Alison Fraser Teases New Tennessee Williams-Themed Album, WORDS & MUSIC

Stalwart stage actress and IT COULD BE WORSE web series standout Alison Fraser discusses details on her upcoming new studio album centered on the theme of one of America's most respected and oft-revived playwrights, Tennessee Williams, as part of a new interview.

Fraser shares, "[I]t's called Tennessee Williams: Words and Music. I'm thrilled that it's going to be on Ghostlight Records/Sh K Boom. We are pretty confident that once people hear this CD, they'll realize, oh, this is a show that could be done in any theater in the country."

Furthermore, Fraser reveals, "What you're listening to with this CD is really the soundtrack of Tennessee Williams's life. As a lonely little boy in Mississippi, he would sit by the Victrola, and listen to the American songbook. And once he was writing his plays, he put those songs in his plays. He put "It's Only A Paper Moon" in A Streetcar Named Desire. Blanche sings it in the bathtub while Stanley is castigating her. And the fact that every single one of Tennessee Williams's plays either references music or has the actual music in it - that really tells you how much music was a part of his life."

Fraser adds of the input of creator David Kaplan, "David has interwoven the songs with superbly chosen pieces of text from the plays. The emotional trajectory of the Blanche archetype, played by me, is the emotional trajectory of Blanche's journey, which as we all know, is not a happy one. We have a little encore so that people don't want to kill themselves by the time they leave."

Additionally, Fraser says that the process was a fulfilling one, opining, "Singing all the different kinds of music was just a joy. David had heard my first CD, New York Romance, which has a lot of very very different types of songs on it. And he said, you're the one that I need to be able to sing the blues, to be able to sing country western. I didn't even know I could sing a Bessie Smith song. And... I can. Now I know. You can rise above your own expectations when the material is good."

Check out the original article on the matter here.

More information on Alison Fraser is available at her official site here.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride