IN THE SUMMER HOUSE and More Set for 9th Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival, Running This Weekend

The 9th Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival, Tennessee Williams Circle of Friends, presents plays by Williams and his friends that feature the humor, love, disappointment and the healing that springs from friendships.

Every year, performances from artists from across the county and around the world take place in distinctive Provincetown spaces where audiences can experience the special flavors that the beautiful, historic seaside town offers.

Here are just a few to enjoy this year:

In the Summer House by Williams' good friend Jane Bowles is a drama filled with mystery and humor that Williams loved and championed. It will be presented at the Boatslip Resort, a very popular waterside hotel and dance club. The actors will be performing outdoors, on the stairs of the resort, around and in the pool and in the Bay.

In choosing this unique setting, the Festival Curator and the play's director David Kaplan says, "In this play, Jane Bowles has the idea that to understand clearly, emotionally, you need to back up and look at a distance. The length of the Boatslip pool, the drama of its three-story staircase, the sweeping views of the Bay from the deck, make for excellent scenery and proven audience eye candy.

A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur, a play by Williams in which women friends try to help each navigate the rocky road between romance and reality, will be performed in a 1920s Sears home in the heart of Provincetown. The audience will share the great room with the actors, who will also use the actual bedroom, bathroom, hallway and stairs as part of the set.

"This is a very intimate, environmental theater experience," says director Jef Hall-Flavin, who is the Festival's Executive Director. "The audience will be as close to the action as they can be, hearing the sounds and mouth-watering smells of real chicken frying. Taking the play off a stage and into a real living room allows the audience to invest in a real, emotional connection to the characters."

History lovers will get a chance to admire Town Hall, recently renovated to its 1886 glory, the venue for Vieux Carré which is coming from KNOW Theatre in Binghamton, N.Y. This Williams play in which he recalls his time living in a boarding house with strange and vulnerable characters has a cast of ten and will be presented in the round.

KNOW Artistic Director Tim Gleason says, 'This play reflects on the importance of friendships, no matter how fleeting." Gleason also acts in the play and adds, "Playing in the round, surrounded by the audience, means there's no place for us to hide. We're fully exposed. As actors we feed off the energy an audience gives us. We're ready for anything."

Free Guide To "Follow in Tennessee Williams' Footsteps" - To further explore Provincetown and to learn about Tennessee Williams, the Festival is offering the public a free guide to some of the places Williams lived and hung out with his friends. To download the free guide, Follow In Tennessee Williams Footsteps, go to www.twptown.org.

The TWP Festival celebrates the life and work of America's great playwright Tennessee Williams in the creative and liberal seaside town where he spent several summers during the 1940s. Spanning the years he went from a struggling unknown to an acclaimed Broadway playwright, Provincetown was very significant in his life. Here he fell in love, worked hard and played hard, developing several of his masterpieces, including The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire.

About Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival: The Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival was founded in 2006 in the birthplace of American Modern Theater where Williams worked on many of his major plays during the 1940s. The TW Festival is the nation's largest performing arts festival dedicated to celebrating and expanding the understanding of America's great playwright. Theater artists from around the globe perform classic and innovative productions to celebrate Williams' enduring influence in the 21st Century. The 9th annual Festival will take place in various venues in the seaside village of Provincetown from today, September 25 through Sunday, September 28, 2014. For more, visit www.twptown.org and Facebook.

Pictured: Juliet Brett and Jack Dilday in front of pool at the Boatslip. "In the Summer House," photo by Josh Andrus.

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