A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE & More Set for Tennessee Williams Theatre Company's Eighth Season
The season will also feature a revival of its first ever offering, Kingdom of Earth, and more.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Oct. 17, 2023
The Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans will finally take audiences to the famed Kowalski household on Elysian Fields Avenue in its upcoming production of A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. The Pulitzer Prize-winning drama is one of four productions on the company's docket for 2024, alongside a revival of its first ever offering, Kingdom of Earth, and a handful of zany, unhinged, and creepy Williams vignettes collectively titled Penny Dreadfuls: The Remarkable Rooming-House of Madame Le Monde, which will showcase Williams' most outrageous side in side-splitting and ghastly fashion. With its first lagniappe production The Felt Menagerie, the company will stage its 2021 puppet comedy for live audiences to enjoy, whereas it was only available online previously.
TWTC will continue its partnerships with Loyola University New Orleans Department of Theatre Arts & Dance and the Marigny Opera House, as well as reach out to new venues for The Felt Menagerie to present in spaces new to the company. Streetcar will take place at the Marigny Opera House; Kingdom of Earth will be at the Marquette Theatre on Loyola campus; and Penny Dreadfuls will be in the Lower Depths Theatre. TWTC Founding Co-Artistic Director and author of Tennessee Williams 101, Augustin J Correro will direct the season's productions.
A Streetcar Named Desire famously drew attention to New Orleans in the 1940s and 50s with its Broadway production and subsequent motion picture adaptation, and follows the archetypal heroine Blanche DuBois from the columns of her Southern mansion to a slum on the outskirts of the French Quarter, while she negotiates her new place in the world as indigent but struggling to remain dignified. The city builds her up and breaks her down in various ways, as does her family dynamic in the cramped apartment. It is widely considered to be Williams' most notable play and one of the most influential dramas of the 20th century. Kingdom of Earth is a Mississippi Delta play concerning two brothers vying for an inheritance while a flood threatens everything they own—with a fraught young woman trying just to survive as their pawn drawn into their web. Penny Dreadfuls will feature camp, raucous violence, mysterious illness, and chilling suspense, as well as dance and spiritualism in an absolute flurry of grotesque spooky season silliness—opening aptly on Friday, September 13th!
The company will continue its tradition of local casting and hiring in its productions, bringing people from the community onto the stage and into the audiences, while sharing the cultural heritage associated with its patron playwright with visitors to the city as well. Stars of this season include Sean Richmond, Elizabeth McCoy, Charlie Carr, Tracey Collins, Robinson J Cyprian, and Robert A. Mitchell (Streetcar); Rebecca Elizabeth Hollingsworth, Benjamin Dougherty, and Edward Carter Simon (Kingdom); and Monica Harris, Adrienne Simmons, Lauren Wells, Joe Signorelli, and Rachel Shannon (Penny Dreadfuls) among other talented ensemble artists. The Felt Menagerie is a comical sendup of Tennessee Williams tropes in which Blanche DuBois finds herself surrounded by supportive puppets at the height of her distress. More details will follow in early 2024 about this production.
This season will be a culmination of TWTC's efforts to present both well-known and rarely produced Williams plays to audiences with exciting staging innovations and locally sourced talent. This season is produced in part by Jason and Anjali Gillette.
ABOUT THE Tennessee Williams THEATRE COMPANY OF NEW ORLEANS (TWTC):
The Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans is a year-round professional theatre company committed to producing captivating, exciting, and moving plays with a major focus on the works of America's greatest playwright, Tennessee Williams. In the city which Williams called home and from which he drew abundant inspiration, The Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans will engage our community and cultivate its relationship with Williams. We will accomplish this by mounting performances of well-known and rarely produced Williams plays, contributing to the scholarship of Williams and New Orleans, and educating our community onstage and off with unique and stimulating programming.
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