Tennessee Williams Honored in Provincetown During Four-Day Festival

The third annual Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival will be a four-day celebration of the work, life and legacy of America’s great playwright, Tennessee Williams.  From Thursday, September 25 through Sunday, September 28,  performances from across the country and around the world will take place all amid the picturesque backdrop of Provincetown, Massachusetts.  A talented and diverse group of artists will express the power of love in works written and inspired by Williams through several performance outlets.  Highlights of the Festival include Academy Award-winning actress Olympia Dukakis ("Moonstruck”) in a special program during which she will reveal the depth of her relationship with Williams' words; a performance of the NY hit production of “The Eccentricities of a Nightingale,” and the world premiere of Williams’ “Green Eyes.”

As summer winds down and fall begins, the multi-faceted destination theater festival takes place annually during the last full week of September at various indoor and outdoor venues in the famous fishing village at the tip of Cape Cod.  Known as the longest-running American artist colony, Provincetown is the setting where Williams found love and sanctuary, and wrote some of his most famous masterpieces.  Each year Festival events advance a theme related to Williams, this year focusing on the playwright's healing vision of love.

Curated by David Kaplan, the 2008 Festival will feature a dozen events, including live performances, tours and conversations with the actors.  Beloved star of stage and screen Olympia Dukakis will discuss her experiences performing Williams’ works over six decades.  The Actors

Company Theatre (TACT) of New York will bring the love scenes from their critically acclaimed production of Williams' “The Eccentricities of a Nightingale,” a rarely staged 1951 re-thinking of the story of Alma Winemiller from “Summer and Smoke.”  The New York Times’ Charles Isherwood noted that Mary Bacon's performance as Winemiller "rivals anything I saw this season for complexity, delicacy and lucid truth."  The New Yorker wrote that the cast “might as well be teaching a master class on Williams."  A unique opportunity to experience two versions of one work in one weekend, the Festival brings together scenes from the hit show from New York with a performance from Boston.  The New England Conservatory of Music will present “Love Songs from Summer and Smoke,” a concert version of the opera “Summer and Smoke,” based on Williams’ play, directed by Marc Astafan, with music by Lee Hoiby and libretto by Lanford Wilson.

Presented at the Festival will be the world premiere of Williams’ erotic “Green Eyes,” in which a young couple in a hotel in New Orleans’ French Quarter wakes up from their honeymoon, starring Los Angeles actress Jaimi Page (“Diagnosis X”).  It will be paired with Williams’ early "Adam and Eve on a Ferry," a play about a young woman who visits D.H. Lawrence for advice, also featuring Page and Los Angeles actor Robertson Dean (“Forgiving the Franklins”).  Both are directed by Festival Director Jef Hall-Flavin.  

 “The Dog Enchanted by the Divine View,” Williams’ first version of “The Rose Tattoo,” directed by David Kaplan, will feature noted Elliot Norton Award-winning Boston area actor Larry Coen and the original “Tina” from “Tony N’ Tina’s Wedding,” Nancy Cassaro, and will be paired with the triple Academy Award-winning 1955 film of “The Rose Tattoo.” 

The street theater company Brooklyn on Foot will return to the Festival with “Camino Real,” recently performed at the New Orleans Tennessee Williams Festival, and directed by Sarah V. Michelson.  Surrounding a swimming pool, the troupe of five actors, aided by a musician and a garbage can, will embody such legendary personalities as Jacques Casanova, Lord Byron, Camille and Don Quixote, as well as over forty other roles walking the tightrope between fate and free will. 

Former Los Angeles Times journalist Gregg Barrios has written a new play about Williams and his Mexican partner, Pancho Rodriguez, entitled “Rancho Pancho,” which will be brought to the Festival by the Classic Theatre of San Antonio.  DanceLoop Chicago will premiere “Lorita!,” a dance adaptation of Williams’ short story "Happy August 10th.  The annual short plays collection written by local playwrights on a theme from Williams is entitled “Young Love,” and features 10-minute works from the New Provincetown Players.  The “TW Tour of the Town” will be conducted throughout the weekend, visiting important sites related to Williams and his plays. Additional performances and events will be announced in the near future.  
 
The Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival takes place Thursday, September 25 through Sunday, September 28, 2008 at various venues in Provincetown, Massachusetts. See schedule on next page.  Additional details on the schedule of performances and events will be announced shortly.  Festival passes, including access to all 12 shows, are available online at www.twptown.org or through 1-866-789-TENN (8366).  Audience members can also become patrons by purchasing a Williams Pass, which includes tickets to all performances as well as access to exclusive parties and events, and more.  Single tickets are also now on sale, through www.twptown.org.
      
For more information, including new details on Festival performances and events as they  become available, visit www.twptown.org

Photo Credit: Mary Bacon as Alma in TACT's production of Eccentricities of a Nightingale by Stephen Kunken

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