Festival 2017
Tennessee Williams & Shakespeare
The 12th Annual Festival presented plays by Tennessee Williams and William Shakespeare: the two great poet-playwrights of the English language. Audiences experienced Williams and Shakespeare side by side, offering a new understanding of both playwrights. Water and storms, as images of instability, appeared throughout the diverse stagings.
Shows included:
Sweet Bird of Youth by Tennessee Williams. Performed by the company of Hamlet with South African stage star Fiona Ramsay.
paired with
Hamlet by William Shakespeare. An all-male South African production, starring South African Festival favorite Marcel Meyer, performed in a shallow tank of water.
Ten Blocks on the Camino Real by Tennessee Williams. Festival Curator David Kaplan’s Concert Party performed by Abibigromma, the National Theatre of Ghana.
paired with
Pericles by William Shakespeare. Staged by Brenna Geffers on a two-masted replica schooner, the Rose Dorothea.
The Gnädiges Fräulein by Tennessee Williams. "The Pretty Maiden” from Texas Tech University, directed by Festival Executive Director Jef Hall-Flavin.
paired with
Antony & Cleopatra by William Shakespeare. The first half of the play, with an international cast including Robertson Dean, Marcel Meyer, TC Meltem from the National Theater of Turkey, AB Abenyi from the National Theatre of Ghana, and the legendary Everett Quinton from New York City’s Theatre of the Ridiculous.
The Hotel Plays 2017 by Tennessee Williams & William Shakespeare. Scenes by both playwrights set in hotel rooms and the upstairs bar of the Gifford House.
paired with
Dumb Show and Noise, a water-logged free-for-all thanks to clowns Jay Stewart and Mike Smith, fusing Shakespeare’s clowning and Williams’ grotesque humor.
“Tennessee Williams and William Shakespeare are playwrights whose voices echo across stages around the world, relying on the kindness of strangers and holding up a mirror to society. Granted, Williams is a far more recent voice, but, as the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival has proven for the past twelve years, his plays have the range and reach to bring together international theatre companies to explore his work … This year’s pairing was an exciting mix of styles, genres, cultures, and time periods. ”
— Bess Rowan, Huffington Post, September 30, 2017
Ten Blocks on the Camino Real
A big-hearted Williams one-act about love and heroism, staged with West African flair in a performance full of vibrant song and dance, perfectly suited to the outdoor marketplace.
Sweet Bird of Youth
An ambitious golden boy's dreams run aground on the rocky shores of small-town Mississippi politics in Williams’ rarely-seen classic, staged by Festival favorites from South Africa.
The Gnädiges Fräulein
Williams’ hilariously bizarre one-act about ragged souls trapped in a cruel, surrealist version of Key West is hard to pronounce – and impossible to forget.
Dumb Show and Noise
Shakespeare’s clowning and Williams’ grotesque humor fuse together in a fast-paced, slapstick recap of the Festival, from tears to triumphs to storms at sea – performed while speaking nary a word.
Antony and Cleopatra
Actors from around the world gather at Town Hall for one performance that captures this year’s biggest ideas and themes, conceived by curator David Kaplan.
The Hotel Plays
Worlds of hilarity and heartbreak await behind every door as you move from room to room enjoying works from both Williams and Shakespeare at the historic Gifford House Inn.
Williams 101
This entertaining 90-minute lesson on Tennessee Williams and William Shakespeare will brief you on the playwrights, with handy insights about our lineup of performances.