Key West Art & Historical Society Presents “Life Story: Two One-act Plays by Tennessee Williams” at The Studios of Key West
March 21, 2018 – (Key West, FL). This year’s 6-week Tennessee Williams Birthday Celebration will conclude with performances of two rarely seen one-act Tennessee Williams plays, “Green Eyes” and “The Traveling Companion,” which will take place on Sunday, April 8th and Monday, April 9th at 8:00pm in the Helmerich Theater at The Studios of Key West, 533 Eaton Street.
Directed by Key West writer and director Stephen Kitsakos, the plays are framed by a series of early poems penned by the great American playwright who was a resident of Key West from 1941 until his death in 1983. Both are erotically charged and the language and texture quite explicit for Williams, writing in a post-Stonewall period after he “came out” as a gay man on television in 1970. Though the desires and motivations of the characters in his earlier plays are often coded and unspecific, there’s no doubt in these that the playwright was writing in a milieu that allowed him the freedom to be as frank as he needed in laying out the themes and subject matter of the plays.
Performers include Alaina Albertson and Michael Catlege, two New York-based actors with theater, television and film credits, and local actors Arthur Crocker, Elena Devers, and Jeff Johnson. Lighting design is provided by Anthony Palmer, costume and hair design by Drama Desk nominee Andrea Varga, makeup by Fiona Torrese, and scenic elements and set decoration by Tennessee Williams Exhibit founders Dennis Beaver and Bert Whitt.
Following the Sunday, April 8th performance, there will be a short panel discussion about Williams’s later, experimental plays and discoveries Kitsakos made during research in the Houghton Library at Harvard University where these and other Williams’s plays, both published and unpublished, are archived.
The Key West Art & Historical Society recently acquired The Tennessee Williams Key West Exhibit, now Tennessee Williams Museum, as part of their mission to preserve the culture of the Florida Keys through exhibiting and displaying regional art, architecture, and history for the purpose of educating the community and visiting public.
Sponsored by a grant from the Community Foundation of the Florida Keys and the Bert Whitt Charitable Fund. Tickets on sale at tskw.org/life-story-two-one-
No Comment