publish a biography of recently deceased playwright Gore Vidal. Jay Parini, a friend of Vidal's for many years, will write the book, which is planned to be released in 2015.

Fall 2012 will see Chicago continue to produce some of the most exciting theater in the country. Offerings from the city's more than 200 producing theaters includes a range of special fall programming, featuring everything from the latest musicals to highly anticipated world premieres.

Sam Shepard's Geography of a Horse Dreamer will be coming to Angel Island this September! It is directed by Carlo Lorenzo Garcia (Red Light Winter, Our Bad Magnet) and features Simon Ahmed, Bill Daniel, Rudy Galvan, Christopher Meister, Gavin Robinson, Matt Rockwood, Kevin Stark, & Mark Vallarta.

The Jeff Awards Committee today announced 197 nominations in 34 categories for Chicago Equity theatrical productions, which opened between August 1, 2011, and July 31, 2012. The Jeff Awards judges attended opening nights of 118 Equity productions offered by 55 producing organizations. From these openings, 96 productions were 'Jeff Recommended,' which made them eligible for award nominations.

Orchestra of St. Luke's (OSL) will enter into a new phase of development with a 2012/2013 season marked by notable artistic collaborations and chamber music programs and the Carnegie Hall main stage debut of its recently-appointed Principal Conductor Pablo Heras-Casado. The season kicks off with the free Subway Series and food drive, reflecting OSL's continuing commitment to community engagement throughout New York City and at its state-of-the-art new home, The DiMenna Center for Classical Music.

The Robert Chesley/Jane Chambers Playwrights Project presents a reading of The Parade or Approaching the End of a Summer by Tennessee Williams, directed by Mark Finley and featuring Paul Caiola, Emily Hartford, Irene Longshore and Jeremy Lawrence. The reading is set for 7:30pm on Saturday, August 25, 2012.

The Tampa Repertory Theatre produces Archibald MacLeish's rarely seen play, PANIC tonight, August 21st at Studio @ 620 in St. Petersburg.

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater Artistic Director David Van Asselt and Managing Director Brian Long have announced that Karen Allen will star in the American premiere of Jon Fosse's A Summer Day, translated and directed by Sarah Cameron Sunde, which begins performances Wednesday, October 10 and opens Thursday, October 25 at the Cherry Lane Theatre.

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater Artistic Director David Van Asselt and Managing Director Brian Long have announced that Karen Allen will star in the American premiere of Jon Fosse's A Summer Day, translated and directed by Sarah Cameron Sunde, which begins performances Wednesday, October 10 and opens Thursday, October 25 at the Cherry Lane Theatre.

From Phoenix to Elsinore, with a stop in St. Louis, the Tampa Repertory Theatre's second season promises to engage audiences with plays new and old, but always provocative, innovative and classic. The season opens with a regional premiere: Phoenix, by Scott Organ.

Director Lisa Gillespie is responsible for my most recent serving of Steel Magnolias (onstage at Boiler Room Theatre in Franklin through September 8), which like all richly decadent Southern delicacies, sates something within me that yearns for a memory-laden repast-serving up Harling's artful blend of comedy and drama that is so redolent of my upbringing. In fact, every new production of Steel Magnolias that I see reminds me of a family reunion, where the same stories of kinfolk and friends are told time and again, providing a rich heritage from which to draw sustenance.

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.