Play Guide [1.2MB PDF] - Arizona Theatre Company

WILLIAMS
were still people in New Orleans who were judgmental
about people of different sexual orientations than
themselves, Tom found himself, for the fi rst time in his life,
fully embracing a gay lifestyle, an option that had been all
but impossible in his previous living situations. In New
Orleans, Tom became routinely known as “Tennessee,”
named for the state of his father’s birth.
"Why did I write? Because I found life unsatisfactory."
– Tennessee Williams
In 1940, Tennessee’s fi rst full-length play to be produced, Battle
of Angels, failed miserably. It was not until 1944 when The
Glass Menagerie opened in Chicago and went on to have a
very successful run on Broadway that Williams had his fi rst taste
of success. With The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee revisited his
complex relationship with his mother and sister and his feelings
about his family life. The journey of Tom, the character from The
A fi rst edition copy of
The Glass Menagerie
The Glass Menagerie
Actor Noel Joseph Allain who
plays Tom in ATC’s production of
The Glass Menagerie
Glass Menagerie, mirrors much of Tennessee’s own life, although he took certain theatrical
liberties. Following the attention he received from The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee now
had to create a new play to compete with his new commercial and critical success. He
found this work in a play originally entitled The Poker Night, which would eventually
become A Streetcar Named Desire. When A Streetcar Named Desire opened in 1947, it
became an instant success; Williams won a Pulitzer Prize for it in 1948.
At the same time as Williams was experiencing professional
success, he also met and fell in love with a man named Frank
Merlo. During the years he spent with Merlo, Williams was
very productive professionally, creating three of his most
famous plays: The Rose Tattoo, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and
The Night of the Iguana. Williams was awarded his second
Pulitzer Prize in 1955 for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. However,
when Merlo died in 1961 of lung cancer, Williams entered
a ten year period of self-destruction and depression. He
became addicted to alcohol and prescription drugs and
suffered from an overwhelming fear that he would go insane.
His work suffered greatly and most people agree that his later
work lacks the spirit and quality of his earlier plays.
Death is one moment, and life is so many of them.
–Tennessee Williams
Williams choked to death on a bottle top from one of his prescription bottles on February
24, 1983 in New York City. Despite the fact that he considered New Orleans his
spiritual home, his family insisted on burying him in St. Louis, Missouri, the city in which
The Glass Menagerie takes place (and a city he despised). The body of work Williams
left behind is impressive; it includes twenty-fi ve full length plays, two novels, a novella,
Arizona Theatre Company Play Guide 7