Tennessee Williams Literary Fest
Festival Highlights Stella and Stanley Kowalski and Camino Real
The Tennessee Williams Literary Festival features Williams' female characters, his "Streetcar Named Desire" neighborhood and newcomers competing in scenes he created.
The annual Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival takes place in the French Quarter neighborhood where the legendary playwright began writing A Streetcar Named Desire. It not only recalls the French Quarter of his years in New Orleans, but also reflects the artistic and literary character of the current Quarter.
The festival features celebrated writers and performing artists, literary scholars, panel discussions, plays, walking tours, musical performances and a bookfair, some related directly to Williams, some reflecting new artistic and literary work.
As usual, the agenda for the 2008 five-day fest (March 26-30) highlights the annual Jackson Square yelling match in which contestants try to recreate Stanley Kowalski’s loud pleading for his wife Stella in "Streetcar." Some contestants even outshout Marlon Brando, who played Stanley on both Broadway and in the 1951 movie.
The schedule for the 22nd annual festival also includes:
- An opening night gala in which Jeremy Lawrence portrays Williams and chats with Film Critic Rex Reed;
- Actresses Stephanie Zimbalist and Nell Nolan portraying some of Williams’ best known female characters;
- An acting competition, patterned after the American Idol television show, in which contestants perform a 5-to-8 minute scene from such Tennessee Williams plays as Cat On A Hot Tin Roof and The Night of the Iguana. Zimbalist and Playwright Terrence McNally were scheduled to judge the competition.
- Actresses Karen Kondazian and Travis Michael Holder replaying their roles as Mrs. Flora Goforth and the The Witch of Capri in The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore, one of Williams' later plays.
Other features of the festival are the numerous sessions devoted to the writing craft, including the writing of fiction, non-fiction, travel articles, songs and memoirs.
An annual session of the festival is titled "I Remember Tennessee." It features former Williams friends such as Mitch Douglas, Wright King and Gregory Mosher "roasting" the former playwright.
Williams, a native of Columbus, Mississippi, moved to New Orleans in 1939 and for several years lived in the French Quarter, where he began writing A Streetcar Named Desire. In that play, Stella and Stanley Kowalski live on Elysian Fields Avenue, a few blocks from the Quarter.
Long before he died in 1983, Williams was recognized as one of America’s greatest playwrights, having won two Pulitzer Prizes for Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; four New York Drama Critics Circle Awards for Streetcar, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Glass Menagerie and Night of the Iguana and a Tony Award for The Rose Tatoo.
Sources:
- New York Drama Critics website
- The Times-Picayune, March 19, 2008
- TennesseeWilliams.net
- New Orleans Magazine Street
- 2008 New Orleans Jazzfest
