Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh (93 page)

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Authors: John Lahr

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BOOK: Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh
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Last of the Mobile Hot Shots   
.
In an interview on David Frost’s television show, Williams discusses his homosexuality.
A book of plays,
Dragon Country   
, is published.
1971
Williams breaks with his agent Audrey Wood. Bill Barnes assumes his representation; then Mitch Douglas, in 1978; and Luis Sanjurjo, in 1981.
In a December rally organized by Norman Mailer at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, Williams speaks out against the war in Vietnam.
1972
Williams is awarded honorary degrees by the University of Hartford and Purdue University.
Small Craft Warnings   
opens Off-Broadway on April 2 and runs for a total of six months, first at the Truck and Warehouse Theater and later at the New Theatre, where Williams plays the role of Doc to boost ticket sales.
1973
Out Cry
, a revised version of
The Two-Character Play   
, opens on Broadway on March 1 and runs for just over a week.
1974
Eight Mortal Ladies Possessed   
, a book of short stories, is published.
1975
Williams is presented with the Medal of Honor for Literature from the National Arts Club.
The novel
Moise and the World of Reason
is published by Simon and Schuster and
Memoirs   
is published by Doubleday.
1976
This Is
(
An Entertainment   
) opens at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco on January 20.
The final version of
The Two-Character Play
(
Out Cry   
) is published.
The Red Devil Battery Sign   
closes during its out-of-town Boston tryout in June.
The Eccentricities of a Nightingale   
premieres on Broadway on November 23 and runs for two weeks.
Williams serves as Jury President at the Cannes Film Festival.
He is elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
1977
Vieux Carré   
opens on Broadway on May 11 and closes within five days.
His second volume of poetry,
Androgyne, Mon Amour   
, is published.
1978
Tiger Tail   
premieres at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta, Georgia, and a revised version premieres the following year at the Hippodrome Theater in Gainesville, Florida.
A selection of his essays,
Where I Live   
, is published.
1979
A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur   
opens Off-Broadway on January 10 at the Hudson Guild Theatre, where it runs for a month.
Kirche, Küche, Kinder   
runs as a workshop production Off-Broadway at the Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre.
He is presented with a Kennedy Centers Honors medal by President Jimmy Carter at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
1980
Will Mr. Merriwether Return from Memphis?   
premieres on January 25 for a limited run at the Tennessee Williams Performing Arts Center in Key West, Florida.
On March 26 his last Broadway production,
Clothes for a Summer Hotel   
, opens and then closes after fifteen performances.
On June 1 Williams’s mother, Edwina, dies at the age of ninety-five.
He is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Jimmy Carter.
1981
Something Cloudy, Something Clear   
premieres Off-Broadway on August 24 at the Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre, where it runs in repertory into the next year.
The Notebook of Trigorin
, his free adaptation of Chekov’s
The Seagull   
, premieres November 12 at the Playhouse Theatre in Vancouver.
1982
The second of two versions of
A House Not Meant to Stand   
opens for a limited run at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago on May 8.
A workshop production of
Gideon’s Point   
is produced in August at the Williamstown Theater Festival.
Williams receives an honorary degree from Harvard University.
1983
Williams is found dead in his room at the Hotel Elysée in New York City on February 25. He is later buried in St. Louis.
Clothes for a Summer Hotel   
is published.
1984
Stopped Rocking and Other Screenplays   
is published.
1985
His
Collected Stories   
, with an introduction by Gore Vidal, is published.
1988
The Red Devil Battery Sign   
is published.
1995
Lyle Leverich’s biography,
Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams   
, which chronicles Williams’s early life, is published by Crown Publishers.
Something Cloudy, Something Clear   
is published.
1996
On September 5, Rose Williams dies at the age of eighty-six in Tarrytown, New York.
The rights to all writings by Williams transfer to the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, and his papers are a bequest to Harvard University.
The Notebook of Trigorin   
, in a version revised by Williams, opens at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park on September 5 and is published in 1997.
1998
Not about Nightingales   
, directed by Trevor Nunn, premieres at the Royal National Theatre in London on March 5 and later moves to the Alley Theater in Houston, Texas.
1999
Spring Storm   
premiers at the Actors Repertory of Texas, Austin, on November 6 and is published the same year.
On November 25,
Not about Nightingales   
opens on Broadway.
2000
Volume 1 of
The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams   
is published.
Stairs to the Roof   
is published.
2001
Fugitive Kind   
is published.
2002
Collected Poems   
is published.
2004
Candles to the Sun   
is published.
Volume 2 of
The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams   
is published.
2005
Mister Paradise and Other One
-
Act Plays   
is published.
2006
Williams’s personal journals are published by Yale University Press under the title
Notebooks   
.
2008
A House Not Meant to Stand
and
The Traveling Companion and Other Plays   
are published.
Dakin Williams dies at the age of eighty-nine in Belleville, Illinois.
2009
New Selected Essays: Where I Live   
is published.
2011
The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays   
is published.
Celebrations and productions around the world are dedicated to Williams during his centennial year.
The Comédie-Française in Paris produces
Un tramway
nommé Désir
, staged by American director Lee Breuer, the first play by a non-European playwright in the company’s 331-year history.
Notes
ABBREVIATIONS USED
BDC—Betty Davis Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.
BRTC—Billy Rose Theatre Collection, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
Columbia—Tennessee Williams Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.
CP—The Collected Poems of Tennessee Williams,
by Tennessee Williams. Edited by David Roessel and Nicholas Moschovakis. New York: New Directions, 2002.
CS
—
Collected Stories
, by Tennessee Williams. New York: New Directions, 1985.
CUCOHC—Columbia University Center for Oral History Collection, Columbia University.
CWTW
—
Conversations with Tennessee Williams
, edited by Albert J. Devlin. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1986.
Delaware
—
Tennessee Williams Collection, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library.
DPYD—Don’t Put Your Daughter on the Stage
, by Margaret Webster. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972.
Duke—Carson McCullers Papers, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University.
ESC—Ed Sherin Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.
FOA
—
Five O’Clock Angel: Letters of Tennessee Williams to Maria St. Just, 1948–1982
, by Tennessee Williams. With commentary by Maria St. Just. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990.
Harvard—Tennessee Williams Papers, Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Houston—Cheryl Crawford Collection, Courtesy of Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries.
HRC—Tennessee Williams Collection, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin.
Huntington—Manuscripts Department, Huntington Library.
ISC—Irene Mayer Selznick Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.
JLC—John Lahr Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.
JLI—John Lahr Interview. John Lahr Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.
KAL
—
A Life
, by Elia Kazan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988.
KOD—Kazan on Directing,
by Elia Kazan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009.
L1
—
The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams,
vol. 1:
1920–1945
, by Tennessee Williams. Edited by Albert J. Devlin and Nancy M. Tischler. New York: New Directions, 2000.
L2
—
The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams,
vol. 2:
1945–1957
, by Tennessee Williams. Edited by Albert J. Devlin, co-edited by Nancy M. Tischler. New York: New Directions, 2004.
LIB—Laurette: The Intimate Biography of Laurette Taylor,
by Marguerite Courtney. New York: Limelight Editions, 1984.
LLC—Lyle Leverich Collection, attached to the John Lahr Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.
LLI—Lyle Leverich Interview. Lyle Leverich Collection, attached to the John Lahr Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.
LOA1
—Tennessee Williams: Plays 1937–1955
, by Tennessee Williams. New York: Library of America, 2000.
LOA2—
Tennessee Williams: Plays 1957–1980
, by Tennessee Williams. New York: Library of America, 2000.
M
—
Memoirs,
by Tennessee Williams. New York: Doubleday, 1975.
Maryland—Katherine Anne Porter Collection, University of Maryland Libraries.
Morgan—Carter Burden Collection of American Literature, Morgan Library and Museum.
Ms.—manuscript.
Ms. “Memoirs”—“Memoirs” (unpublished manuscript), by Tennessee Williams. Lyle Leverich Collection, attached to the John Lahr Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.
N
—
Notebooks: Tennessee Williams
, by Tennessee Williams. Edited by Margaret Bradham Thornton. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2006.
NSE—New Selected Essays: Where I Live,
by Tennessee Williams
.
Edited by John S. Bak. New York: New Directions, 2009.
RBAW
—
Represented by Audrey Wood
, by Audrey Wood, with Max Wilk. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1981.
RMTT
—
Remember Me to Tom
, by Edwina Dakin Williams, as told to Lucy Freeman. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1963.
RS—The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone
, by Tennessee Williams. London: Vintage Classics, 1999.
Sewanee—Archives of the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee.
THNOC—Fred W. Todd Tennessee Williams Collection, Williams Research Center, The Historic New Orleans Collection.
TWIB
—
Tennessee Williams: An Intimate Biography,
by Dakin Williams and Shepherd Mead. New York: Arbor House, 1983.
TWLDW
—
Tennessee Williams’ Letters to Donald Windham
,
1940–1965,
by Tennessee Williams
.

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