Tenn @ Town Hall
by Tennessee Williams And Others
A HISTORY-MAKING CELEBRATION
Hear memorable excerpts from the world premieres we've presented over the last ten years, read by Festival stars, with music and special appearances. An event not to miss!
directed by Jef Hall-Flavin
Featuring Mink Stole
Keir Dullea, Mia Dillon, Lou Liberatore, Irene Glezos, Jeremy Lawrence and many other Festival favorites
TW THEATER FESTIVAL
Provincetown, MA
“By giving us Williams unplugged, the brave folks at the Provincetown festival are doing the necessary, good work … Williams’s dramaturgy is still ahead of our time”
-Randy Gener, American Theatre Magazine.
ABOUT THE PIECE
“LIFE IS ALL — IT’S JUST ONE TIME. IT FINALLY SEEMS TO ALL OCCUR AT ONE TIME.”
-- SOMETHING CLOUDY, SOMETHING CLEAR
In our ‘Tenn’ year history, we’ve presented eleven world premiere productions of plays written by Tennessee Williams. TENN @ Town Hall presents excerpts from all of them: this year’s curious Aimez-Vous Ionesco?, the sultry Green Eyes, the down and dirty Madame LeMonde, the heart-warming Parade, the bawdy Dog Enchanted by the Divine View, the mini-tragedy of The Enemy: Time, the road-tripping Once in a Lifetime, the heroic Sunburst, the revolutionary Pronoun “I”, the stylish Curtains for the Gentleman, and the myth-bending American Gothic.
The words Tennessee Williams wrote have the power to transform. Heard together in one evening, ten years of transformations unfold, resonating from play to play. A young bride’s fantasy (Green Eyes) and an old woman’s recitation of Shakespeare ( Sunburst ) avert potential disaster. Confession banishes secret sorrows, as the lovestruck Don (The Parade) and the tormented Rose (The Enemy: Time) both find out. One spoken word can change a life, and then the everyday can become miraculous: an orange, a seashell, a tomato, a sunset.
Threaded throughout are readings from plays inspired by Williams’ writing that we’ve presented. This year’s More Stars Than There are in Heaven by John Guare joins Wendy Kesselman’s The Shell Collection, along with Gift of an Orange by Charlene A. Donaghy and Rancho Pancho by Greg Barrios.
Irene Glezos (Orpheus Descending), Lou Liberatore (Something Cloudy, Something Clear), and Jeremy Lawrence (The Traveling Companion) along with other Festival favorites read excerpts from the eleven plays by Williams that have premiered in Provincetown.
This once-in-a-lifetime celebration at Town Hall features live music by George Maurer, the composer who adapted Williams’ poetry into Autumn Song ( TW Fest 2011).
ABOUT THE CAST
John Waters film legend Mink Stole has a long history with Provincetown. In 2011 she appeared in the raucous Now the Cats with Jewelled Claws and in 2013 delighted audiences at The Gifford House in The Mutilated.
Jeremy Lawrence and the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival have been inseparable since our first year. Jeremy performed as Tennessee Williams himself in Everyone Expects Me to Write Another Streetcar, and he has embodied the spirit of the festival ever since, appearing in The Traveling Companion, Once in a Lifetime, The Hotel Plays, and Williams Wrote Here.
Mia Dillon won a Tony for her performance in Crimes of the Heart. Keir Dullea played 'Brick' in the definitive 1974 Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. This real-life married powerhouse performed as husband and wife in our 2013 production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof as 'Big Daddy' and 'Big Momma.'
Irene Glezos’s performance in 2010’s Orpheus Descending blew audiences away; she returned for an encore in 2011. 2013 and ‘14 saw her again astounded us in In the Summer House.
Tony-nominated actor Lou Liberatore is best known for his performances in As Is and Burn This. He first visited the festival in 2009 with playwright Lanford Wilson and gave a memorable performance in 2011’s Something Cloudy Something Clear.
The dynamite cast includes many other actors and musicians who have appeared on our stages:
Beth Bartley (Suddenly Last Summer)
Adam Berry (The Foggy Foggy Dew)
Ben Berry (The Parade)
Brenda Currin (Suddenly Last Summer)
Tom Drummer (The Mutilated)
Ian Leahy (The Parade)
George Maurer (Autumn Song)
Jody O’Neil (Once in a Lifetime)
Ukumbwa Sauti (Gift of an Orange)
Darlene van Alstyne (Jazz Funeral of Stella Brooks)
and a special appearance by Miss Coney Island 2011, Lefty Lucy (Chorus Girl Plays)