And Tell Sad Stories of the Deaths of Queens…

by Tennessee Williams

TRAGIC COMEDY

directed by Lane Savadove

A New Orleans queen brings a rough sailor into her garden.

EGOPO CLASSIC THEATER

Philadelphia, PA

Baby-faced Candy Delaney is a resourceful queen who owns property in the French Quarter and runs her own interior decorating business. She’s turned 35, though, and her longtime lover has found a new younger partner. Rarely one to despond, Candy restarts her love life by bringing home a beefy sailor.

Candy’s upstairs neighbors, a pair of younger queens from Alabama, disapprove, but Candy has always made her own way, just as she’s made over her patio into a fantastic Japanese garden.

As in A Streetcar Named Desire, when Blanche put a paper lantern over a bare light bulb, Candy tries to make magic. Can she remake reality? Though the sailor agrees to wear the kimono Candy offers him, he has his own ideas of romance.

Williams called And Tell Sad Stories of the Deaths of Queens… (the title trailing off into ellipses) a tragic comedy. He began writing it on a trip to Cuba in 1957 and worked on it into the early 70s. The play was first produced in the United States in 2004, more than a decade after Williams’ death. Our site-specific production is directed by Lane Savadove, artistic director of EgoPo Classic Theater in Philadelphia, whose previous festival shows include last year’s sensory staging of Samuel Beckett’s Company.