CLOTHES FOR A SUMMER HOTEL By Tennessee Williams Comes to New Orleans in September

The Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans returns to the Lower Depths Theatre on the campus of Loyola University New Orleans to present a spooky offering for this autumn. Clothes for a Summer Hotel is a rarely produced late play by Tennessee Williams about jealousy, desire, and the depth of true affection-even from beyond the grave and across thousands of miles. It centers around The Great Gatsby author F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda, spanning decades of their lives and into the infinite after their passings. It is set against the giant asylum gates of a North Carolina asylum as the couple has its final confrontation before total obliteration.

In the age just before Tennessee Williams came into prominence as America's premier playwright, F. Scott Fitzgerald was one of the golden boys of American letters. His extravagant life traveling in lavish circles would eventually turn into working on unfulfilling projects to pay for his lifestyle, and that of his estranged wife Zelda, who was confined to a mental hospital. It was there that she died in a fire, and Williams imagines her ghost meeting with Scott's after both of their worldly bodies had dissolved. Their specters return young and idealized, but the circumstances are anything but. Unaware that he is dead, Scott will navigate episodes of unfinished business among other spirits, with Zelda always nearly revealing the truth.

"You don't have to know anything about the Fitzgeralds or their friends to understand what Williams was saying: life, which can take us to dizzying heights, can also drop us deep and lay us low at any moment. It's those highs and lows and the ways people treat us-the kindest and the cruelest-that stays with us and makes an imprint on our souls," says director Augustin J Correro, "The Great Gatsby era flights of fancy and the scorched asylum grounds are just such a stunning and theatrical illustration of those opposites that it's clear to see why Williams chose the Fitzgeralds as the topic...but we can all see a little bit of our own madness, frustration, and hope in them both."

The production stars Matthew Boese and Lauren Wells as F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and features an ensemble of Kyle Daigrepont, Benjamin Dougherty, and Mary Langley. Lighting design is by Diane K. Baas; Scenic design and construction by Caige Hirsch; costume design by Baylee Robertson with Roger Bouche; and sound design by TWTC Founding Co-Artistic Director Nick Shackleford. The Stage Manager for the production is Puck and the Production Manager is Madeline Taliancich.

Clothes for a Summer Hotel closes TWTC's Southern Gothic season, which is its first season back onstage since December 2019.

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