The Nuffield Theatre
on14th to 18th June 1983
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier (Tennessee) Williams was born on March 26, 1911, in Columbus, Mississippi. His father was a traveling salesman for a shoe company, and his mother the daughter of an Episcopalian clergyman. The family moved to St. Louis in 1918, and being sensitive and physically delicate, Williams found the transition from the small Southern town to a big "Northern" city difficult. His small size, his Deep South accent and manners, and his incapacity for, as well as disinterest in, athletics made him the butt of his schoolmates. Unable to participate in their games and mocked by his unsympathetic father, Tom drew closer to his sister and began to write. He called his St. Louis boyhood "lonely and miserable."
In 1929 he entered the University of Missouris where he won prizes for writing. Just before his senior year, in 1932, his father, disappointed in the boy and pressed by financial need, removed him from college and obtained for him a $65-a-month job in the warehouse of the International Shoe Company. Williams worked by day and wrote by night; two years later he suffered a nervous collapse and had to be hospitalized for a month. Soon after, in 1935, with the financial help of his grandparents, he attended Washington University in St. Louis. In 1938, Williams received his B.A. degree and, on learning that a lobotomy had been performed on his sister, went to New Orleans. Greatly disturbed by his sister's illness, he no longer wished to return to St. Louis. The Glass Menagerie (1944) marked his first major success and established him as an important American dramatist. A Streetcar Named Desire, produced in 1947, underscored the success of William’s previous play. It was followed by many critical and box-office triumphs including The Rose Tattoo (1951), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959) and The Night of the Iguana (1961).
Cast | |
Street Vendor | John Burrows |
Negro Woman | Christine Baker |
Sailor | Jim Rumsey |
Eunice Hubbel | Ann Archer |
Stanley Kowalski | Douglas Taylor |
Harold Mitchell | Harry Tuffill |
Blanche Dubois | Lynda Edwards |
Stella Kowalski | Jean Durman |
Steve Hubbel | Geoffrey Wharam |
Pablo Gonzales | Jim Rumsey |
Young Collector | Peter Pitcher |
Strange Woman | Sheila Clark |
Strange Man | Kenneth Spencer |
For the Maskers: | |
Stage Manager | Kenneth Spencer |
Asst. Stage Manager | Vic Lane |
Lighting | Mike McDermid |
Sound | Laurie Gee, Pete Scrutton |
Wardrobe Assistants | Gladys Smith, Tamar Thomas |
Musical Adviser | Derek Sealy |
Assistant To Director | Christine Baker |
Properties and Furniture | Sheila Clark, Carol Filmore, Geoffirey Wharam |