Tickets Now On Sale for Annual Dinner For Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival

The Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival is pleased to announce that tickets to the Annual Dinner are now on sale. The Festival will host the gala on Saturday, June 2 at Town Hall in Provincetown. The fundraising event supports the Festival's 13th annual program, which will play in venues throughout Provincetown September 27-30, 2018.

Premium seats, general admission tickets, and table sponsorships for the Annual Dinner are available online at twptown.org or by phone at 866-789-TENN.

The Annual Dinner will begin with a cocktail hour at 6:30 p.m., followed by dinner at 7:15 p.m. Attendees can enjoy beer, wine, champagne, a multi-course dinner, and a live auction featuring Provincetown art. The art auction will open to the public at 8:15 p.m.

In addition, guests to the Dinner will be the first to hear the exciting 2018 Festival program, called Tennessee Williams: Wishful Thinking.

The Dinner will also continue its tradition of awarding the TENN Award to an individual, group, or organization that advances the spirit of Tennessee Williams through performance, public awareness, study, or publication. Michael Kahn, Artistic Director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington D.C, was the first recipient of the TENN Award in 2017.

Guests of honor at past dinners have included award-winning stage and film actors Dana Delany (2017), Brian Dennehy (2016), Cherry Jones (2015), Zachary Quinto (2014), and Elizabeth Ashley (2013).

The evening of June 2 also marks the release of single tickets for Festival shows and events, which will become available online and by phone after the season announcement at the Annual Dinner. Carte Blanche and Flex passes, which allow for patrons to attend multiple shows at a discount, are currently available for purchase, and can be redeemed for specific shows and events beginning on June 2.

Festival board members Deborah Bowles and James Mauro will co-chair the event, and the Festival thanks sponsors Cosmos Catering and Devil's Purse Brewing Company. Sponsorships are still available for this event.

Further news about the Dinner will be announced later this spring.

About the 2018 Festival Theme

The 2018 Festival is called Tennessee Williams: Wishful Thinking. This year's line-up of plays will feature works by Williams and other much-loved writers in productions from Texas, Michigan, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and more.

The drama of anticipation inspires this year's programming, says Festival Curator David Kaplan. "We are all, in America and around the world, waiting for something to happen," says Kaplan. "We don't know what it is, but we can feel something is coming. Does waiting unsettle us? Does it paralyze our will to act? Does it give us hope, or cause for despair?"

Waiting and anticipation are primary forces in the works of Samuel Beckett, Federico García Lorca, and Anton Chekhov (whose writing influenced Tennessee Williams). Productions from these three world-renowned playwrights will also be presented this year, along with the work of Williams.

Tennessee Williams famously said that he began to write A Streetcar Named Desire with a vision he had of a woman sitting in the moonlight, waiting for someone who never arrived. That vision, says Kaplan, also haunts Williams' The Rose Tattoo, whose central role, Serafina, waits for her husband to return from work. Within the first lines of that play, the theme for this year's Festival becomes clear:

Assunta: Vengo, vengo. Buona sera. Buona sera. There is something wild in the air, no wind but everything's moving.

Serafina: I don't see nothing moving and neither do you.

Assunta: Nothing is moving so you can see it moving, but everything is moving, and I can hear the star-noises. Hear them? Hear the star-noises?

Here is a sense that "nothing is moving so you can see it moving," says Kaplan, but that it moves nonetheless, and that "the unseen turbulence of a person's feelings and thoughts is somehow aligned or in sync with the stars - a fate unknown but inevitable."

About the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival

The Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival was founded in 2006 in Provincetown - the birthplace of modern American 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 an understanding of the full breadth of the work of America's great playwright. Each year, theater artists from around the globe perform classic and innovative productions to celebrate Williams' enduring influence in the 21st century, hosted by venues throughout the seaside village. For more details, visit twptown.org and follow the Festival on Facebook.

This Festival is funded in part by the Provincetown Tourism Fund, and is presented by the Pilgrim House (Sage Inn).

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